Diagnosing cause of kernel panic on a Mac Pro

>> I am howver hesitant to put any more investment into the platform. I've lost a lot of confidence in the Mac Pro platform and may seek alternatives altogether in Windows/Linux.

At no less than 6 crashes in the last 24 hours I fully concur. I had one crash in a few minutes just after a previous one with NOTHING but E-Mail and Safari open. In fact all 6 crashes were NOTHING but E-mail, Safari and Firefox.

I too seem to be experiencing the *increasing* frequency. (That could be due to file system dings as the crashes happen - it seems my disks are grinding more and more with each sucessive crash)

Does anyone have a triple monitor setup with Mac that actually works?

I am in a period of retrospection - all I need is a stable, reliable platform so I can work and Apple is no longer somethign I would bet my lunch on let alone my life. A huge fall from grace in my books.

Does anyone have a triple monitor setup with Mac that actually works?

One that does not include BOTH 10.8 AND Two GT120 cards seems to work fine. (e.g., 10.7 OR one 5770 card)

I too am in the same boat, I've enjoyed my time with Apple products but after spending several thousand quid on a Mac Pro a few years ago and numerous thousands on various apple devices for the family (2 x Mac Book Pro's, 2 x Mac Book Airs, 4 x Phones and Apple TV's) I feel its time to /wave goodbye and move on.

There hasnt been so much as a knowing nod to suggest its going to be resolved.

Time to go back to the nasty Windows world, at least you dont feel so bad when they die as they were cheap to start with. Android is looking quite grown up now (I'm happy with my Nexus 4) and I dont need a million apps and thus the security that comes with the App store and iTunes store.

As soon as these devices expire (which at this rate wont be long with the reboots) I'll be offski.

Does anyone have a solution to this? ...Or do we wait for an update that will fix it?

I keep forgetting that I can't look at Flash video anymore - and then: stutter/stutter/freeze!

I use to feel that way, but with the support for GTX we've seen in Mountain Lion, and my personal take is that Nvidia had their hands full and engineering slowdown trouble with the rollout of the GTX 680 line a year ago... they still aren't perfect and less $$ being spent on PCs had an effect.

EVGA Mac Edition GTX 680 $599

http://www.evga.com/articles/00730/

http://www.evga.com/products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-3682-KR

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1565735

Intel also is finding their work cut out, more engineering and R&D to absort.

10.8.3 and the Mac Editioin 7950 and now GTX Titan I was thinking that there is an attempt to turn a corner.

I've had it with PCs and Lion is the first Mac OS in a while - and gutting PowerPC was a good thing.

Windows 8 I am fine with but it does not have the feeling and responsive quality. My Mac Pro 1,1 is still solid and 7 yrs old. I'll probably buy the next model when it comes out. I'm tired of building PCs too - think they ship with good BIOS or firmware and that they work? I don't. Not when i read about S3 issues and trouble here and there.

I do wish there were two 8-pin aux connectors available, or a 6 and 8. Graphic support has been weak. It would be funny if the rumors are even close to true.

andrew_smith wrote:

Does anyone have a solution to this? ...Or do we wait for an update that will fix it?

I keep forgetting that I can't look at Flash video anymore - and then: stutter/stutter/freeze!

Andrew, do you have some evidence to suggest that the problem is Flash related?

Last week my hard drive died, so I replaced with SSD and fresh install of ML hoping this might fix either this KP issue (I have 3 GT120s and 3 cinema grand monitors) or the ML monitor arrangement memory problem:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4157760?answerId=21748543022#21748543022

Alas, both problems persist. ML runs fine on my iMac and MacBook Pro. I'm not willing to abandon the platform simply because a 3rd party video card from the Leopard era no longer works in ML.

Instead, I'm willing to replace my GT120s. I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has a hardware configuration that supports multiple monitors in ML on a 2009 MacPro

Anecdotal. Viewing a Flash video – is when I have tended to crash. Viewing the same video as html5 in Safari (an option under 'Develop > User Agent > iOS 5.1 – iPad') does not cause a crash. Could be coincidence or a combination or cumulative.

Processor 2 x 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB – 2x 24-inch, Late 2008 (1920 x 1200)

Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)

Even with this problem, Macs are still more stable than they used to be.

Cryptomagic:

The immense frustration here is that this is not as you say an issue with a 3rd party video card from the Leopard era. One of the great selling points and tradeoffs of the Mac platform has always been accepting a lockdown over 3rd party hardware options in exchange for stability. The GT120s were the standard cards sold by Apple straight from the Apple store. It isn't as if they have a million different cards they need to test their software against.

As for replacing the GT120s with a modern card, that is an annoying but perhaps necessary option. However, there are no indications that it will fix the problem or that Apple wont continue to abandon this platform rendering your new hardware investment immediately obsolete.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4279 talks about display configurations for various Mac Pros.

I have 3 24" Cinema displays. I see 3 options for my Early 2009 Mac Pro:

1. Use a single Radeon 5770 and try to use the DVI port for the 3rd monitor via an adaptor described here https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4957240
2. Use a single Radeon 5770 and try to use one of my GeForce 120 cards for the 3rd monitor.
3. Use 2 Radeon 5770s but it's not clear (to me) from this article that this will work on an Early 2009

Grant, Hatter, you folks seem to be the experts. What do you suggest? FWIW, I use my Mac Pro for Rails and iOS development and occasional Photoshop work.

