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Final Cut Pro X freezing on top spec new 27" iMac, help!

I finally received my new 27" iMac today and installed all the latest updates and then the latest versions of FCPX and compressor.


Spec of new iMac:


27" Late 2012

3.4Ghz Intel i7

8GB RAM (I also added 16GB of third party RAM to the machine to take it up to 24GB RAM but remove this later)

GeForce GTX 680MX 2048MB Graphics card

1.12TB Fusion Drive (1.09TB free)

OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion


Immediately I noticed performance issues and then it kept freezing whilst running FCPX - the whole OS would freeze resulting in me having to actually turn off the machine and turn it on again. It happened repeatedly so have done all the obvious things but still have the issue.


So far I've tried (with no luck):


- removing the third party RAM

- restarting the computer, multiple times

- making sure everything is up to date

- removing the FCPX preferences

- doing a PRAM and SMC reset

- fully uninstalling and reinstalling FCPX

- running the short and long Apple Hardware Tests (no problems found)


I am working with a large quantity of video files off an 8TB Thunderbolt drive but I've been using FCPX on my old 27" iMac and had no problems with that at all, the spec of that being far less powerful:


27" mid 2011

3.4Ghz Intel i7

8GB Ram

Radeon HD 6970M 1024MB

1TB hard drive


I'm thinking it could possibly be the graphics card or a software issue?


Any help or advice would be great!!!


Thanks!


Jon

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Jan 14, 2013 1:51 PM

Reply
489 replies

Mar 14, 2013 3:37 AM in response to jonuk85

Hello everyone!

I'm still doing tests to improve working conditions, but things get worse instead of better.

I finally got the HD lacie usb 3 D2 3TB Thunderbolt.

I remind you that I have a 1TB fusion drive and worked with small projects only with it.

I connected the lacie hoping to improve speed and stability, but I only made ​​things worse.

To render a clip it took me twice as long (same clips with the same effect).

In addition, the stability is worse because I had more crashes using FCPX Titles owners in particular "Clouds-CinemaLeft-CinemaRight-Pixie Dust"

Without connecting the LaCie HD and moving projects fusion drive in 'internal HD I had the freezing only with Pixie Dust as reported in the previous post ....

I will continue to do more testing and post it here.

Meanwhile, as many of you speak English perfectly why do not you ask this gentleman Philip Johnston acts as its iMac 27 "?

This is the link


http://www.hdwarrior.co.uk/2013/01/28/installing-my-new-27-imac-with-thunderbolt /

Mar 14, 2013 3:54 AM in response to matamatario

@matamatario I read his post on his blog and sent him a comment and asked him to tell us if he has had the same issues and if so to tell us about his workaround if any. The theme in the last posts has taken a trend asking for workarounds. I have not found any other then switching to Premiere Pro. Which is why I no longer contribute or complain, my problems have been fixed...;-) Ok now you can call me a troll.....again!

Mar 14, 2013 10:54 AM in response to jonuk85

Okay, after a few days of working with FCPX on my new top specs iMac, I did not find many major problems with it, except occassional pause for a few seconds on the rendering, It did in fact freeze once or twice when using Motion 5 in conjunction with FCPX. I also have many 3rd party plugins as well as Event Manager and Digital Rebellion Pro Maintenance Tool for my FCPX. Although the speed is faster than my 2010 IMac, it's not running as smooth. So hopefully we will hear from Apple soon.

Mar 14, 2013 11:07 AM in response to jonuk85

I have a top spec iMac 3.4ghz 32gb RAM 3tb FD and 2gb video 8tb Promise Pegasus RAID. FCPX has crashed a few times and seized up the computer as well. Despite these annoyances, I've completed my video project just fine and without much hassle. This iMac is bad to the bone fast and I'm loving it. We'll get a fix so I'm not the least bit worried. Great computer and I have absolutely no regrets.

Mar 14, 2013 2:57 PM in response to mikaelfromsmørum

I just updated to 10.8.3 and started up one of the programs I was having issues with called "Stellarium" I was having all of the same problems as everyone else was with their FCPX. and am testing AE6 as we speak. Stellarium worked amazingly, and before It would freeze and I would have to force restart.


Just put a clip in AE6 and everything ran perfectly fine!


[This concludes my live update]

Mar 14, 2013 7:36 PM in response to onelapse

I have installed 10.8.3 and tested FCP X 10.0.7 on my 3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 iMac with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX. I've completed a 1-hour, title intensive, program with no significant issues since receiving my iMac several weeks ago.


The following are results of applying each title (length 5 seconds each) to a 1080 30p timleline.

  1. default title: 03 secs to render / no other system or app performance issues
  2. Boogie Lights: 05 secs to render / no other system or app performance issues
  3. Ornate: 04 seconds / no other system or app performance issues
  4. Far Far Away (a render hog) :31 secs to render / no other system or app performance issues
  5. Pixie Dust: 3min 27secs to render / complete system freeze at 46% for :45 secs and a complete system freeze at 94% for 1min 15secs.

Without the system freezes it might have only taken 1min 30secs for Pixie Dust to render - which is a very, very long time. The system freezes that occured before 10.8.3 included the cursor freezing and there seemed there was no recovery, even after an hour, apart from a hard restart. Since 10.8.3 the system freezes but the cursor still functions normally. Also, as I indicated above, the system recovers if you are patient and give it a couple of minutes - for a 5 second Pixie Dust title.


This is an improvement for me but I was hoping for more. The 10.8.3 update doesn't mention GPU improvements although that was part of the developer focus in the pre-release versions.

Final Cut Pro X freezing on top spec new 27" iMac, help!

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