Mac Pro Late 2013 USB problems / freezing

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Level 1

69 points

Mac Pro Late 2013 USB problems / freezing

I have a quad-core CPU Mac Pro late 2013 (Model Identifier: MacPro6,1). MacOS X 10.9.5.

I have had all sorts of USB devices hooked up to it. At any one time, I usually have all 4 ports filled. I have a 3TB USB 3.0 disk that stores my large files, a USB mouse and keyboard (logitech with a usb mini dongle), a cable to charge my logitech USB cordless mouse, Lightning cable to my iPhone 5, and other things that I rotate in and out, like CF card reader, Audio Box USB audio interface from PreSonus, Sony Webcam, etc.

About 3 months into having the Mac Pro, I noticed that my keyboard went dead in the middle of using it. The mouse was dead too. I blamed the RF dongle that they both share, because the Apple Magic Trackpad (bluetooth) I have still functioned. Try as I might, I couldn't get the keyboard or mouse to work again, so I used the Magic Trackpad to restart the machine, and then my keyboard and mouse worked again.

It wasn't until later that I realized that all the USB busses on the machine had frozen or "died" temporarily. I realized it later because my USB hard drive complained about being "ejected improperly."

Now I have had the USB die on the Mac Pro at least 15 times over the last month and a half. Usually once every two days or so.

I have tried (almost one by one) using some of the USB devices on the mac, and removing others to ascertain if it's a certain USB device that is causing this. But the odd thing is that I never get a message from the OS like "xxx USB device is drawing too much power."

I'm going a little nuts here because I cannot see any rhyme or reason to the USB interface lock ups. And each time it happens, all the USB devices go dead until I restart. Sometimes, I'm able to SSH into the machine from my iPhone and issue a "shutdown -h now" and even though I see the Mac OS X UI shutdown, it never fully halts. I often have to hold the power button to get the machine to turn off.

I really can't say if it's software related, hardware related or what. I've tried to watch my workflow carefully to see if anything seems to make a pattern, but nothing yet.

Any suggestions? Is anyone else seeing behavior like this? Do we think it's a USB device... or is my Mac Pro flakey?

Thanks!

OS X Mavericks (10.9.3), Accessibility

Posted on Sep 23, 2014 8:45 PM

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Answer 1

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Sep 24, 2014 4:53 AM in response to Cheule

Sounds like a problem USB device/cable. I would disconnect one cable and see it it still occurs and then if no chang plug that one back in and unplug another

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Answer 2

Cheule Author

Level 1

69 points

Sep 24, 2014 6:02 AM in response to lllaass

That's good advice, and I've been trying to do that to no avail. Nothing has proven to be "the" device. Right when I think "aha! it was the Audio interface box" and remove that item, the problem happens again without the item even attached.

Something else I've been noticing, is that when I sleep the Mac Pro, and then wake it the next morning, I'm often greeted to a "Your Hard Drive was not ejected properly" (referring to the USB drive where I store large files). But the drive is still mounted and seem fine upon wake. I'm really starting to wonder if it isn't the Mac itself.

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

61,001 points

Sep 24, 2014 7:25 AM in response to Cheule

3TB drive is likely green and parks and sleeps on its own regardless of settings and drops out.

Is it self-powered? I would try to avoid any drive that isn't unless Thunderbolt.

All USB devices work off one single controller so they aren't isolated.

For storage, limit the number of USB drives and consider using Thunderbolt for some.

Not only remove the device but any drivers associated with it also.

Are you using a hub?

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Answer 4

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Sep 24, 2014 7:40 AM in response to Cheule

To keep drive "alive" try this app:

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/31158/keep-drive-spinning

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Answer 5

Cheule Author

Level 1

69 points

Sep 25, 2014 5:48 AM in response to The hatter

I was using a hub, so I immediately removed that upon the first issues. But the USB has still frozen after the removal of the hub. The HD is a self powered G-Tech drive. I'll have to play around a bit more will all of your suggestions this weekend.

I woke up the computer just now to check the discussion, an am greeted with a notification from Mavericks that the "Disk Not Ejected Properly. (Eject disk before disconnecting or turning it off)" which the disk is still connected, and the usb seems to still work fine. In fact I was able to unplug the USB cable for the G-Tech HD, and then replug it in, everything reappeared fine. The USB bus was not frozen (this time).

But it's this kind of flakiness that has me coming and going. I haven't (yet) been able to identify whether the USB is the problem or the driver or a third thing I haven't figured out...

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Answer 6

lllaass

Level 10

210,459 points

Sep 25, 2014 5:50 AM in response to Cheule

I would try with the self-powered HD isconnected. Self powered (powered from the USB bus) HDs seems to cause problems.

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Answer 7

Cheule Author

Level 1

69 points

Sep 25, 2014 7:17 AM in response to lllaass

Sorry, we had a slight miscommunication. When I said "self powered" I really meant that the drive has it's own power supply. So perhaps I misunderstood that term. This drive is in its own enclosure with its own power supply. The USB interface is for communication only.

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Answer 8

The hatter

Level 9

61,001 points

Sep 25, 2014 7:35 AM in response to Cheule

What I heard was that most of the time trouble is with BUS POWERED devices - not "self" powered and might glaze over the distinction when it has its own brick or PSU built in.

The way that Green drives combined with USB interface, which does have its own issues, and oddly a WD Passport (bus powered) might work fine on a laptop like MacBook Pro but not on Mac Pro (any model).

Some Mac Pro 2009-2012 using PCIe USB3 cards, vendors like Sonnet do not support anything but hard drives, no other devices or hubs. It can get to be a bit of a mess!

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Answer 9

futreras

Level 1

5 points

Jan 8, 2015 2:00 PM in response to Cheule

I have the same problem. MacPro late 2013 6 cores, usb logitech mouse with usb dongle, usb keyboard, usb Lace hd. The USB ports freezes. The only way to restart is with hardware turn off or with bluetooth mouse. Have you solve the problem? It seems to be similar than mine.

Thanks

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Answer 10

Cheule Author

Level 1

69 points

Jan 8, 2015 2:58 PM in response to futreras

I actually did finally fix it! I saw the end of my 1 year watranty approaching, so I did some desperate web searching and found someone with a similar problem. They had contacted apple support, who told them to "wipe the machine clean, and install OS X fresh." It sounded ridiculous to the poster, since the problem existed from the time the machine was unboxed, but surprisingly it worked for them.

So in a Hail Mary pass, I backed up my system with time machine, formatted the SSD, held down cmd+R to enter internet recovery, and then installed a fresh from Apple version of 10.10.1, and all my usb problems have been gone for over three weeks!

One further note, I did use migration assistant to get my system back to the way I had it. I restored from time machine, excluding the system settings. I did, however, copy all applications and user folders back.

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