WE have had people remove and replace the GT120s with GT120 + ATI 5770 or just 5770 and you can use two 5770s.

Caught me by surprise to read as people dug into troubleshooting their issues that OS X dropped support along the way for multiple 120's.

Apple also dropped support - now back - for more than 80GB RAM too. Some dropped down to 64 but some people really do run with 96 and 128GB (some is not available and used for virtual ram disk unless you install OS X Server)

Some features in Mountain Lion graphic support are not support on older cards that shipped with early versions of OpenCL / OpenGL. And the changes in performance for 90-% users was that 5770 made noticeable improvement over the 4870.

What was/is "new" at the time are often a year behind current state. Like the 4870 in 2009. Or the GTX 285 . That gap, that Apple "tax" looks less to me today than at any time if the 7950 and EVGA Mac Edition GTX again are any indications. Two strong cards and Quadro 5000 and Titan around the corner.

There are still driver issues with how AMD cards report VRAM used and available and other things

if you follow the discussions and news out there.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/home.php

"Even with this problem, Macs are still more stable than they used to be."

I'm sorry but I can't say stable when my hardrive is having to crash ten times a week. Ok for the third party thing but still, how come they can't fix that or post anything to identify clearly the problem.

****, we are not talking about cheap computers that reads mails and surfs on the web. I'm very worried to get a KP whith an unsaved document on FC or Logic. Fortunaltly that never happened.

zenondelay-

Your kernel panic appears to be caused by a bug in 10.8 that does not properly support multiple GT120 cards in a single Mac Pro.

Work Arounds:

• If you need to connect only two displays, pull out one of the GT120 cards and connect both displays to one card.

• Alternatively, you could install an Apple-firmware 5770 WITH one GT120, or a different Apple-firmware graphics card alone with three or more ports.

• You could install an older version of Mac OS X, such as 10.7, that does not have this problem.

--------

This forum is a User-to-User forum. You are not talking to Apple, Inc when you post here. Apple makes no promise to read these postings, an NEVER responds here.

If you want a response from Apple, Inc, you need to contact them directly through the Genius Bar, Applecare support, or (if you are served by a large corporate or Educational channel) your account tech support manager.

Thanks, Grant + Hatter. Just ordered my 5770. My hopes are high to end this KP ordeal.

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-ATI-Radeon-5770-MC742ZM/dp/B003Z6QH6M

I would have thrown in a WD Black or even better one of the 10K VR which seem to hold up forever and a lot of drives in the last years stopped offering 5 yr warranties and the reliability. The Tai flooding didn't help.

If you suspect a drive, SMART Utility seems to be the go to for bad sectors, SoftRAID for background and better reporting and action on read and write errors.

Between that and multiple backups, I update one of the CCC system backups daily - you should always be current and able to work and prepared.

I have no doubts on the 5770 being a worthy upgrade and will help regardless. And even there, while I don't have specifics, people have reported at times having to get theirs exchanged and the new ones were fine. So they do seem to update even the 5x70s with whatever is going on.

Read your post - got up and headed straight to apple store - grabbed a 5770 and installed it.

Beat the crap out of my system.

Ran three YouTube vidoes full screen - one on each monitor.

Added Netflix to the mix.

Placed the videos on the cracks between the monitors. Moved the web browser windows around mercilessly between monitors. Opened all my "social presense" sites (these are ussualy the last things I visit just before a crash). Ran iTunes. Ran all kinds of Ajax enabled (html5-ish) activity.

No crash...

Rebooted and *** - my monitors are all in the correct order? Wow - I could get used to that 🙂

Been almost 24 hours crash free. Can't prove this is a *fix* but now I'm starting to feel like I don't need to tip-toe through my work day anymore. Given that I was up to a 6 crash a day habit this is startng to feel very very good.

Last night's reboot might have been the first reboot that I actually initiated since January...

I did pick up one comment in the forum - increasing frequency of crashes. Hmmm - why would anything increas in frequency? I ran disk repair and yes there was damage - to be expected with ANY crash so I highly recommend that any of you suffering form this **** also check and repair disks/permissions etc.

So if I crash you'll be the second to know but this is starting to feel like this problem is in my rear view mirror.

Thank you Grant.

Only comment I have is the new card is a tad noisier. Not the end fo the world but I did love the almost silience of my previous hardware config.

My OLD configuration:

My New confiuration:

ATI Radeon HD 5770:

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 5770

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-2

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 1024 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x68b8

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-C0160C-155

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.436

Displays:

DELL3007WFPHC:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: G746H94S265L

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Adapter Type: Apple Mini DisplayPort To Dual-Link DVI Adapter

Adapter Firmware Version: 1.03

DELL3007WFPHC:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: G744H932G5J4

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Adapter Type: Apple Mini DisplayPort To Dual-Link DVI Adapter

Adapter Firmware Version: 1.03

DELL3007WFPHC:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: G746H94S329L

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

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