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Level 1

15 points

iMac 21.5 inch frequent system crashes

In the last month I have noticed a series of sudden computer freeze-ups (like you'd expect on Windows) happening on my Mac when using Safari. The computer is under little to no stress when the freeze occurs, and it's almost always when opening a new tab on Safari, or clicking a link, and then the whole system seizes up. This has never happened in the past but it's happened now 4 times in the past month and I am starting to get worried. I do not pirate any software, and I have a genuine ESET NOD32 antivirus installed and running; I conducted a scan the same day of a crash and it found nothing after a full 4-hour in-depth scan. I'm now wondering if this is a software bug in Safari, or if this could be hardware related...

Is there anywhere in the system I can view event logs, such as Event Viewer on Windows? I want to try and diagnose what the issue is by reading any log I can find. Is there also an application that can determine the cause of a crash that can run in the background while I work?

Info:

iMac 21.5"

Late 2009

3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

4GB DDR3 RAM 1066MHz

1TB Hitachi HDD

256MB ATI Radeon HD 4670

Mountain Lion 10.8.3

Safari 6.0.4 (I believe this issue also happened with 6.0.3)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on May 23, 2013 8:07 AM

22 replies

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

May 26, 2013 8:58 AM in response to Ethanace

And what are these supposed "attacks" that it protected you from? Does it tell you? I don't use "ESET," so I must be getting such "attacks" all the time without even realizing it. I'd sure like to know what I'm missing.

Ethanace Author

Level 1

15 points

May 26, 2013 12:18 PM in response to Linc Davis

I'm assuming they could be hack attempts, or attempts by applications to make unauthorised changes... it doesn't specify nor does it warn me when it actually blocks anything like it does on Windows. According to activity monitor ESET uses 6MB of realtime memory while running in the background. By contrast my Safari frequently uses in excess of 250MB with only two tabs open and no videos.

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

May 26, 2013 12:55 PM in response to Ethanace

Since you don't have any idea what the "attacks" are, and therefore have no way of stopping them, how does this information help you exactly? Do you think your experience is typical, and most Mac users are at the mercy of "attackers" because they don't have the good sense to install ESET? Or do you think you're at some special risk? If the latter, what are you going to do about it -- or are just going to depend on ESET to protect you, indefinitely?

Ethanace Author

Level 1

15 points

Sep 4, 2013 10:34 AM in response to Linc Davis

This is proof that Safari IS the problem, and removing ESET NOD32 has done nothing to solve my problem, despite almost everyone trying to convince me that it was the issue. Safari is currently eating over 1GB of RAM with only one window open and no tabs. NOD32 has no Safari plugins and is using only 40MB of RAM by comparison. Explaination please?

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,221 points

Sep 4, 2013 10:53 AM in response to Ethanace

Ethanace wrote:

This is proof that Safari IS the problem

Is what problem. Safari is using almost two GB of RAM with my setup. That's not a problem.

You said you were experiencing crashes, which would be a problem, but have not posted any crash report or EtreCheck output to help you diagnose anything as I suggested over three months ago.

Ethanace Author

Level 1

15 points

Sep 4, 2013 12:02 PM in response to MadMacs0

I don't know where I can find a crash report when I was not prompted for anything when my Mac crashed or when it recovered. Also this was from months ago and my Mac has not crashed once since I made my original post.

MadMacs0

Level 5

5,221 points

Sep 4, 2013 12:30 PM in response to Ethanace

Ethanace wrote:

I don't know where I can find a crash report when I was not prompted for anything when my Mac crashed or when it recovered.

They are stored in one of three Log folders for about 60 days and can be located with the Console app, but since you say that's no longer your problem, there's no reason to spend any more time on that. Since the subject of this thread is "frequent system crashes" I thought that's what we were talking about.

If you are having issues, I recommend starting a new topic with an appropriate topic and describe what you are seeing.

We have lengthy discussions here all the time about the wisdom of installing A-V software on a Mac and nobody ever changes their mind, so any further discussion of that matter here would simply waste your time and problably everybody else reading this old thread.

iMac 21.5 inch frequent system crashes