When does your Apple computer crash?
But for a few exceptions, my friend's 500 MHz DVD/CD-R iBook with 256 MB RAM (my primary computer until I purchase a new Powerbook following the Keynote in 11 days) *never crashes.* However, it crashes consistently from a few things I do, all of which have to do with the 1/8" audio-video jack.
For the purposes of the following descriptions, Cable #1 refers to the white 1/8" mini-to-red/white/yellow composite cable I purchased at the Apple Store. Cable #2 refers to a standard black 1/8" mini-to-red/white stereo cable that one uses to hook up a portable CD player to a home stereo receiver.
1) Attempting to plug Cable #1 into the audio-video port while the Apple DVD player is running. This crashes the DVD player but I am able to force-quit it.
2) Attempting to plug Cable #2 for listening to CD's _WITHOUT_ causing the machine to think it's Cable #1. Symptoms: the screen flickers as it does when I plug Cable #1 into it for watching DVD's on TV, only it's not Cable #1. I must plug Cable #2 in quickly in order for the screen _not_ to flicker for a moment as it does when I plug in Cable #1, and occasionally this causes the machine to lock up completely with a grey screen and no force-quit available.
Is anyone else having these similar crashes? What about any others?
Regards,
PEte
For the purposes of the following descriptions, Cable #1 refers to the white 1/8" mini-to-red/white/yellow composite cable I purchased at the Apple Store. Cable #2 refers to a standard black 1/8" mini-to-red/white stereo cable that one uses to hook up a portable CD player to a home stereo receiver.
1) Attempting to plug Cable #1 into the audio-video port while the Apple DVD player is running. This crashes the DVD player but I am able to force-quit it.
2) Attempting to plug Cable #2 for listening to CD's _WITHOUT_ causing the machine to think it's Cable #1. Symptoms: the screen flickers as it does when I plug Cable #1 into it for watching DVD's on TV, only it's not Cable #1. I must plug Cable #2 in quickly in order for the screen _not_ to flicker for a moment as it does when I plug in Cable #1, and occasionally this causes the machine to lock up completely with a grey screen and no force-quit available.
Is anyone else having these similar crashes? What about any others?
Regards,
PEte
Comments
I basically never crash at all.
Also, and i've seen others report this too...my desktop goes all funky when the cable is unplugged. The icons stack on top of each other, and the desktop switches to the original blue wallpaper until I reboot.
Strange stuff. Hopefully Jag will fix this all. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
I have an iBook 600mhz 14inch 384MB ram.
Has happened a couple times just out of the blue also, with a few apps running. I have no clue what the problem could be
I also have some probs when I have my stereo hooked up through the video/audio jack. Messes with audio at times.
I've had a few Kernel Panics, mostly with external peripherals, but other times with connecting to windows machines on my lan. Less now though.
<strong>i get often TOTAL OS AND COMPUTER freezes while playing games, especially StarCraft. Its happened to me with RtCW, Quake 1, 2, 3.</strong><hr></blockquote>Are you SURE it's the "total OS and computer"? Or could it just be the window manager? Or could it be that just that game froze the UI?
I suggest you run Andrew Welch's <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=14756&db=mac" target="_blank">escapepod</a> and try a force-log-out the next time your Mac hangs. escapepod has saved me twice when it appeared that the computer was totally hosed.
[ 07-07-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
...almost a year now
And AI just happens to be excruciatingly slow right now.
When the games crash, I cant do a damn thing. Nothing moves, no key combos seem to work, and to be honest I dont remember how to reset OS X through Telnet and all that.
I have the crash/log monitor to keep track of ALL crshing apps, but honestly havent been bothered enough to look at the logs to see if it recorded what happened when StarCraft and Quake and such crashed.
Obviously though, some of the beta apps I have installed on my computer will quit unexpectedly from time to time.
I run Mac OS X v. 10.1.5 on both of my computers:
PowerMac G4 400MHz - 192MB
PowerBook Pismo 400MHz - 192MB
Having OS X has significantly increased my productivity level and that "wow" factor when showing it off to my PC buddies.
<strong>I just had Snapz Pro X f*ck up my dock... and now my dock doesn't have magnification anymore. It doesn't even list the name of the icon the mouse is over...</strong><hr></blockquote>Actually, that Dock bug isn't related to Snapz. Believe me, I've encountered just about every Dock bug imaginable.
My suggestion:
Use either ProcessViewer or Terminal to kill th Dock process. The Dock should automatically re-launch. Alternatively, you could just log out and back in.
<strong>
My suggestion:
Use either ProcessViewer or Terminal to kill th Dock process. The Dock should automatically re-launch. Alternatively, you could just log out and back in.</strong><hr></blockquote>
If you use <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=11295&db=mac" target="_blank">TransparentDock</a> (even if you don't want the transparency), you get a few additional menu options when you ctrl+click on the separator between apps and docs. There's one for 'Quit'. If the dock is responsive to clicks, that should do it a little easier than starfleet's suggestions.
This is a real common problem, but it seems like people are afraid to talk about it. I have been tracking it for several months now. I assume that when your lockup happens, it just loops a second of music over and over. Unfortunately remote login does not even work, so your computer is dead until you hit the reset button. Just for the record, this problem was first thought to only affect Sawtooth G4's with Radeon cards, but I have seen people describing these symptoms with everything from G3 imacs with Rage 128s to G4 towers with Radeon 7500's (me) to new iMacs with Geforce2mx cards. It seems to affect virtually every Carbon OpenGL game. My speculation is that the underlying problem is NOT hardware at all, but that certain hardware configurations increase the likelihood of the crash. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to track because the crashes are so random. And anyone who may be able to help will just say you have bad RAM. Hopefully Apple will come up with an answer in 10.2.
Crashes? Yes, 3 on Friday trying to play Diablo II for an hour.