MP 7,1 7,1 "Restarts because of a problem" a lot

[johnnymcc]

I am new to the 7,1 - and have finally got it set up and updated to Big Sur 11.3.1. Coming from the 5,1 I am loving it so far. One thing that has been frustrating me, is after a longer period of being idle, I will return to it telling me it restarted because of a problem. This is the third time after being idle and I've only had it for 24 hours so far. I did buy it second-hand but in great condition with no other noticeable issues. Any ideas? One thing I did just turn of was allowing the Mac to auto-sleep when the display is off for a long period of time. I never let my 5,1 sleep, so I wonder if that was part of the issue?

 

[profdraper]

I had a hell of a lot of this & similar when my computer was new and running dog OS Catalina. Since then, Big Sur seems to have made the machine far happier & these issues no longer occur. A couple of points that may help:

1) All sleep re. displays, energy saving, disks spinning down etc should be turned off. This is the default recommendation by vendors for machines working in pro audio and pro video environments. Go with that for now.

2) Reset the SMC - pull out the power cable for more than 15 seconds or disconnect at the wall.

3) Reset the NVRAM - hold down command /option /P /R while booting a until a second chime.

All of the above relates to resetting the hardware. You don't mention which PCIe cards might be installed but there could be an issue here, depending.

You may also want to check your security settings by booting into recovery and turn all of those off (allow booting from external drive etc). You could also try a clean OS install just for the hell of it given that Apple provide few tools to get at the BIOS etc. ie, as much as possible, to re-set the entire machine to be as clean as possible.

Otherwise, could well be another hardware problem with the MoBo or similar & so you may need to trawl through the logs.

Hope that helps.

 

[johnnymcc]

I had a hell of a lot of this & similar when my computer was new and running dog OS Catalina. Since then, Big Sur seems to have made the machine far happier & these issues no longer occur. A couple of points that may help:

1) All sleep re. displays, energy saving, disks spinning down etc should be turned off. This is the default recommendation by vendors for machines working in pro audio and pro video environments. Go with that for now.

2) Reset the SMC - pull out the power cable for more than 15 seconds or disconnect at the wall.

3) Reset the NVRAM - hold down command /option /P /R while booting a until a second chime.

All of the above relates to resetting the hardware. You don't mention which PCIe cards might be installed but there could be an issue here, depending.

You may also want to check your security settings by booting into recovery and turn all of those off (allow booting from external drive etc). You could also try a clean OS install just for the hell of it given that Apple provide few tools to get at the BIOS etc. ie, as much as possible, to re-set the entire machine to be as clean as possible.

Otherwise, could well be another hardware problem with the MoBo or similar & so you may need to trawl through the logs.

Hope that helps.

Thanks! Yea, SMC was done previously - I went ahead and zapped PRAM as suggested. The seller had reset everything as new so it arrived with a fresh copy of Catalina. I have not installed any other PCI cards yet, but going to transfer an NVMe shortly, along with my Vega Frontier GPU and a USB-3 card.

 

[flowrider]

What configuration?

Lou

 

[johnnymcc]

What configuration?

Lou

16-core / 96GB ram / Radeon Pro 580x MPX /

 

[DFP1989]

Big Sur substantially improved stability for me, was a hot mess on Catalina.

 

[johnnymcc]

So I moved the Vega Frontier into the machine, along with an NVMe SSD and USB-3 card. All seems well after NVRAM reset and changing to no sleep, and no disk spin down. Running like a champ so far - driving a 30" Cinema display via the Vega - and an LG 5k ultrafine via USB-C. Thinking about upgrading the MPX module to the 5700 XT.

I plugged in the Vega to slot 3, which is actually for MPX modules - is that ok?

 

[DFP1989]

plugged in the Vega to slot 3, which is actually for MPX modules - is that ok?

You can see the configuration the the “About this Mac” screen. It’ll auto configure and be fine.

Only reason I put mine in slot four was because I didn’t need to squeeze it up against the W5700X. Figured I’d give it a bit more room.