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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?"
I don't claim to know anything Apple's forum rules, but could it not be that the question was removed because they thought this was an Nvidia bug and as such not their responsibility to discuss?
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.'
Macs "just work". Everyone knows that. Obviously the "problem" is your fault, and/or you're a troll.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
[This comment has been deleted.]
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
The complaint is reasonable and mostly well put, but perhaps the speculation at then end annoyed them enough to make them remove it?
It still comes across as a bit unreasonable to remove it, however. But it's Apple. They don't expect you to upgrade things on your own.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
You're a user of proprietary software, live with it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Seems more like a complaint/accusation masked as a question, rather than a serious question and might have been removed for that reason.
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.
Wow, I'm kind of surprised this popped up on slashdot (I figured it would get mentioned in a blog, at most, and forgotten about). I'm one of the admins on that forum, and can confirm that yes, we've been asked to nuke anything regarding nVidia, at least in certain contexts. One recent addition to our arrangement with them (to provide kernel drivers) involves some very restrictive IP deals that upper management has interpreted to mean we shouldn't even acknowledge certain kinds of bugs in a very specific area. It's my understanding that there are some serious showstopper bugs inherent to nvidia's platform independent core code that they really do not want releasing. Most of us think this is utter BS (and management being paranoid), fwiw.
:p
And yes, there are enough forum admins that I'm not too scared about 'leaking' like this. Note that I'm keeping the exact details secret
So a post got deleted on a forum and the obvious explanation has to do with an inter-company conspiracy to cover for a driver bug? Didn't you bother to look for more obvious conclusions, like e-mailing an admin for an explanation, or maybe posting it again with an inquiry as the former deletion? There has to be less than this than claimed.
Apple and nVidia have both said, in public, many times, that in the specific case of Apple NV cards, the drivers are handled by Apple.
Apple Guy: Hi, I'm an Apple.
PC Guy: Hi, I'm a PC.
Apple Guy: *itching crotch*
PC Guy: Got a problem there?
Apple Guy: No, I'm fine. (*cockroaches fall to floor from pant leg*)
PC Guy: Having a little problem with that "Nvidia card"? (chuckles)
Apple Guy: *walks off set*
PC Guy: Don't mind him, he's just trying to support more than 2GB of RAM...
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
This is what I would expect. When I bugged apple about their broken NFS support on servers they told us that engineers would get back to us. They never did. So I started asking on forums and mailing lists to see if I could get an answer and as soon as I brought it up the thread would get killed or the post would be deleted. Then when we had issues with MPICH it as the same dang thing. Eventually they admitted that MPICH2 works much nicer on Mac OS than MPICH 1 due to some network implementations stuff. Every time I brought it up on the forums though the thread would get killed. (For the curious, the problem that we where having was that an Apple server running NFS would always seem to forget about the last file in a directory when it cached the directory contents. so running "mkdir a; cd a; touch 1 2 3 4 5 6 ; cd .. ; rm -rf a" would fail one out of four times when being done over NFS. If you waited a half an hour then ran rm -rf a it would work great. This issue didn't happen when Mac OS systems mounted Linux NFS shares, but happened every time a Linux or Mac OS system mounted a NFS share off of a Mac OS based system. This was still happening to all of our PPC based systems as of last summer when we finally switched them over to PPC Linux, which made the problem go away)
I guess what I am saying is that it is not surprising. Apple has always nuked threads that made them look bad so why not this one?
I spend a fair amount of time on the Apple forums. There's really nothing in your post that would seem to warrant such an action, at least compared to some of the trolls that pop up from time to time. But do bear in mind that the Apple forums are user-to-user support forums for Apple hardware and software. So asking to hear from an official source is a waste of time, because Apple-folk NEVER post on the forums. So in a sense, your post wasn't really aimed at allowing other users to troubleshoot an issue, and therefore not appropriate for the forums.
All that aside, I think its silly the post was deleted, since if this is true, it would be a serious issue. I'm planning on getting a Mac Pro this week (albeit with the Radeon card), and would certainly love to hear Apple's response.
So if you found out it's an Nvidia driver bug... why would you post in the Apple forums for an answer?
Because he purchased the machine from Apple. They are his one point support contact.
Do fanboys dislike Mac Owners approached Apple for support?
Because Apple talks about delivering an integrated experience and it's Apple who installed the video card and drivers, not the user?
There's this thing in your browser called a cache that stores a copy of pages you visit...
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
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.
Either that, or the tinfoil hat's beginning to cut off circulation.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
The video card was standard in his machine. In other words... it was supplied by Apple. The drivers he is using are from Apple. Nvidia doesn't even offer Mac drivers on their site.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
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.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
NVidia will only directly support customers who purchase add-on cards. If you buy an Apple, Dell, HP, etc with an NVidia card, you need to work with the OEM to get a supported driver.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
"Using your Mac Pro" might not have been the appropriate section to post your topic in.
