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New to mac - are crashes normal?

T

tomas1601

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 25, 2006
13
0
Hi, I've had a new Macbook Pro (2ghz, 512mb ram) for about a week now. During this week, OS X has crashed about 6 times, and i've had to use the power button on my machine to shut it down 3 times. You may wonder what i did to make it crash:

- while copying files with a wireless connection, i lost reception. as a result, the finder and dock freezed and command+option+escape didn't work. this happened more than once.

- i ejected a mounted dmg file, os x freezed.

- once i was unable to close flash 8 professional, not even with force quit.

- ...

I work with flash, dreamweaver and photoshop and if these programs crash, i give them some credit since they are running under rosetta. But what i don't understand is why the finder keeps freezing up and is often very unresponsive.

I've always worked with windows up until last week, so I wonder if this type of behaviour is normal in os x. I've heard people saying their macs haven't crashed in five years, so I'm starting to fear there is something wrong with my hardware.

Any thoughts, tips or suggestions are much appreciated.
 
Absolutley NOT. There is definatley something wrong. Try repairing permissions, or repairing the disk.
 
I did the Apple Hardware Test and it didn't find any hardware problems. I guess I can rely on that and blame the crashes on me being new to the mac? ;-)
 
There is nearly nothing you can do to a Mac to make it crash (even quit the kernel process). Behavior like this is not normal and I suspect there is something wrong. Ring Applecare.
 
tomas1601 said:
Hi, I've had a new Macbook Pro (2ghz, 512mb ram) for about a week now. During this week, OS X has crashed about 6 times, and i've had to use the power button on my machine to shut it down 3 times. You may wonder what i did to make it crash:

- while copying files with a wireless connection, i lost reception. as a result, the finder and dock freezed and command+option+escape didn't work. this happened more than once.

- i ejected a mounted dmg file, os x freezed.

- once i was unable to close flash 8 professional, not even with force quit.

- ...

I work with flash, dreamweaver and photoshop and if these programs crash, i give them some credit since they are running under rosetta. But what i don't understand is why the finder keeps freezing up and is often very unresponsive.

I've always worked with windows up until last week, so I wonder if this type of behaviour is normal in os x. I've heard people saying their macs haven't crashed in five years, so I'm starting to fear there is something wrong with my hardware.

Any thoughts, tips or suggestions are much appreciated.
Click to expand...
I've had the first problem more than once, but not the other issues. Mac OS X is generally very robust and hard to completely crash.
 
I must admit that a lot of my problems could be due to a combination of the finder and wireless connections. The flash-not-quitting problem is one that I've had on windows XP as well. However in windows, instead of choosing end task, you can choose end process, and that always does the trick. I think force quitting is more like end task and therefor less powerful, though I could be wrong, being new to OS X.

As for crashing OS X, I know that the darwin kernel didn't actually crash, but when all programs are inaccessible, I consider my computer useless and therefor the os "crashed". Perhaps more experienced users would have found a way to get their system working again without having to reboot.

I think I'll wait it out another week or so. Maybe some more patience when my cursor goes spinning-disc on me would do good ;) If I keep having problems, maybe I could re-install OS X and start from a clean slate, since there are no hardware problems. And if that doesn't help, the phone is nearby and my warranty is still valid for another 51 weeks :)
 
Another possibility is that the 512 MB RAM is causing problems - you might be swapping so intensely that the system appears to hang when, in reality, it's in virtual memory swap mode.

It might not be the case, but given what you seem to be running, it's a distinct possibility; at the very least, I'd recommend 1 GB.

Still, though, a hardware issue seems quite possible.
 
Since you often use flash, dreamweaver and photosho these softwares it's better for you to have a 1G RAM
and i aslo recommend you to download Onyx it can nealy deal all software problems
 
I believe you do have a problem with your wireless router.

Like you said yourself 'I must admit that a lot of my problems could be due to a combination of the finder and wireless connections.' sure is true. Finder does have problems with poor communication (devices). When a connection with a mounted device is broken while being accessed, it is quite 'normal' that you will have to relaunch the finder. I came across this through some 'rough' experimenting. Any os requires some basic troubleshooting skills.
(repairing permissions, deleting preferences of faulty apps)
My advise buy a good OSX book, for example 'The missing manual'.
With some basic precautions/knowledge, OSX is as solid as a rock.
 
tomas1601 said:
I must admit that a lot of my problems could be due to a combination of the finder and wireless connections. The flash-not-quitting problem is one that I've had on windows XP as well. However in windows, instead of choosing end task, you can choose end process, and that always does the trick. I think force quitting is more like end task and therefor less powerful, though I could be wrong, being new to OS X.

