You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

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

Feb 10, 2013 2:08 AM in response to mikaelfromsmørum

Agreed. Just Tweeted it to @applenws They have more then 450,000 followers


Have also sent the last 4 updates to this post to my AppleCare and FCPX contact working on this case.


We definetly need to make lot's of noise about this, because it's not moving fast enough, especially for thos that have discarded there old Mac when they received the new monster. These guys are unable to work and Apple needs to take that into consideration and get moving on this.

Feb 10, 2013 4:25 AM in response to le500

I'm sure they will release an update to fix this issue - eventually. But this should have never happened in the first place: you are supposed to test your own software on your own hardware... Plus, we're talking of pro software here, it's not like a stupid game won't work on a stupid iPad. (Oh, shame on me, forgot that these days Apple makes most of its revenue from iOS devices and the pro market doesn't count anymore. Ah well.)

Feb 12, 2013 5:26 AM in response to Hirschkorn

Hey everyone,


just a quick update on this, I emailed the FCPX team asking for some kind of update on the situation and this was the reply:


"It is a known issue and engineers are working on it- that's about all I'm permitted to say.

-Noah"


Another acknowledgment of the issue but no time frame yet on when this will be resolved.

Feb 13, 2013 4:10 AM in response to Hirschkorn

I noted that I forgot to "Clamp" my statement to be confined to apps in need of High Performance.


Fusion drive WILL give the users a speedup when using Mail/safari-category-apps. And that is what it is created for.... Folks who cannot/wont/dont-need-to afford the "true" SSD solution. Which is basically the 95% of all Mac users. So Fusion Drive is fantastic for those (In most cases)....


My assertion was aimed at Pros hauling serious I/O. It is NOT based on ANY reviews by anyone but on my own research. Anyone making a serious living with such apps CAN afford the true SSD solution and should opt for that. Anyone who arent completely relying on such apps to provide monthly bread n butter might be able to deal with the Fusion-Trade-Offs.


I did not want to leave you without someone "officially" talking about this... So - here is a link to one... You SHOULD research this a little deeper yourself, especially if you are in the category of folks who cannot/will-not afford the bad mood fusion drives will give the user in the crave for performance with I/O & Performance-hungry applications.


http://www.zdnet.com/mac-fusion-drive-pro-users-beware-7000006661/



PS --- If you make money with your work... The time trouble-shooting Fusion-Drive performance issues and stress-induced irritations --- is equal to TIME and MONEY. And LOTS of it too. If you make $200 an hour working on a project and you have to spend 5 hours writing on forums to figure out why your full-spec Mac aint cutting to the chase... Then that is $1000 worth of time (If you make less or more == Do the math ).

If you a creative you do NOT want to exit "Creation-Hour" by something as dumb as being agitated over a non-performing (Should-be-performing) brand new gorgeous Mac.


Initially the Fusion drive seems as the cheeper choice. In the end when adding all the trouble-shooting time... One could have bought two new Macs each with a 768GB SSD ;-))))

Feb 13, 2013 4:57 AM in response to Studio Engineer

Hmm... you might be on to something here. Thing is, I won't be using the Fusion drive for editing; I have an external Thunderbolt 8TB G-Drive for that. The internal Fusion will be used just for the OS, apps and multimedia (music, movies, stuff like that). If the first external TB drive won't be enough, I'll buy another one - but I'll never use the internal drive for any work.

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

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.