The post was clearly redundant, as the bug will be fixed in the future, and the release date back-dated :)
The article was about a Mac Pro, not a MacBook Pro, which is a laptop. The MacBook Pro has an ATI video card not a NVidia card.
[This comment has been removed by CmdrTaco Sunday January 14, @05:31PM]
There are lots of things that happen on /. that ppl can not offer direct evidence of it. If you like, assume that all of them are wrong. But I have seen things on here from AC's that I knew to be correct (by having worked at 2 of the places that had been talked about), but were said to be trolls or conspiracy theories. You simply have to ask wether you will accept the possibility. If so, then ask is it possible. Then decide what you want to do with it.
As to the current posting, yeah, it is possible. Apple is not high and mighty. They have been shown to be "evil" at times. Of course, it is not that surprising. Lots of companies do things like this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
My experience with Apple's handling of reported bugs has been _very_ bad. I reported dozens of problems, all with as much technical information as possible (I am a OS programmer myself) and none of them got any resolution whatsoever except for some time passing comments which mostly intended to make me understand they don't care about the bugs.
Of particular mention is a security bug - complete with stack traces, register values and other goodies. No response and the bug still exists after 3 releases of the product.
I read your post, and I'm struggling to figure out just what the hell your question is. You ask "who is fixing this bug?" but in a place where nobody that could actually provide the answer will be looking. You've clearly already made up your mind that there is some sort of "power struggle" or conspiracy going on, so what, if anything, could someone tell you that would satisfy you? I don't know what the criteria for removal is on those forums, but I suspect yours was removed because it was pointless and inflammatory, not because of any conspiracy. That you feel that having one forum post removed is a crisis worth submitting to Slashdot reeks of paranoia.
Why don't you try Apple's bug reporting site instead of the Discussion forums? You know, the place where you actually report bugs?
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
No. Apple has the reputation for ease of use and quality marketing, both of which rely upon the hardware working. Unfortunately, the hardware is not providing the foundation it needs to provide.
Tack that on to a reproducible core audio bug that makes the new dvd player app crash on certain disks. Reported that one till I was blue in the face.
Oh my god! CmdrTaco is so efficient and deadly at removing posts that he actually removed your post three hours before you even posted it!
On the Mac, the issue is as simple as upgrading your memory to 3GB, and can be done by any user.
On the PC if you upgrade your memory to 3GB, it won't happen, because you still have a 2GB per-process memory limit. You can get 3GB per-process memory limits with the switch you described, regardless of how much physical memory you have (remember virtual memory).
The thing is, you can't really toggle this switch by accident. You have to specifically set it in your boot.ini file. The only thing I can think of in your favor is I have never heard your problem before, and everywhere I see the 3GB switch described it sounded like it could be useful for the right apps... with no mention of this possible bug.
To summarize: Not the same thing. In Mac you simply install more memory. In Windows you have to crack open a system file and add an obscure setting to the boot configuration.
1 Switch to an ATI card. They always seem to work better with OS X. I don't know why, but the NVIDIA cards never seem to work that well for me in OS X.
You're suggesting that he purchase a new card on his own dime to correct the problem?
2 Take out one stick of memory. 3GB is kind of excessive IMO for OS X unless you REALLY need that much memory. I used to run WoW, iTunes, Firefox, Ventrilo, and other apps just fine (when I played WoW) and never had any memory issues with 2 GB. I think the Mac Pro benefits from interleaving as well (don't quote me on that, I don't have one) and requires a specific memory configuration.
There are plenty of reasons a Mac Pro owner would need over 2 gigs. Real time rendering in Final Cut or Motion, for example. Or large Photoshop files (particularly with the Rosetta crutch.) He uses WOW as an example but I doubt he bought a $3000 workstation to run a game that will play on an iMac. At least I hope he didn't.
3 Play WoW under windows with bootcamp. It was always a little faster for me under XP than OS X, but my subscription ran out a little while ago.
Obviously unacceptable. Booting Windows is not a solution. For one, you'll be going online, which means you will need to become a Windows security expert quickly-- and you will have to purchase a retail copy of XP, again on your own dime, to solve a problem Apple should fix.
This is Apple's problem. If it is a known issue they should fix it, or issue a recall to replace the cards. If the machine is under warranty he needs to raise a continual stink to get the problem fixed (one thing I do know about Apple support, if you draw one "genius" who won't help you you have to keep trying until you find one who will.)
How about this: the forum post deletions are the result of an overzealous moderator, and as a result, your post to slashdot is the result is an overzealous conspiracy theory?
Dumb bug on someone's part, but you're looking for a conspiracy where there is likely none.
Its all about competing with Microsoft to make sure they don't get yet another monopoly, this time on Evil ...
