Laggy Late 2013 Mac Pro

[Reticuli]

Lately my Mac Pro Late 2013 is quite laggy even in general lightweight usage. Minimising windows takes about two or three seconds, typing regularly gets delayed and takes a few seconds to catch up. The system isn't under load.

Sierra, Quad Core, 64GB RAM.

Done all the usual, restart, reset PRAM / SMC, Fresh install etc - none of which helped.
Removed all login items. Also didn't help.
Console / dmesg are replete with the following during periods of lagginess

fault 13:00:51.178364 +0000 kernel void IOAccelBlockFenceMachine::block_fence_timeout(IOTimerEventSource *): prodding blockFenceInterrupt

Anyone else encounter this?

 

[linuxcooldude]

While I have not noticed any lags, I noticed a lot of apps that use the GPU were being done by the CPU instead. Once I went from Sierra 10.12.1 to 10.12.2 it fixed that problem along with some others. Also like webcams not working.

 

[Ph.D.]

Is your internal flash drive near full? If so, clear some space on it.

Are you using external drives? Spinners? Flash RAID? They, too, can be a problem. OS-X can be rather stupid about when it needlessly engages external drives.

I don't have a nMP, but I've experienced similar absurd delays at times while doing minor things like typing on my cMP. For me, my best guess is that it's the result of cloning, etc., system after system for almost a decade. I've dreaded it, but I think the likely solution is reformatting and a complete clean install. (I've hesitated doing it since I'd really prefer to retire my 3,1 rather than continue to muck with it.)

 

[GeJe]

Actually I have the same problem as the OP since macOS 10.12 Sierra. Mac Pro (late 2013), FirePro D500

When testing public betas, only the third 10.12.1 one gave me back the speed I had with ElCap.
Sadly, it vanished with the fourth beta, and never came back since then.

How do I do my measurement:
Open the Application folder ⇢ change size of icons results in a 100% Finder.app CPU usage, and freezes until done!
I also have a PDF file on the desktop for reference, Quicklook takes 1 full second where nothing happens then finally opens the preview, without any window zoom animation.

Again, all was fine with ElCap.

Some interesting note: my setup includes a Dell UP2715K 5K monitor. If I use a non HiDPI resolution, it’s buttery smooth again.
So I’m pretty sure it’s related to a bug in drivers or graphic framework that was introduced somewhere and not corrected with the few Mac Pro users around to report it
If any of them reads me, could he please do the same tests and reports to us what he finds out?

Thanks !

 

[Reticuli]

Actually I have the same problem as the OP since macOS 10.12 Sierra. Mac Pro (late 2013), FirePro D500

When testing public betas, only the third 10.12.1 one gave me back the speed I had with ElCap.
Sadly, it vanished with the fourth beta, and never came back since then.

How do I do my measurement:
Open the Application folder ⇢ change size of icons results in a 100% Finder.app CPU usage, and freezes until done!
I also have a PDF file on the desktop for reference, Quicklook takes 1 full second where nothing happens then finally opens the preview, without any window zoom animation.

Again, all was fine with ElCap.

Some interesting note: my setup includes a Dell UP2715K 5K monitor. If I use a non HiDPI resolution, it’s buttery smooth again.
So I’m pretty sure it’s related to a bug in drivers or graphic framework that was introduced somewhere and not corrected with the few Mac Pro users around to report it
If any of them reads me, could he please do the same tests and reports to us what he finds out?

Thanks !

I'm afraid this didn't resolve the behaviour for me.
Three second delay between clicking the minimise button and the window minimising.
Frequent delays just in scrolling a web page
Text input frequently lagging

Also the error output persists.

This is a terrible shame, as its basically leaving a very powerful machine completely unusable.

 

[GeJe]

I'm afraid this didn't resolve the behaviour for me.
Three second delay between clicking the minimise button and the window minimising.
Frequent delays just in scrolling a web page
Text input frequently lagging

Also the error output persists.

This is a terrible shame, as its basically leaving a very powerful machine completely unusable.

The conclusion, or analysis here, is that we don’t have the same problem because out of Finder and Quicklook, the computer is really fine and smooth.
Do we have the same Mac Pro?

 

[Reticuli]

Quad Core, 512GB, D300, aftermarket upgrade to 64GB RAM.
The machine is more or less unusable at the minute.

 

[GeJe]

Quad Core, 512GB, D300, aftermarket upgrade to 64GB RAM.
The machine is more or less unusable at the minute.

Mine is the "middle" one, 6 cores D500, stock 16GB / 512GB.
Do you still have the original Apple memory sticks around? Have you tried to put them back in alone and boot from a clean install on external volume just to be sure?

 

[Chicane-UK]

It's impossible to say for sure, but it really sounds to me like your SSD is on the blink unfortunately.

Out of curiosity have you tried opening the machine up and removing some of the RAM (i.e. taking it down to only 16 or 32GB RAM) and seeing if the issue persists? I'd be interested to know if you could also pull the SSD out of the system and install OSX on an external TB2 drive.. and then see how that runs?

*edit*

Similar thoughts to the above poster

 

[Ph.D.]