As for crashing OS X, I know that the darwin kernel didn't actually crash, but when all programs are inaccessible, I consider my computer useless and therefor the os "crashed". Perhaps more experienced users would have found a way to get their system working again without having to reboot.

I think I'll wait it out another week or so. Maybe some more patience when my cursor goes spinning-disc on me would do good ;) If I keep having problems, maybe I could re-install OS X and start from a clean slate, since there are no hardware problems. And if that doesn't help, the phone is nearby and my warranty is still valid for another 51 weeks :)
Click to expand...
Don't forget you can use the terminal to run linux/unix style commands like kill and killall. A bit of killall -9 (name of whatever) action might be called for! You can use ps -ax to see what processes are running.

Something's not right though.
 
Thx for all the replies. As for the 512mb of RAM, I don't think it has anything to do with that, since my computer hasn't crashed while working in dreamweaver and photoshop simultaneously. When the prices go down, I'll probably add some anyway ;-)

Using the unix commands to kill processes came to my mind, but when the dock and finder don't respond, I don't know how to access the terminal :)

While searching the internet some more, I came across an explanation of kernel panics and where to find a panic.log file. Seems I have one from wednesday, though I can't remember what happened at the time. To me ofcourse, this log doesn't make any sense :rolleyes:

panic.log:

Beschrijving: Logbestand Panic-meldingen (systeemcrashes)
Grootte: 1.71 KB
Laatst gewijzigd: 23/08/06 21:39
Locatie: /Library/Logs/panic.log
Recente inhoud: Wed Aug 23 21:38:59 2006
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x0019CADF): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 0=divide error), registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x1b6fd000, CR3: 0x00d73000, CR4: 0x000006e0
EAX: 0x00000001, EBX: 0x00000000, ECX: 0x00000000, EDX: 0x00000000
ESP: 0x0b4f3880, EBP: 0x0b4f38c4, ESI: 0x00000000, EDI: 0x00000000
EFL: 0x00010046, EIP: 0x003bb2dc, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x00000010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0xb4f374c : 0x128b5e (0x3bc46c 0xb4f3770 0x131bbc 0x0)
0xb4f378c : 0x19cadf (0x3c18e4 0x0 0x0 0x3c15cc)
0xb4f383c : 0x197c7d (0xb4f3850 0xb4f38c4 0x3bb2dc 0x1fa70048)
0xb4f3848 : 0x3bb2dc (0x1fa70048 0x20010 0x10 0x10)
0xb4f38c4 : 0x373665 (0x0 0x0 0x0 0x0)
0xb4f3bd4 : 0x1a21a7 (0x1bf8280 0x0 0xb4f3c14 0x630382)
0xb4f3bf4 : 0x1a30db (0xb4f3c44 0x1 0x1ba3800 0xb4f3c24)
0xb4f3c24 : 0x1a225c (0x1a2188 0xb4f3c44 0x0 0x520)
0xb4f3c54 : 0x6251a2 (0x624f8c 0x3 0x6502e0 0x0)
0xb4f3cb4 : 0x61a519 (0x1ba3800 0x2 0xb4f3c88 0x1dcf640)
0xb4f3cd4 : 0x39c861 (0x1bf8680 0x49761c 0x3 0x2ea000)
0xb4f3d14 : 0x3ab460 (0x1ba3800 0x3e0ea8 0xb4f3d44 0x384729)
0xb4f3d54 : 0x386ee9 (0x1b52300 0x4 0x1d 0x2)
0xb4f3d94 : 0x387403 (0x1b52300 0x0 0xb4f3dd4 0x1c22f80)
0xb4f3db4 : 0x388262 (0x1b52300 0x1b35c00 0xb 0x1)
0xb4f3df4 : 0x38742c (0x1b52300 0x1c5ae00 0xb4f3e34 0x1c64780) Backtrace continues...
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform(1.0.4)@0x619000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.0)@0x566000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.2.0)@0x615000

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.7.1: Wed Jun 7 16:19:56 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.9.72.obj~2/RELEASE_I386


*********
 
My first ever post, even though I have been reading here for a long time.

There was a problem like this with Macbooks at my work (not my Macbook though), and we explored lots of things and eventually just called Applecare.

The woman at the other end of the phone at Applecare was fantastic and talked my colleague through really clearly various things - we wished we had simply called at the start.

I can't tell you what she did - but it did involve reinstalling. Anyway it now works a dream and we didn't need to send it away.

So I say follow people's advice on here who are saying ring Applecare.
 
Okay, I'll call them asap. Better to re-install now while I haven't installed too many programs.

@viccles: To do an Apple Hardware Test, insert the OS X installation disc 1 and pres D while booting. Your computer will startup from the cd and start Apple Hardware Test.
 
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