Two years ago, it was Sun's turn to be evil ... last year it was google's ; Novell tried last month, but they pretty much failed it, so Apple got the nod.
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?"
Clearly you are a well-informed, technically savvy person. It seems obvious that the question you posted to Apple's support site posed a major threat the the stability of Steve Job's Reality Distortion Field, so Apple simply removed the immediate threat to their image. You might want to be careful, lest they decide to remove the source of the threat...you haven't seen any unfamiliar non-descript vehicles parked outside your home recently, have you?
"iPod: you can get better, but you can't pay more." is a favorite saying of mine. It has applied to most oh-so-trendy Apple products since the late 80s. As someone who has supported Macs as part of my job in the past, beginning right about the time the Web did, I learned to not bother with official Apple forums and instead turn to the Mac user community sites.
Apple wants to maintain the carefully crafted illusion that Macs are trouble-free, never get infected by malware, and are easy to use even for computer illiterates. Only the last item has an element of truth to it. Macs are reasonably easy to use, for computer illiteres who don't want to actually do much with their computer. Businesspeople who continued to use Macs for various kinds of publishing work when Wintel was clearly the way to go for most purposes quickly discovered that Macs are at least as trouble-prone as PCs and since Apple is often slow to fix bugs and the Mac userbase has always been tiny compared to that of Wintel systems, there aren't as many other places to turn to for help, serious Mac problems often go unresolved for much longer than similar ones do on common Wintel platforms.
The Mac user community has long been fairly close knit and tries to be helpful, in my experience. It tends to lack the sheer numbers of folks with excellent technical skills that the Wintel user community has (due to sheer size) and the Linux crowd enjoys (because Linux users tend(ed) to be geeks by nature, at least until recently as more "user friendly" versions of Linux have appeared.
My bet is that Apple will feel the heat now that you've exposed the way they disappeared your technical question from their support forum and will probably claim that you failed to follow procedure or that someone removed it accidentally. I'd be somewhat amazed if you get a timely, useful reply to your query from Apple. If you do, please post it as a follow-up. Actually, any further responses you get from Apple would be interesting.
I'm more curious as to what nVidia will do now that this issue has been made very public. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to get Ubuntu 6.10 to recognize the nVidia GeForce 7600 GS I installed along with a Dell 2407 WFP on my main machine. Windows XPx64Pro quickly recognized the new hardware and installed the proper drivers for it. Edgy Eft will only boot into CLI mode, complaining that it can't start the X server won't start, probably due to it not being set up correctly. If Linux vendors can come up with an effective Plug&Pray system like Microsoft has (finally, after several years of very gradual improvement), they'll be winning over a lot of people who might otherwise be suck(er)ed into the quagmire known as Vista.
It will be interesting to see which of us obtains a solution first.
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
It now occurs to me just how good of a comparison that is. In both cases, when the included accessory fails, it causes a crash!
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I dont know why apple fanboys have to keep modding this to -1 as flamebait its INFORMATIVE and FACTUAL :
: :
Its WORSE than you think! The Apple bugs are now rampant.
Apple, like all software companies large and small, maintains an internal employee BugBase or bug database.
Other companies also include feature requests in such databases with acknowledgement from engineers.
It was a shining example from apple until a couple years ago some managers at Apple decided to irrationally ban thousands of Apple employees from being able to search and access Apple's bug database. This includes some of thier highest paid sales guys and highest paid "Systems Engineers" (not systems software engineers, but rather people that technically manage Fortune 100 company client accounts).
It is worse than Soviet Russia.
Apple did not hid or ban bugs, it merely BANNED ANYONE WHO NEEDS TO READ THEM FROM READING THEM EVER!
Now the database is a joke these years, as no one bothers to enhance the anecdotal evidence.
2 RETARDED QA EXAMPLES
Apples blatant bugs throughout history are legendary and none were caught by their QA because their QA
1 > NEVER ONCE SET SCSI DRIVES to ID #5 (7 choices, but every machine at apple QA was #1 and #2 I guess) so some PowerPC macs shipped with a bug that crashed when the hardware was issuing an interrupt cascading from a SCSI transfer interrupt on a SCSI drive with ID #5. traces were missing on the board. Apple Workaround was to cripple the OS and ROMS for that machine to make all SCSI smaller requests and not disconnect-reconnect to the bus. All the macs shipped defective.
2> NEVER HIRED PEOPLE for QA department familiar with commercial 300 dollar mac debuggers such as Viacom (ICOM) T/MON debugger, or Jasik's 'Mac Nosy The Debugger"; and only hired people for QA department familiar with crappy no frills free command line based "MacsBug" an ancient tool contracted out from Motorola and maintained sporadically by Apple for decades. MacsBug knowledge, even slight, is a requirement to pass hiring test of Apples gang of retards known as Apple QA department. I know many successful expert Mac software engineers that until a few years ago used T/MON so exclusively that they never once ever bothered to tolerate or use crappy Macsbug. and those were software engineers who thought nothing of spending 300 dollars on T/MON or 300 dollars on Mac Nosy The Debugger. And those were professional engineers! And they would have failed Apples retarded and inept QA hiring process based on use of a defective crappy free debugger.
