Resolved Question: freezing on wake - virtual memory related (not GPU related)

[exploradorgt]

Hi, I have the Late 2009 - 27" iMac / Core i5, works perfectly after upgrading to a non officially supported GPU, and yes: sleep / wake works perfectly. My issue is virtual memory related. I'm currently using Windows, but my question is HARDWARE related.

Details:

• Running Windows on the mechanical drive, while having virtual memory on the same drive works perfectly on sleep/wake
• Running Windows on the SSD (in place of the optical drive that I removed with a caddy), while having virtual memory on the same SSD drive works perfectly on sleep/wake
• HOWEVER, using the OS on the SSD (odd-> caddy), while using the mechanical HDD for virtual memory causes freezing, the computer wakes up, but just shows the desktop image and nothing works, it's completely frozen.

I have tested this with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. I can't afford the luxury right now of installing MacOS and try virtual memory on separate drives, my non official gpu won't allow me to do that, and I'm not interested on going back to MacOS, I need this computer for Windows. And yes, both drives are in perfect condition. Is there a hardware limitation? one drive takes too long to wake?

Over many years I have used both laptops and desktop computers with 2 hard drives, one for the OS (Windows), and the other for virtual memory, this, using both SATA ports, the HDD and the DVD drive SATA with a caddy drive replacement, this has worked pretty well regardless of order, independent on what drive I use for booting. Why do I do this? it makes the system more efficient reducing the amount of data transfer on the same drive (it's comparable to having dual channel memory), reduces wear on the SSD, and yes, it increases speed.

During my journey I haven't come across people who do this on MacOS, any experiences? thanks in advance.

 

[exploradorgt]

I'll answer my own thread. (at the end, NEXT POST), here I live the premature conclusion.​

Turns out my problem is not about virtual memory/swap as proposed above.

For anyone having issues with older iMacs and SSD upgrades, be warned that some imacs won't fully accept the SSD's; yes, your computer will boot, run your apps, etc., the thing is: some imacs have issues waking up from sleep when you have an SSD installed. I found out the hard way reading a lot around the web. If you search long enough you will find the pieces here and there.

A decent number of iMac owners reported having the wake-freeze issues after installing an SSD. It didn't matter placing the SSD on the Superdrive bay using a caddy, or entirely replacing the main mechanical HDD, these users reported the same problems: randomly freezing after wake, some with more issues than others (like "always" freezing). And they were specific enough to explain those SSD's were entirely new, and some explained the specifics on how Imacs were built and having issues with the power management, and for that reason required a firmware update as a possible solution (I don't know if such thing exist, as I didn't find a detailed case around this in specific).​

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What they don't report, is details about how full those SSD drives were. Does it matter? yes, turns out SSD work better as long as you keep them at <70% capacity. Some brands come with extra cells (that you will never see reported as free space) but are useful to play around with where to place the data on the healthiest places. This is just a super short explanation, please don't debate it: if you are not familiar with this, search and read, then you are welcome to open a new thread. I just placed this here to paint a small picture, not to explain the whole matter in detail, that's why "please don't debate this".​

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I just want others to avoid being lost as I was.​

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In my case, I'm lucky as my 2009 - 27" imac accepted my Kingston 120G SSD, yes I was having issues, but after trying a lot of configurations, settings, and multiple OS installs (and only experiencing issues with sleep-wake) absolutely discarding faulty RAM, turns out my iMac is not among those fully rejecting the SSD's.

• Turns out my computer works perfectly as long as there is enough free space on the SSD. This way it will go to sleep and wake without any issues. This is an old SSD, and it is small, so, it's about space and the age of the cells. I will eventually buy a new and larger SSD. This iMac is not my daily driver computer, my desktop HP has a new and larger Kingston SSD, no issues at all.

Lucky me!.


If you face any SSD issues with an older imac, take in count the following:

1. Your computer might be one of those older models not fully accepting the SSD for sleep-wake, and your only option is to turn it on / off, hibernation, or shut the screen off while not in use.
2. You might be facing problems with the age of the SSD cells, your drive might be too old, and while the cells work, perhaps they don't work as fast as the SSD hardware expects it.
3. You might be facing space issues, remember: SSDs work better when below 70% (your case might be different).

You can always buy a new drive, but sometimes that's not the best option, as nobody wants to buy hardware that won't be used. Good luck.

 

[exploradorgt]

In short: not all iMacs get along with SSD disks, specially older iMacs. If you are new to this, you can find specific reports on the web. If you are familiar with this (because you've been having issues) then you are already familiar with the reports. And yes, a lot of people are still using their old iMacs.

My journey around this involved many attempts. I would experience consistent freezes after sleep/wake while running Windows 10 on my SSD. I didn't have these issues while running Windows 8.1 on a mechanical drive, all the drives placed on the dvd-hdd-caddy, replacing the Super Drive.

The multiple attempts were consistent: mechanical drives wouldn't fail, the SSD failed (it didn't matter the combination or versions of Windows OS), and... BTW, the reports I mention above come from people running MacOSX.

• Tried stopping and removing the Update Orchestrator (Windows), and it helped, but not entirely.
• Tried diff combinations of virtual memory, and things improved, but the problem didn't go away.
• Tried multiple combinations of sleep/standby/hybrid sleep and fast boot... and things started looking better, but the problem didn't fully go away.
• For some reason... keeping the drive with lots of free space would help a lot. But the problem wouldn't go away.

Tried placing the SSD where the main HDD is, and the problem went away.

To make the story short: the iMac didn't like my hdd caddy. Lucky me I have 3 of them, and right now everything works (after replacing and testing). It's weird, because you would expect the same caddy to fail on multiple computers and with every hdd, but in my case things failed only using the SSD and this caddy on this imac. That's 3 factors in place.

How weird.