Have you spent some time with Activity Monitor? Leave it open as you go through your tasks and watch for heavy CPU, memory, disk or network use. It could provide some clues as to what's going on. For example, a rogue application might be clobbering your CPU.

Also, poke around the System Report (under About This Mac) a little and see if anything seems off, like the wrong amount of memory is showing up, or if there are error flags anywhere (I doubt your drive is failing).

 

[Reticuli]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the responses.
Oddly, this hasn't reproduced in a little while. So I'm uncertain what direction to take next with this.
I've installed Win10 on bootcamp, I'll reboot into Windows next time this happens, might help me determine if this is hardware or software driven.

Also I'll stress test the RAM with Rember this evening.

 

[Reticuli]

DriveDx returned good for an extended test on the SSD
RAM passed testing in memtest86

The issue is no longer reproducing at the moment. Although interestingly Windows on boot camp can now stay booted for a max of a minute or so before it reboots (every time)

How odd

 

[GeJe]

Are you sure you ran a RAM test software capable of handling Mac Pro’s ECC RAM?

Anybody here got the same slow icons resizing in Finder and Quicklook windows problem when using a 5K monitor?

 

[SaxPlayer]

Mine is the "middle" one, 6 cores D500, stock 16GB / 512GB.
Do you still have the original Apple memory sticks around? Have you tried to put them back in alone and boot from a clean install on external volume just to be sure?

Quad Core, 512GB, D300, aftermarket upgrade to 64GB RAM.
The machine is more or less unusable at the minute.

I raised a similar thread to this one here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-late-2013-slow-typing.2033006

I'd be interested to hear an update from anyone who's still experiencing the problem the OP posted here. If I do the application folder icon resizing test suggested then my CPU is 100% and the system stutters terribly.

I'm seriously thinking of going back to El Capitan as it's driving me mad at the moment.

I have a trash can Mac Pro (Late 2013), 32GB RAM (Crucial), D300 cards. I'm connected to a 4K monitor (LG 31MU97). I have about 200GB of free space, although at one point I did get down to almost nothing. I've tried a fresh install of Sierra and that didn't fix things.

After reporting to AppleCare, they've said that there's a known bug in TextEdit causing this. I'm not convinced.

Thoughts?

 

[GeJe]

Are you sure you ran a RAM test software capable of handling Mac Pro’s ECC RAM?

Anybody here got the same slow icons resizing in Finder and Quicklook windows problem when using a 5K monitor?

Since macOS 10.12.4 ß3 Sierra, Finder and Quicklook speed are back. Yay! Hope this will make it to the release.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Since macOS 10.12.4 ß3 Sierra, Finder and Quicklook speed are back. Yay! Hope this will make it to the release.

That gives me a little hope. I have the same Finder problem that you were experiencing, plus the additional inconvenience of slow typing and scrolling in TextEdit and Coda 2. I was planning to downgrade to El Cap this weekend, but now I think I'll hold fire until 10.12.4 is released and see if that improves anything.

 

[GeJe]

You’re right to wait for the macOS 10.12.4 Sierra release, though I’m really concerned they remove this speed bump as this has already happened with the 10.12.2 release.

 

[SaxPlayer]

You’re right to wait for the macOS 10.12.4 Sierra release, though I’m really concerned they remove this speed bump as this has already happened with the 10.12.2 release.

Fingers crossed then. If 10.12.4 doesn't fix it, I'll be going back to El Capitan for sure. The only problem then will be deciding when to update, as I won't be able to stay on El Cap forever. Ah well, baby steps. Let's not worry about that until the next "update" comes out.

 

[TotoMaMac]

Lately my Mac Pro Late 2013 is quite laggy even in general lightweight usage. Minimising windows takes about two or three seconds, typing regularly gets delayed and takes a few seconds to catch up. The system isn't under load.

Sierra, Quad Core, 64GB RAM.

Done all the usual, restart, reset PRAM / SMC, Fresh install etc - none of which helped.
Removed all login items. Also didn't help.
Console / dmesg are replete with the following during periods of lagginess

fault 13:00:51.178364 +0000 kernel void IOAccelBlockFenceMachine::block_fence_timeout(IOTimerEventSource *): prodding blockFenceInterrupt

Anyone else encounter this?

might not be relevant but I had the same issue when upgrading and it took a lot of searching in the system to find out why. In the end it was the iCloud drive uploading my entire Documents and Desktop folder to the cloud that practically killed my speed.. Opening PS could take several minutes.

I killed the iCloud Drive and the speed came back. Once I restarted it the speed deteriorated again.. I have about 120GB or so to upload so it took a little while but now everything is up the issue is completely gone.

 

[Squuiid]

Do you still have the original Apple memory sticks around? Have you tried to put them back in alone and boot from a clean install on external volume just to be sure?

+1
Do this. Your issue sounds like a 'classic' RAM problem, despite the Sierra beta seemingly addressing the issue.
I'd bet money that this is in fact a RAM issue. Aftermarket RAM can sometimes be hit and miss in Macs.
Put your old Apple RAM back in the machine and see what happens. I suspect the errors from dmesg will go away as will the lag.