3> Allowed a bug to go through where a timer chip was missing from the circuit board of a PowerPC mac used for network (802.3) usage and the code horrible stumbled along in a pathological state that ANYONE doing ANY form of file copying in Apples retarded QA department would have seen. All the macs shipped defective.
4> The left and right audio sources fed from the analog connector to the headphone jack of Apples best consumer multimedia macintosh at the time were backwards! Luckily QuickTime audio extraction was also buggy and reversed audio left-right so digital access was not flipped or discovered until Quicktime was fixed. QA did not catch it, QA did not even use a proper test audio CD. QA had no IQ to even imagine that stereo audio had a concept of left or right.
Etc, etc etc, There are hundreds of anecdotes of shipping failures that slipped past Apple's homogeneously low IQ, low imagination, no-creativity, zombie drone hordes at the laughable department of Apple QA (Quality Assurance) that the only way to fix it would be to gut it from the top and install some actual engineers to control the laughable department. Cutting off the FIELD employees at apple from the QA bug database and cutting off the service people and Systems Engineers (sales support dudes) only makes Apples QA five times more incompetent now.
I believe 100% that having memory buffer below 4 GB but above 2GB could fail in an Appl
I should only have to report a problem to Apple. I should not need to report a problem to some random third-party "expeditor".
OS-X is tightly bonded to Apple hardware. Apple should do all within its powers to assure the hardware is nothing less than excellent.
What's immature is the attitude of Apple and policies they set for their admins. Companies should own up to bugs, or at the very least, not squash their discussion. For example, there are plenty of unhappy posts in the below forum (that yes, Nvidia helps moderate) and as far as I've seen, discussion of bugs is never deleted.
f =14
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?
You don't need to sign up for any special accounts that likeely require NDAs and other restrictions to discuss issues you're having.
Depends on your the time zone you have set for the forum. Some people will see that Cmdr Taco was a few hors too slow...
"And if he bought a Dell is it Dell's fault, MSFT's, or Nvidia?"
...if he bought a dell, his nvidia card would work, genius.
"The answer is the same whether you want to admit it or not"
Funny, it doesn't sound the same.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Reality check:
When the stock car stereo in your new Ford emits magic smoke one week after you drive the car off the dealer's lot, do you contact your the Ford dealer network or Delphi?
Of course you know the answer. Not suprisingly, if you buy a Dell it IS Dell's fault. Dell claims to sell computers, not assembly services for a pile of Intel, Nvidia, and Seagate parts. Dell is even obligated to support the majority of the Microsoft software that it "merely" installs on those computers under the terms of the various licenses and supply agreements that it has negotiated. And we're not even discussing Dell, we're discussing APPLE. The mere suggestion that the end user should have to resolve a bug by contacting an OEM parts supplier, however famous, is laughable.
This type of problem of "random things breaking with large amounts of memory" isn't limited to Apple, unfortunately. I've got a Dell that doesn't wake from sleep because of its 2g of memory. They have a fix, but you can't get it publicly, and I haven't forced myself to wait through their tech support to get it from them yet.
The truth is, Apple makes junk and markets it well. Like you would expect an American company to do. All Hollywood, no moon.
File a complaint with BBB, after a while they can't delete history with BBB, you can always post their dealings with customers too, out to dry on the web.
http://bbb.com/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If I buy a Ford, and the Firestone tire fails under warranty, you better believe I will be going back to the Ford dealership to take care of the problem, and not Firestone.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
We've had a kernel panicking MacPro (4GB RAM/ATI 1900) in for AppleCare service for over 8 weeks now, they're still "testing" to figure out what's wrong.
In fact, the bug was written by an out-sourced company in Taiwan. Did you try contacting them? Obviously Nvidia isn't the right company to contact... No wait, this just in. The bit of code was actually written by Michael Huang, a temp who works for a contracting firm. Please send him a letter describing your problem.
Next week on Slashdot.
I sent Michael Huang a detailed letter describing my problem and he shredded it without responding. Is this any way to treat the customers of your clients customers customer?
I recently bought a mac pro along with the Parallels software so I could run windows as well. Sorry, no go. Parallels wouldn't work on the mac pro. No way will you ever convince me that Apple didn't know that one of their biggest selling points was a dud. Caused kernel panics. It works on the mac book pro but not the tower. Took the parallels software back and the apple rep had never heard about any problems with it.
