Mac Pro and WoW crashing

[patseguin]

I ran my stock 2.66GHz Mac Pro for about a week doing everything, including alot of World of Warcraft. The day Bootcamp 1.1 came out I installed Windows on a separate internal hard drive. The next day after that I received my 2GB FB-DIMM upgrade kit from Other World Computing. That brought my Mac Pro to 3GB and I noticed a considerable increase in speed. Last night, playing WoW, sound was stuttering and my computer crashed 3 times. A screen actually came up telling me that I had to power off my computer, which I have NEVER seen before. Does this sound like maybe an issue with the RAM I bought or is there some known issue with WoW and intel Macs? I didn't re-install WoW on this computer, I copied it over from my G5's hard drive.

 

[erikistired]

i'd try a fresh install of WoW first, then if that doesn't work pull the extra ram, see if that works. or vice versa, whichever you feel is easiest. i'd probably do a clean install anyway, but that's just because of my experience with windows.

 

[jholzner]

Last night, playing WoW, sound was stuttering and my computer crashed 3 times. A screen actually came up telling me that I had to power off my computer, which I have NEVER seen before. Does this sound like maybe an issue with the RAM I bought or is there some known issue with WoW and intel Macs? I didn't re-install WoW on this computer, I copied it over from my G5's hard drive.

Sounds like a kernal panic to me. It could be the RAM. Take it out and see if it fixed the issue.

 

[patseguin]

The RAM modules size do not have to match do they? My machine has 2x 512MB stock and the 2x 1GB that installed in the lower memory card.

 

[CyberPrey]

I am a huge WoW player... spend quite a bit of my life on that game (sad, isn't it....).

My stock mac pro runs it actually quite well and I have never had it crash... even with every interface option I had on my windows machine..

I would suspect the additional memory...

 

[gekko513]

Wasn't there something about Crucial pulling their RAM for the Mac Pro until they could make a better cooling solution? Does your new RAM have properly seated heat sinks? Maybe it's overheating?

 

[CyberPrey]

Wasn't there something about Crucial pulling their RAM for the Mac Pro until they could make a better cooling solution? Does your new RAM have properly seated heat sinks? Maybe it's overheating?

That was kind of my thinking when I posted last. I know that the memory has to be put in as pairs, but nothing that says one pair has to match the other pair as far as size goes.....

Other than having to lower my screen resolution down (was 1680x1050, now running at 1280 somethign or other..) I have no problems with WoW...

 

[patseguin]

I didn't buy it from Crucial. I bought from Other World Computing and it has the proper heatsinks just like the Apple RAM. My stock config actually did run WoW rather well too. The added RAM makes it access the hard drive MUCH less. I guess I'll have to pull the RAM and see how it runs. I had already quit WoW last night and went to put the computer to sleep and it just froze instead of sleeping. I had noticed that some mouse over effects and the dock were acting weird too. I had to hold down the power button to force it off. A few times in the past my UI would stop doing things like mouse over effects and dock magnification and I would have to unplug my MX1000 mouse and plug it back in. Could a faulty mouse really be the culprit or am I looking at faulty memory?

 

[CyberPrey]

I use the MX1000 also when I am gaming.

I do not think that the usb mouse could cause that, unless there was an issue with the Logitech software... but so far, the logitech software is running well for me.

 

[gekko513]

A few times in the past my UI would stop doing things like mouse over effects and dock magnification and I would have to unplug my MX1000 mouse and plug it back in. Could a faulty mouse really be the culprit or am I looking at faulty memory?

Those things don't happen because of a faulty mouse. As long as the mouse pointer moves, the mouse is working fine. Strange UI behaviour like what you're describing could point to faulty memory, or a messed up OS install. If unplug and plug fixed it, it must be because it prodded the system enough to get it doing things like dock magnification and things.

 

[patseguin]

I use the MX1000 also when I am gaming.

I do not think that the usb mouse could cause that, unless there was an issue with the Logitech software... but so far, the logitech software is running well for me.

I don't use Logitech's crappy software. Just the OS X standard driver. This issue of occasional UI unresponsiveness dates back to my Dual G5 machine too. Unplugging and replugging my mouse has usually fixed it. I don't see any way that my OS X installation could be corrupt. Unless Boot Camp did something but I put Windows on a separate internal drive.

