Erratic lockups on 10.3, I'm new! Help!
So, I've had my Powerbook - my first Mac - for about 1½ weeks now. I love it! It's perfect in every regard. Except one.
Sometimes the entire OS just freezes. The multi-colored swirling vortex of terror (the 'working' cursor in other words) appears and the music stops. I can move the mouse, but I can't do anything. No matter what key combination I try, nothing happens.
Then after about 30 seconds the music starts playing again for 5-8 seconds and the stops once more. Rince and repeat. So far I haven't seen it get back on track, and I usually have to do a hardboot.
Strange thing is that the screen goes into powersave mode after a little while, and a little later it turns itself off entirely.
What - to - do?!
What can I possibly do to stop this insanity!?
Sometimes the entire OS just freezes. The multi-colored swirling vortex of terror (the 'working' cursor in other words) appears and the music stops. I can move the mouse, but I can't do anything. No matter what key combination I try, nothing happens.
Then after about 30 seconds the music starts playing again for 5-8 seconds and the stops once more. Rince and repeat. So far I haven't seen it get back on track, and I usually have to do a hardboot.
Strange thing is that the screen goes into powersave mode after a little while, and a little later it turns itself off entirely.
What - to - do?!
What can I possibly do to stop this insanity!?
Comments
Originally posted by Eudaimic
So, I've had my Powerbook - my first Mac - for about 1½ weeks now. I love it! It's perfect in every regard. Except one.
Sometimes the entire OS just freezes. The multi-colored swirling vortex of terror (the 'working' cursor in other words) appears and the music stops. I can move the mouse, but I can't do anything. No matter what key combination I try, nothing happens.
Then after about 30 seconds the music starts playing again for 5-8 seconds and the stops once more. Rince and repeat. So far I haven't seen it get back on track, and I usually have to do a hardboot.
Strange thing is that the screen goes into powersave mode after a little while, and a little later it turns itself off entirely.
What - to - do?!
What can I possibly do to stop this insanity!?
I have used a Mac for many years and never experience this problem. What i would recommend is thinking about what you do before it happens. My computer has only required a restart (as in a proper freeze) about five times (I've had it over a year) and almost every time it was when i was importing music into iTunes and there was a problem with the song or something. Anyway, think about what you were doing, also try the Command - Option - Esc key combination, if that doesn't work and it still keeps on crashing I'd re-install the software after backing up your files, i hope this helps, if you want to be more specific with what you were using I'll have another go.
This leads me to a question, What OS are you using? I know you said you had not had this computer very long but I figured there is still a chance in you using jag. So?
Well I do have a few things installed here and there. But I can't pinpoint anything specific that I was doing when it happened. Other than perhaps the fact that iTunes was playing...
I have Synergy for iTunes running all the time, but I would hate to have that be the problem since I love it
Basically, unless you see the "kernal panic" screen, the entire OS hasn't crashed, just one of the apps. Although you can't select any menus or push any buttons from within the crashed apps, you can still switch apps be either clicking on another open window (or the Desktop) or by clicking on another app in the Dock. Once in the other app (or in the Finder), all the menus and controls work again, and you can kill the offending, crashed app from the Dock (control-click on its icon and choose Quit) or from ForceQuit (under the Apple Menu). Then relaunch the killed app and get back to work.
Again, sorry if this is obvious to you, but it seems to be very non-obvious to most people who are new to OSX.
Originally posted by Towel
Again, sorry if this is obvious to you, but it seems to be very non-obvious to most people who are new to OSX.
I'll make sure the next time it happens (if it happens again), but I seem to remember trying everything from apple-tab to exposé and what have you, and nothing seemed to do anything. Neither did apple-alt-esc...
what happens is that everything going on just stops, except the mouse cursor. after 5-10 minutes things come back for a short while, then hang again, and finally, IME, everything comes back within 15 minutes.
Every time this has happened to me, RAM usage was normal before and after, and top didn't seem to think any process was hogging the CPU.
I haven't pinpointed it to anything. It just hasn't happened since 10.3.2, but I haven't used my Mac that much since the update either. Which OS are you running?
1) Zap PRAM - You restart your Mac. Immediately following the startup tone, you hold Command (Open Apple), Option, P, and R keys until you hear another startup tone.
If this suggestion alone does not help (may not from what u describe), you can try the following things also.
2) Seek out and download the "Cache Out X" application. It zaps all your major Caches that could have become corrupt.
I bet this (# 2) fixes it up for you...
3) Run FSCK - Restart Mac while holding the S and Apple keys, then type what it tells you to type followed by a space and -f to force it to run with Journaling enabled (since I assume you have not [nor should you] turned it off)
OK sorry...
My gf is rushing me, or I'd write more here for you to try.
If you do find you need to perform a clean install, you should be sure to only install additional applications and haxies (if you really must...) one at a time. Then you can run with the system a while to be certain all is stable.
good luck!
I believe it's Age Of Mythology, it never seem to like when I switch back and forth between applications a lot. I don't get the a kernal panic but everything locks up, music stops, and I can't even switch apps. Like I said I only notice that it happens when I'm playing Age of Mythology and either recently have, or am switching applications.
Any suggestions to help with this? I guess I'll just try some of the normal stuff, though I don't see how zapping the PRAM or clearing chache would help.
Happy New Year everyone, thank you for your support so far. However I still have the problem
In fact I have it sitting here next to me (which means I'm typing this on my Windows machine, irk!). The clock says 21.46 on the PB and 13.16 on my Windows machine, it is still locked, you do the math.
What I'm going to do is simply wipe it. Quite an annoyance since that means I have to regenerate a lot of system settings when I have it back online, but thankfully I can backup my home directory to my PC.
I guess I might hold off on 10.3.2 for a while and see if that's what's causing the trouble.