Next I found that the keyboard has the worst key-bounce since the Shadio Rack Mod I. A bit of searching uncovered the fact that this has been going on a long time and Apple refuses to admit there is a problem or fix it. The best you will get out of them is another keyboard that does the same thing. There is one company that makes a decent replacement and when I tried to get one, they were out of stock indefinitely at the manufacturing level. hmmm.
I got the computer primarily for vector illustration using Adobe Illustrator. Guess what. Adobe Illustrator is completely unstable on the Mac Pro. This is another little tidbit of information that Apple seems to be squelching. I have found that memory management seems to be the main prob. keep the files small and save often. The program tends to go POOF! on a regular basis, but they do give me the opportunity each time to send a message to Apple telling them what slime-balls they are.
The list goes on and on, but my time to write it doesn't. Look...I knew I was buying a new system design and there would be bugs, but I would expect Mr. Jobs to have at least some modicum of professional ethics and be up front about MAJOR problems so people can make informed choices. These aren't small matters. Adobe CS2 and Parallels are two of the biggest selling points for the Mac. Neither one worked, they knew it and they lied about it. simple as that.
Bad drivers, perhaps?
Look, this is not about a person's life and/or our rights. This is NOT that important. Keep things in perspective. All in all, if Apple decided to do this, then more issues will show up. It will come out and be reflected in their attempts to sell more. Besides, I would assume that you like your job AND do not wish to end up in court losing against Apple. And yes, they will win this one.
Besides, this is an easy test. Just submit the same bug by 1000 or more different ppl on this list. Once that happens AND it comes out that it did not make the list, then Apple will either have to admit it and deal with it or simply allow bad PR. In light of how they have treated some of the support issues recently, I am guessing that they do not want to allow this to escalate into another support issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First and foremost messages can be easily lost forever due to software or hardware failures, they can be censored by individuals who want them gone (Nazi Moderation). They also tend to not exist after a finite amount of time due to companies closing up shop or local retention limits. With usenet messages are propogated throughout the planet to thousands of separate stores.
Second using a browser even with all the modern trinkets and features still stinks compared to a real editor/news client.
Third to get answers that people take the time to post publically as a service to others tend to expose you to mounds and mounds of crap due to the proliferation of sites that exist to make money from google adwords.
Fourth categorization and search is much easier with a common protocol vs ad hoc web applications.
Fith access performance and just plain getting crap done factor was generally much higher in the good ole days before PHPBB and similiar technologies.
I know the above is one sided and there are lots of advantages to local systems.
Anyway I remember posting a message to one of the most popular soft phone forums a while back basically saying how stupid they were for allowing hyperlinking to SIP uris that just dial phone numbers without any kind of user say or any way to disable it short of registry hacks. A rediculous, stupid and obvious security problem. My post disappeared 20 minutes later but eventually after many months and lots of counseling I got over it and still use their software :) I figured at least they were smart enough to realize they were being stupid.
nVidia doesn't do Apple drivers. They may have their engineers help write them, but they don't support or distribute them. Apple is solely responsible for supporting the hardware they ship with their systems because they want it that way. You go to nVidia's site you'll find drivers for Windows of all varieties, Linux 32 and 64-bit, FreeBSD, and even Solaris, but no OS-X. So when you have problems with nVidias on OS-X, it's Apple that you need to talk to.
(Couldn't access the article's screen capture - site's bandwidth exceeded.)
I did some googling around, and it appears that Mac Pro systems have been known to Kernel Panic in a number of cases after a memory upgrade. Have you considered that you might have TWO (intermittent) problems?
According to this http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/Mac_Pro/mac_pro _ram.html upgrade memory should have larger heatsinks than standard heatsinked FB-Dimms. It has links to: memory test utilities, ECC correction reports, and most notably:
Questions:
Hope this helps!
How can you give up something which you do not have? Apple users never had the freedom to modify, study and distribute NVidia's copyright code in the first place. Owning an Apple computer does not stop you using, modifying, studying and distributing software which you are entitled to use, modify, study and distribute. The only thing stopping Apple users from writing their own drivers is the fact that they already have access to one which offers substantially more functionality than the FOSS alternatives.
What they actually chose was a machine on which you have fully-featured accelerated 3D graphics with broad software support - it seems they value the freedom to play WoW and have whizzy 3D desktop effects more highly than the freedoms the FOSS alternatives offer.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
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
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You're freaking nuts, and ignorant to boot. DRM was not the reason Apple switched to Intel - there's nothing DRM-specific about the Intel architecture. Apple switched because IBM was not able to deliver a PowerPC laptop chip that met modern performance targets (yes, we all know the G5 was fast, but it also sucked down power and spewed out heat).
And, name me one thing that Apple has done that involves DRM, besides the iTunes Music Store. You can't, because they haven't done ANYTHING. And the music store only has DRM at the insistence of the record labels.
