Too many upgrades at same time! Ouch!

[IceMacMac]

I have been reminded of a painful lesson: don't upgrade too many things at once! Debugging becomes a nightmare.

I am having repeated problems where my Finder is freezing (freezing bad, where I have to do a hard re-boot)

So is my problem caused by:
1. New RAM (upgraded to 48 GIG)
2. Booting in 64 bit kernel (required to see more than 32 GIGs)
3. New OWC RAID enclosure
4. New PCI Seritek SATA Card
5. New Drives in RAID
6. OS 10.6.7
7. New backup drives for Time Machine
8. None of the above!

At first I thought my problems must be booting in 64 bit kernel...but then my finder froze while in 32 bit mode.

A short 15 minute test on the RAM indicates no problems. I'll run Disk Warrior and TechTool Pro but first priority is fresh backups.

Geesh. This is crazy.

 

[keysersoze]

Extended Apple HW test may bring something up that the quickie test missed... that's how I've found both a RAM problem and a hard drive problem... but 48GB RAM, you may have to wait a couple days for it to finish

 

[reebzor]

Why dont you start by removing the more unnecessary things i.e. Time Machine drive, OWC Enclosure, a couple ram sticks etc.

Not going to be able to narrow it down any other way

 

[bozz2006]

Yep, what Reebzor said. Start pulling one thing at a time...

 

[Goldfinger]

Probably the RAM or the PCI card, try those first.

 

[Zobec]

I would do as others have suggested and remove the extras and start from the beginning. Maybe even putting back in the Apple Ram and go through each upgrade one by one. This situation has made me think upon when I get round to finally installing set up.

I hope this gets solved.

 

[IceMacMac]

Extended Apple HW test may bring something up that the quickie test missed... that's how I've found both a RAM problem and a hard drive problem... but 48GB RAM, you may have to wait a couple days for it to finish

Good suggestion. I'll run that...maybe tonight.

As for those that suggest minimizing the variables...prudent. After my complete system check I'll then remove all unnecessary peripherals and see how it goes for a few days.

 

[infidel69]

What kind of work do you do that requires 48GB's of ram?

 

[IceMacMac]

What kind of work do you do that requires 48GB's of ram?

The current Adobe recommended suggested spec on After Effects work is:
3GB of RAM per CPU plus a generous allotment for system and BG apps.

Why? AE spawns one copy of itself for each multi-processor during rendering. (absurd but that's the state of Adobe given where it's programmers hail from these days)

I often run it together with C4d, iTunes, Photoshop and Illustrator.

And btw...are you the RAM police to ask such a question? I'll trust you aren't one of those prudes who get indignant: "How dare anyone use too much RAM on a Macintosh! The extravagance, audacity and shame of exceeding 32 GB! Surely such a Mac user drives a Hummer too!"