Apple/NVidia Driver Bug — Question Deleted

Joe Drago writes "I purchased a Mac Pro within the first week that they were available, and immediately upgraded to 3GB of RAM (knowing that OSX loves memory). When playing 3D games (World of Warcraft mainly), the game would Kernel Panic the machine if I had played it for a few hours, or if I swapped in and out of the game a few times, etc. I eventually found out (from an official Blizzard poster) that NVidia has a bug in their drivers that kernel panics a Mac Pro if any memory past the 2GB boundary is addressed in the driver. After waiting months for a resolution to this, I decided to post on Apple's support site. Here is an image of my post.. Within a few hours, they removed it from the site, placing it under 'Posts Removed by Administration.' What's going on here? Is Apple trying to hide this bug, or is there something more serious going on between Apple and NVidia?"

Comments

Forum rules?

[ParraCida]

Seems more like a complaint/accusation masked as a question, rather than a serious question and might have been removed for that reason.

A screen grab?

[Anonymous Coward]

How often do people take screen grabs of their posts to a forum?

Was their expectation of it being removed? I find that more confusing then the fact that it was deleted.

Re:A screen grab?

[tomhudson]

The screen grab wasn't of his original question, but of his question after they deleted all but the subject line.

It was only after the question was deleted that he began questioning Apple's motives.

My take on it is that nobody would buy a 3-gig box if they can't properly use the extra gig of ram, and this could hurt sales, as well as give people justification for post-xmas returns (and then buying the 2-gig machine at a post-xmas price).

I really wanted to buy a MacBook Pro but...

[QuietLagoon]

... the manner in which Apple attempts to hide problems discouraged me. This goes back to the original Intel-based MacBook Pros with the heat issue. I could not get a straight answer out of Apple when I asked about the problem.

I really like OS-X, however you have to buy Apple hardware in order to run OS-X. Apple does not support their hardware properly. Therefore, Apple does not support OS-X properly.

Censoring anything but "happy-talk" on their forums is not the answer. Apple are smart people, why can they not understand that simplest of simple concepts?

Re:I really wanted to buy a MacBook Pro but...

[bcmm]

Of course they are smart, and of course hushing things up is the answer.

Does Apple not have a reputation for excellent, reliable hardware that "just works"? I know Slashdot knows better, but the majority of people believe what they are told. Hushing things up makes perfectly good business sense, because by annoying a few customers, they avoid many potential customers learning to doubt the reliability of the product. They probably don't care that it isn't very nice for those customers, because they are a corporation and are legally obliged to maximise profits.

his "problem" isn't even possible!

[Anonymous Coward]

He claims that "NVidia has a bug in their drivers", which everyone in the know should realize is impossible, since NVidia doesn't develop their own drivers for Macs!
AFAIK, these days NVidia cards on macs use drivers written by Apple based on source they liscenced from NVidia.

Clearly a troll.

Windows does the same...

[origamy]

Try to play HL2 or any demanding Direct3D game in a Windows XP 32 bit system using the 3GB switch and the game will crash within 2 minutes. It doesn't surprise me to hear the same happening in Apple systems since the drivers are probably not so different.

ATI X1x00 is the go

[Dan B.]

Without pushing aside the issue of censorship here, The parent to this is right. nVidia are cheaper cards, and do have 'known' issues. Had you done a little more research, you may have ordered the box with the X1900 in it in place of the nVidia. I know it is more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

In a nutshell, pay less money, expect more issues. You paid for the 2GB RAM upgrade, why not the GFX card upgrade!?

FYI, I play WoW on my MacBook Pro with 1GB and a 128MB X1600 and it manages to run at full resolution on my 24" LCD (external) with no drama, plus with the Blizzard engine now supporting dual core properly, will do anything from 25-100 fps. That game on OSX is not as resource hungry as people think.

Re:Intellectual property

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but I'm in kind of a delicate position. The more I leak, the more Apple _might_ decide to take serious action. And on this scale, I do not dare leak official policy documents. When I have a spare moment, I'll go over the admin-view forum page (where the deleted post still lives, along with an internal reply mentioning to other admins why it was deleted) and post a screenshot once I'm _absolutely sure_ I've scrubbed it of anything personally identifying.

I had kind of hoped that this post had the ring of truth to it - if the open source crowd are anything to go by (in trying to get specs and source for the nvidia card and drivers), nvidia are this paranoid with _everyone_.