As for the iPhone, I can't argue there - I can only hope that Apple will come to its senses in the next six months, and open it up for public development.
This space intentionally left blank.
How we know is more important than what we know.
ITunes was DRM'ed long before the Intel switch, is still DRM'ed on both PPC and Intel, and doesn't require TPM to operate. So, in actuality, the Intel switch and the DRM issue are completely separate things, not related at all, and has nothing to Apple "going down the Intel DRM path."
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
This seems to indicate that Photoshop runs significantly faster on the G4 compared to the Macbook Pro. (First Google search result for benchmarks macbook pro photoshop)
Using Windows doesn't require you to become a security expert. For God's sake, do you really think those of us running XP are just crashing every 30s, or constantly under attack? Run a router with a firewall. Download security updates as needed. You're fine. Frankly, I find that simply not opening email attachments or visiting certain types of websites keeps a system free of 99% of the potential crap that's out there.
}
#endif
I can't speak to the Mac Pro issue. I'd read about that all over the place so it didn't seem "hidden" to me. But then I read sites like Ars, Slashdot and a few major Apple blogs fairly regularly. So I'm probably not the "typical" case. I never believe sales droids anywhere and personally am surprised anyone would. Having said that though, I've not found Parallels buggy in the least. It is a memory hog. Really, less than 2 GB is too little for anything serious. As for Adobe, that's been written about EVERYWHERE so often that I have a hard time believing that you couldn't find anything on that. Did you do any searching for benchmarks?
The only accounting firms where Macs would fit in culturally are the ones practicing creative, avant-garde methods of accounting, and after the Andersen implosion there are precious few of those left around. My advice to you is to stay true to yourself: stay beige. Don't pretend you're anything else.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/drivers.html
/Sarcasm on
/Sarcasm off
"And you shouldn't have to go off on a scavenger hunt, searching doggedly for device drivers, so that your computer can see and get along with that shiny new peripheral."
"You can have absolute confidence in your Mac because it comes prepared with all the drivers you're likely to need for the peripheral devices one generally connects to computers. Thanks to Mac OS X, they're all there, so you don't have to give it a moment's thought."
So there, WHAT did you do? You went on a scavenger hunt while Apple said you shouldn't and it is very clear that you had NO CONFIDENCE whatsoever in your Mac. SHAME!
But noooo, you had to go and put 3 Gig of RAM in, like your running Vista! So if your having a PC attitude with your Mac, you got what you deserved!
Next time you want to whine about buggy drivers and your OS taking a crap you better be doing it on a PC, tinker boy!
Supporting MS products doesn't mean you have to like them.
Apple has chosen to take responsibility for sole distribution and release and thus support. That's what I mean by nVidia doesn't "do" Apple drivers. For other platforms, they distribute them directly, and they support them. However that's not the case for OS-X. Thus the proper channel to go through is Apple.
Also you'll have to excuse me if I don't trust you because of a random claim you make on the net. If I had a nickel for the number of people on the net claiming to have insider information on something and being full of it... Regardless the point is that telling the person it's not Apple's problem is wrong. It's similar to buying a Dell computer and the harddrive breaks. You don't call Maxtor or WD or whoever made it, you call Dell. They are supporting the whole package.
Your analogy is just wrong. The tires are not part of the mechanics of the car. They can be replaced and have no influence on the mechanics that make the car a car. A problem with a third party mouse would be a fitting analogy to bad tires.
A better analogy would be a problem with an on-board computer in the car. And sure, the person could go to the manufacturer of the on-board computer, but why should they? Ford (my apologies to Ford... but continuing from your analogy) is the vendor of the package that is the car. We don't know what they might have had done to customize it to meet the needs of the specific vehicle design. And maybe it wasn't the on-board computers fault at all. Maybe it was something in the way it was connected or in the communication interface from the rest of the system. As a customer it is not reasonable to be expected to find the answers, so you go to the manufacturer of the car to get them to fix the faulty device. They can deal with the chip manufacturer because you paid the car company for a properly functioning product. The same is true when you purchase anything, including a computer. Just because you can troubleshoot computers you build doesn't mean you should have to when you purchase a computer. That is why you spend the incredibly big bucks that it costs to buy a Mac. It is supposed to work. And they are supposed to give good customer support.
Bottom line is you as a customer should never have to return or troubleshoot a part that makes up a piece of a larger product you purchased. The people who sold it to you (in this case Apple) should take the responsibility to fix it.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.
That's been my experience. When Windows fails, it's usually some strange registry corruption or chunk of spyware, taking down the entire system, and generally, you won't be able to fix it -- or it will be simpler and cheaper to reinstall the OS.
When Linux fails, either it's something in hardware (Linux seems to be more sensitive to bad RAM than Windows, which I consider to be a Good Thing), or it's something easily fixable -- not even by a kernel hacker, but by a competent admin with a little shell scripting ability. Even Gentoo isn't usually that hard to fix.