Is there a memory test I can run to see if it is faulty?

 

[chibianh]

i read on the WoW forums that some Mac Pros shipped with 'pre-release' builds of OSX and that had an effect on WoW. Don't know if this is the case with you, but make sure you have OSX build 8k1079 and not 8k1054.

 

[FabioC]

I would suggest making sure your OS is up-to-date like chibianh said.

Next, I would wipe as many WoW preferences from your ~/Library as you're comfortable with, and do a fresh install of WoW.

But not before confirming that your RAM is at least error-free:

http://www.memtestosx.org/

Read the documentation, as you'll want to do this test in single-user mode to allocate as much RAM as possible before the GUI gets it grubby paws on it.

 

[devmage]

I am a huge WoW player... spend quite a bit of my life on that game (sad, isn't it....).

My stock mac pro runs it actually quite well and I have never had it crash... even with every interface option I had on my windows machine..

I would suspect the additional memory...

What kind of frame rates do you get on the 7300? I play WoW quite a bit on on my Dual 2Ghz G5 with the GF6800. I've got a Mac Pro 2.66 with a X1900XT in it on the way.

 

[patseguin]

What kind of frame rates do you get on the 7300? I play WoW quite a bit on on my Dual 2Ghz G5 with the GF6800. I've got a Mac Pro 2.66 with a X1900XT in it on the way.

Much better than I expected. We're talk 60-70 in IronForge and a solid 25-30 in a 40-man raid in BWL. The x1900 I ordered out to make it friggin awesome.

Anyhow, I went home at lunch and hit a mouse button and woke up the computer. No cursor movement. Tried a few keys on the keyboard and nothing. Unplugged the mx1000 and plugged in Mighty Mouse, no mouse movement. Forced it to power down and powered up and all was normal. Started up WoW and flew from IF to Aerie Peak. No sound problems or crash. It occurred to me that th eonly time I had sound problems start was when I was in a 5 man party. The crashes occurred in a 40 man raid. Maybe the Mac Pro's sound hardware was being overloaded by all the effects from 40 people plus Ventrilo? Never any problem on the G5 of course. I downloaded that memory test a poster mentioned and ran it. The whole window filled with errors. Either it's not ready for the Mac Pro yet or my memory is bad...

 

[CyberPrey]

I downloaded that memory test a poster mentioned and ran it. The whole window filled with errors. Either it's not ready for the Mac Pro yet or my memory is bad...

Run it again after removing the new memory and see how it works.

 

[steamboat26]

I think your mac is trying to prevent you from becoming addicted to WoW

 

[chibianh]

Are your new RAM on the top riser card? If not, put the stock ones on the bottom riser card and your new RAM on the top riser card. Supposedly, it's a bit cooler on the top card.

 

[patseguin]

I think your mac is trying to prevent you from becoming addicted to WoW

lol, way too late for that...

 

[Agathon]

Post your problem in the Mac Tech forum on the official WoW site, if you haven't already. It is almost certain that you will get a response from a Blizzard tech (the Mac forum is the best forum on the official site and has the highest rate of Blizz responses).

One of Blizzard's Mac techs is a frequent MR poster (nick = rbarris), so check out the games forum here as well.

Blizzard have by far the best support of any Macintosh game developer, and they will do their best to sort out your problem.

 

[patseguin]

Well, I had ordered 2x 512MB modules from Apple and they came yesterday. I took out the ones from Other World Computing and put the Apple ones in. Ran the memory test and not one single error. The modules I got from OWC are defintitely the culprit.

 

[sdshannon]

isnt there a universal update patch?

 

[sdshannon]

Well, I had ordered 2x 512MB modules from Apple and they came yesterday. I took out the ones from Other World Computing and put the Apple ones in. Ran the memory test and not one single error. The modules I got from OWC are defintitely the culprit.

did you get errors from the OWC RAM?

 

[patseguin]

did you get errors from the OWC RAM?

Presumably. The utility reported hundreds of errors with them in and none with them out. I was reading quite a bit in the WoW support forums and it turns out that there is system instability if you don't use the exact same size FB-DIMM's in every 2 slots. So, I couldn't use the stock 2x 512MB modules and OWV 2x 1GB modules. I have not confirmed this officially but they say that there are Intel whitepapers to support this.