Again, most of us here think the decision is batshit crazy. It may well be down to management being excessively paranoid in their interpretation of the license deal, but we don't know as we don't have access to those documents, only the management version. All I can confirm for sure is that this post (and several others like it) have been deleted in accordance with a policy that Apple believe is related to nvidia intellectual property. To the best of my knowledge though, there is no fix. My best reckoning is that this policy will quietly go away as if nothing happened when a fix is available.

Re:Apple Policy

[mrchaotica]

No, they should just not remove it! If you're looking at Slashdot or any of the various other forums around the Internet, you can usually go back all the way to the beginning and read any post that was ever made. There's no reason for Apple's forums to be any different.

Re:Intellectual property

[erroneus]

Yes, the one that could be fixed with a software/firmware update if they felt so inclined but would rather allow their hardware to become obsolete so you'll buy newer stuff.

There has never been any such problem for PCs and they are using the same controller chips.

you live in a business owned

[waspleg]

and operated society, please refer to luminaries like Noam Chomsky for details no how you're being savagely ass fucked every day of your life whether you know it or not, so some fortune 500 executive can make that payment on their 3rd yacht while you're busy trying to get enough money to take your kid to the doctor.

i have never understood why treatment like this by companies is a.) accepted and b.) suprising to anyone after submitting to "a" by purchasing from known shitty megacorporations (aka, all of them, ever bought a cellphone? how about opened a bank account or shopped at wal-mart? guess who is the problem)

3

waspleg

Re:Here's my take on it

[Score Whore]

Don't forget the post that was critical of the overall comments/moderation system. It was moderated over a thousand times and resulted in a whole slew of people being permanently banned from moderation. They implemented magic code for this specific purpose.

Similar story from 10 years ago

[laing]

I identified a serious flaw in all USR "Sportster" and "Courier" modems (only the ones with flashable firmware). It was reproducable (at least to me) and caused a dropped connection under certain conditions. After making it past the tier 1 support folks, I got in touch with the product engineering group. I gave them enough info that they took me seriously but they claimed that they could not reproduce the problem. They sent me a brand new computer with modem so I could configure it like mine. I did so and they dialed into it and saw the problem. I sent the system back and kept in touch with them until they fell off the face of the earth about 2 weeks after I returned their computer. I have all of the e-mail threads to document this.

USR apparently did not want to deal with the product liablity. It would have bankrupted them to fix all of the modems. Instead they quietly dropped the product line and completely ignored me. I solved my problem by buying a bunch of modems from another manufacturer.

JSL

Re:STFU and take it - Why is parent mod Flamebait

[Kjella]

It's being tagged as flamebait because it is flamebait. Just because I bought something I don't know how to repair myself (hint: My car, TV, microwave, washing machine, digicam and a kazillion other gadgets fall into that category) doesn't mean I can't expect a working product, and if the producer refuses to repair or even acknowledge the fault I'm sure going to make a stink about it. "STFU and take it" means "Eat the cost of defective products yourself" - like hell I will. If it was an elitist Linux user which made that comment, it was about as mature as Nelson pointing and saying "HA HA!".

As for "the freedom to use, modity, study and distribute software", I'd just like to quote what the parent said: "When you use proprietory software what are your options? Fix it yourself? All you can do is try to beg, goad, flatter, etc. the developer into fixing it. If the developer doesn't fix it then all you can do is live with it." Well, for 99% of the population, that's exactly the same choice they have with open source software. Even if you have all the required skills, digging into a project to track down a bug will almost certainly cost you more than it's worth. Of course then you'd get back on that high horse and say "Well, you didn't pay anything for it so STFU." In either case you end up paying in time or money, that is money, if you want working software.

Fortunatly, most of the time the developers are interested in fixing bugs, but that applies equally well to open and closed source software. If the bug is ugly or rare or difficult to fix, neither of them will and you're screwed in both cases. Sure, I could just make the software work the way I want to - it'd just take me a few centuries if not millennia.

Re:Apple Policy gagged

[Angostura]

What else do I "want"? ... well there are quite a few TV stations in the UK. offering downloadable "watch again" versions of their TV programmes and films for rent. Not available for Mac users of course because, according to their FAQs there is no viable OS-supported DRM video standard for the Mac.

I leave it to you to decide whether this is a good or bad thing.

See for instance Channel 4 on demand.

Will you offer 4oD for the Macintosh?

Unfortunately not at the launch of 4oD.

This is an industry-wide issue caused because the accepted Digital Rights Management (DRM) system used to protect online video content, which is required by our content owners, is not compatible with Apple Mac hardware and software. The closed DRM system used by Apple is not currently available for licence by third parties and there is no other Mac-compatible DRM solution which meets the protection requirements of content owners. Unfortunately, we are therefore unable to offer 4oD content to Mac users at this stage.