When OS X fails, it's going to be some annoying little thing. You'll contact Apple about it, they'll get back to you -- sometime this century -- and in the meantime, it'll piss you off enough to want to install Linux, or even Windows (if you're lucky enough to have an Intel Mac -- mine's PPC).
My bug is simple and stupid, and very annoying. My Powerbook has f1 through f10 or so mapped to hardware functions, which is actually quite nice, and I don't know if I'd easily get used to using the fn key to trigger those functions. That is, just hitting f1 would adjust monitor brightness (I think), whereas the alternative is having fn+f1 do that. But it also means that in order to pass it through to apps, or even the OS (other than hardware controls), I have to hit fn... So, to tell Expose to show me all windows, it's fn+f9.
Well, of course that was annoying as hell, and I often used Expose to peek in case something got lost -- my virtual desktops being buggy (still waiting on Spaces), often I'll accidentally move a window to another desktop and have it somehow bury itself under everything. Also, Adium has a habit of opening popup windows of any kind under what you're doing, which is nice, but a few kind of popups in particular don't trigger any notification (no growl, no sound, no duck bouncing in the tray), so the only way to see them is to hit Expose and check under your windows every few minutes to see if, say, someone had invited you to a chat, or sent you a file, or whatever.
So I mapped Expose to cmd+semicolon. Which is very nice on Dvorak, as the semicolon is where Z is on QWERTY -- looking on your keyboard, they are right next to each other (for PC people, that "Windows" key is the cmd key). The only problem is, the OS forgets this mapping every reboot. And, this being a Powerbook, I often just let it sleep -- for weeks at a time -- until an upgrade forces me to reboot, or I feel like showing off the Ubuntu livecd (or trying to get Linux to work again), or whatever. So it's not like this is part of my morning ritual -- boot computer, login, remap Expose. No, this is pretty random, and every time, it annoys the hell out of me.
Well, I submitted a detailed report on this issue. I would paste it here, but after digging up the original email, it seems that Apple places bug reports under a blanket non-disclosure agreement -- so certainly I may not paste their response here. However, I do know how to make a detailed and helpful report.
Their response: It's a known issue, currently being worked on by engineering. On the website, the bug's state is: Dupe. The website also confirms: I submitted this bug on July 25th, 20006. Their reply -- the email basically telling me it was a dupe, and that they're working on it -- came on September 22nd, 2006. As far as I know, the issue has not been resolved.
Frankly, I'm not surprised that Apple has been deleting bug discussion -- I don't know if they actually use their bug database for anything other than reassuring consumers that they know what's going on, but I now know that their standard response to bugs (or any flaw or deficiency) is to bury their head in the sand and pretend it never happened... until they fix the problem, and then claim it was always a good idea, and always what they were planning. Remember how they toted the G5's "Intel-crushing" performance (or was it "Pentium-crushing"? Whatever), before they suddenly switched to Intel, and now they're all a
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It's a toss-up. My new MacBook Pro is much faster than my old PowerBook. On the other hand, my old PowerBook never randomly refused to come out of suspend mode (or, if it did, closing the lid and opening it again fixed it; no data-loss). My old PowerBook didn't ever decide to reboot because I had closed the lid. My old PowerBook didn't kernel panic regularly, telling my that the ATi drivers had broken again (although it did have an ATi GPU). Oh, and my old PowerBook didn't need to run its fans quite so constantly to keep the CPU temperature at a sane level.
An incredible boon? No, just another step on Apple's gradual decline in quality.
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Hahahahah!
Haha. Ha.
My PowerBook was in for repairs twice for over four weeks. They replaced it with a new one the first time because they had lost it at the repair centre. At no point was I offered a loan unit, and they only finally sent me the replacement after I spent over ten hours on their (10p/minute) customer support line.
Oh, and they've now closed the mail-in repair centre in the UK, so you need to take your machine to an authorised third-party repair centre when it breaks. There is only one of these in Wales, so good luck if you live there.
Mind you, if you walk in to the AppleStore in London, you will still be told by the staff on the shop floor that they offer free mail-in repair (it's also in the AppleCare T&Cs). Apparently they didn't bother telling any of their resellers either.
Apple support is a joke. Their machines are fine for home use, but they are way behind even Dell for corporate use (no, we really can't spare a technician for half a day to drive a machine over to the repair centre every time one breaks, and then another half-day to collect it a month later when it's fixed).