Re:Apple Policy gagged

[TheRaven64]

Right. Now, remind me who's in the Trusted Computing Group:

AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Infineon, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems Yup, DRM is definitely an Intel thing.

Re:Here's my take on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators use -1, Troll to indicate that a post differs from Slashdot's group-think. By archiving only posts that agree with Slashdot group-think, Slashdot tries to rewrite history so as to suggest that the group-think consensus is unanimous - and that dissenting opinions did not exist in the "good old days". Then they will say "lets go back to the good old days" and use this as a reason to add further censorship.

You will not be able to read this comment after 6 months. Only the parent comment, which this comment debunks, will be available. You will not be able to read any counter-argument to the parent comment after that time.

This opinion never existed. Any similar opinion you read about in the future is an unrepresentative one-off and will be marked "Troll" then clensed away for your convenience.

See slashdot.org/~CPMO for more info.

Re:Here's my take on it

[BigBadBus]

They also deleted my post about my old employers, possibly after a bit of legal hassle- http://www.btinternet.com/~dr_paul_lee/zzq.shtml

that's why I own a Dual Core G5 Mac Pro!

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

hmm... When the PowerMacs first came out, they only worked with specific memory from a specific manufacturer. I had the
original Dual processor 2.0Ghz G5. well, when I discovered a memory timing issue I was able to return the box for full
credit and got a Dual Core G5 with PCI/Express slots. I used standard Corsair PC-4200 memory when I upgraded to 4GB or RAM
and have had no problems. I looked at the design of the new Intel MacPRo.. I decided that I would rather stay with my trusty
G5 dual core. It runs Linux and OS/X well, I haven't had any lockups at all. I just wish the NVIDIA drivers were open source so
I can get 3D with Linux. For now I need two boxes, my AMD barton based PC Shuttle, and my Dual Core G5, both connected to my
belken USB/audio KVM.

My son managed to get OS/X running on his AMD Dual Processor Clone! My G5's Disk I/O is faster, We are still comparing CPU/Memory
video speed. Some benchmarks his box is faster, but not all.. even though his cpu clock speed is faster my box beats many of his
benchmarks. I've always been a fan of the PowerPC CPU. And at work, I use it's big brother, the P5.. it's a kick ass processor.

I would like to see Apple use the P6 processor for new designs. That would be awesome!

Re:Wrong place?

[PygmySurfer]

Still doesn't explain why he posted to the Forum, instead of using this nice little feedback form.

That said, I'm not surprised the post was deleted. It came across as rude and demanding. "I need to hear from an official source as to who is correcting this bug" what the hell is that?

And since when is Blizzard the authority on what is an OS X bug, and what is an Nvidia driver bug?

OS X is notoriously picky on RAM - his Kernel Panics may be caused by incompatible ram.

The forum was obviously the wrong place to ask this question:

What is Apple Discussions?

Apple Discussions is a user-to-user support forum that enables anyone who uses Apple products to meet and discuss various topics, resolve issues, ask questions, get tips and advice, and more. You'll find a wealth of information about your favorite Apple hardware and software products that will help you get the most out of your purchase.

Though you'll find some great information and advice from many knowledgeable Apple customers in these forums, if you have a technical question or issue about an Apple product, please be sure to check out Apple's support resources first by doing these things:

        * Consult the application Help menu on your computer.
        * Visit our Service & Support site to view our product support pages and search for relevant technical support articles.


and


IMPORTANT: Employees of Apple Computer, Inc. ("Apple") may respond to issues within this forum. Apple is under no duty to provide a response to an issue, or to do so in a timely manner.

Why this was even posted to Slashdot is a bit of a mystery, though not surprising.

Re:Apple Policy gagged

[TheRaven64]

Still doesn't explain why your machine is getting registered as needing the ATI drivers at boot Umm, who said anything about boot? I said the ATi drivers (kext) was the cause of the kernel panics (stack trace showed that it had accessed illegal memory while executing somewhere in the ATi driver). It obviously needs them after boot, otherwise what do you think should be talking to the ATi GPU? nVidia drivers?

in which case you should nuke & pave to make sure so you can get the 'book back to the repair depot while you're still covered under warranty. Easier said than done now they've closed the repair depot in the UK.

they'll send you a replacement machine after just a minute or two Hah, good one. Last time they needed to replace my machine it took over a month, including ten hours on the phone to their customer support before they did. And that was because they'd lost the machine at the repair centre. If the machine still exists, no matter how broken, I can't see them replacing it until they've tried really hard not to.