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Even when it is enabled it'll take a while for TPM-using software to come out and even longer for content to start using that. You can be pretty sure that TPM does NOT mean that they'll randomly start locking your word documents, it's about DRM and DRM is only used for delivering content into "hostile" territory. Unless you start downloading media from sources that insist on TPM it means exactly nothing.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Don't use the scientology thing to put slashdot down for censorship. When Scientology threatened to sue, they did delete the post, but they then posted a frontpage story about being forced to take the post down that was basically an extended critique of Scientology, complete with a huge list of links to sources about the abuses of scientology, xenu.net links, etc., including links to the very material that they had been forced to remove. The offending material, of course, was reposted in another comment (probably several times over) in the new discussion. The net effect was not censorship at all but a huge expose against scientology that was probably seen by half a million readers. The offending material was removed from a single comment on slashdot where it probably would have been ignored, but links to the same material along with a coherent explanation of many of the things wrong with the church of scientology was posted to the front page where it was read and discussed publicly by a much larger audience than would have ever been exposed to it. It was a victory for free speech, and it's unfair to criticize slashdot for censorship based on that example.
First nvidia chipset for intel had a bug, bit31 of usb memory BAR was not decoded properly so usb could only use memory below 2GB. Nvidia's reference bios would always re-map any physical memory above 2GB to be above 4GB. If apple is trying to use ram above 2GB in the address range of 2GB-4GB and they are using the buggy version of the nvidia southbridge then you can get random hw hangs as the usb controller trashes memory. This is just one of the many serious hardware bugs in this chipset.
I'm running a windows system with 3Gb of memory, and an Nvidia video card. The extra Gb comes in handy when working in Photoshop or Cinema 4D. However, it will cause just about any game you can mention to lock up. I have to have a switch in my boot.ini file so that at system boot up, I can choose a system configuration that works with games and just about everything else, but basically does not use that last gig of RAM at all, or I can choose a configuration that makes the last Gb available, but will not allow any game to function, at all. Cinema 4D, which does use OpenGL rather aggressively, does not seem to tip the graphics driver over in the same way that games do - it must manage memory differently.
W So soft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimero soft Windows XP More Memory" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /usepmtimer
I realize this doesn't have much to do with the original poster's problem (he's on OS X) but it does seem more than coincidental that going past 2Gb of memory causes issues on both platforms, with the only common denominator being the presence of an Nvidia card and associated drivers.
Here is my boot.ini for anyone who has a similar set up and wonders what to do about the issues:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDO
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micr
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micr
planet texture maps and more
The Real Time Zone. Pacific Time. The default time zone of Windows.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
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!
The real time zone is, by definition, the one with the zero offset. All your strange UTC[+-][1-9][0-9]? time zones are clearly derivative.
Time was invented in Britain, at Greenwich, and you colonials should considers yourselves lucky that we let you carry on using it.
Actually, you're the one who is 'freaking nuts' as you like to say. The trusted platform module (tpm) that is an integral part of the intel architecture on both pc & mac.
The TPM is such an integral part of the Intel Architecture no both PC and Mac that it's not even included on the latest Mac hardware, such as the Core 2 Duo iMac, the Mac Pro, or any of the Core 2 Duo portables.
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.
Something other than the truth that is.
Why would you take a screen-capture of a post you made in a forum, unless:
a) You never did, but you instead manipulated an image in Photoshop to make it appear that you did.
b) You posted something that you knew would be removed because it ran afoul of some regulation, and you wanted to turn it into a scandal.
c) Were really REALLY anal about recording your every move you make on the internet so that future generations of internet users had full details of your 773t skillz.
Basically, bring it down to this. Who has more motivation in this instance? Someone with a vendetta against Apple, or Apple risking a scandal?
If a modern Mac is kernel panicking EVER, you've got a serious issue under the hood.
/Library/ folder (which would result in PPC drivers and kexts from your old Mac getting shoehorned into the clean system).
1. You have bad memory
2. You have a f-ed up or non-Intel compatible device driver or kernel extension/prefpane loaded
3. Your OS install is corrupt
I've seen this a ton of times when experienced Mac users get their hands on their new toy. They install their old versions of DiVX, APE, Adobe Bridge, scanner drivers, Quicktime extensions old HP all in one 3 gig "printer drivers" or just do something rash like copying over their entire
Friends don't let friends transplant their cobwebs between machines.
Back up your users folder (and ONLY your users folder), nuke & pave, and use the migration assistant to move the old account over to the clean system. Don't copy them by hand.
Then get the absolute latest drivers for your devices (only get Intel/Universal compiled drivers, prefpanes and kexts) and do NOT install Adobe Bridge CS2.
Do this, and unless you've got crap RAM, you'll have a clean system that doesn't flake out on you.
I almost forgot.
/Applications/Utilities/Console.app and take a look at your crash logs. This will tell you what software is taking down the system if you don't feel like committing to a full nuke & pave (although, to achieve a pristine system you really really really should).
You can go to your
If ATI drivers are coming up and erroring out, they got loaded in there somehow, which means that you have other cobwebs in there deep.
Best of luck,
droog
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