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.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

mac pro late 2013 freezes with spinning wheel

i bought a mac pro (late 2013) 50 days ago, os is yosemite 10.10.3. I often get the spinning wheel of death and the mac freezes, i.e. it doesn't react to mouse click or keyboard. it happens on average 1 time a day. When it happens i have to restart the machine by pressing the computer's power button.

I have already contacted apple support by phone, i have made many reset operations under their control, but nothing changed.

After the restart, when i examine the console log the last message before the reboot is often the following one

windowserver: surface testing disallowed updates for 10 sequential attempts

By searching this message on google i found that the problem might be related with the energy saving settings, i.e. it happens when the mac wakes from sleep. So i changed those settings to prevent the mac going on stop state, and today the problem did not happen, but i'm not sure what wil happen tomorrow ... so i'm looking for information/advice about this kind of problem.

Mac Pro (Late 2013), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on May 16, 2015 12:19 PM

213 replies

Franz71

Level 1

0 points

Dec 9, 2015 10:25 AM in response to mauro16

Hello to all,

I too have similar problems for several months!

The problem occurs especially while working with FCPX and connected HD (Thunderbolt or USB).

There may be several days where everything works perfectly, then start doing the defect and there is no reset that can make it work.

The symptoms, in sequence:

- Begins to disappear / cawing sound (if I change output is restored for a moment but then disappear again)

- The bluetooth mouse disconnect and reconnect every 30 seconds

- At worst they start to disconnect USB devices, including keyboard

Even in the absence of the above symptoms, the graphics (play, rendering, etc.) are very slow but, again, there may be days that everything goes perfectly!

Sometimes the trigger is a simple sound system (or an audio from a video of Safari)

Obviously I tried all the possible combinations: cable mouse, other monitors, keyboard, several HD, etc ... everything!

I also tried installing on a external drive with El Capitain, but exactly the same fault!

Reading the forum I understand that the situation is very serious.

Now my MacPro is in service from 20 days (!!!). They also tell me that they are deficient in parts and I'll have to wait another week. And I fear that the problem will not be solved!

It 'a very great problem, very serious!!!

(Ps. My MacPro is out of warranty ...)

Dec 9, 2015 10:30 AM in response to Franz71

I can confirm as stated earlier that this issue is consistently reproducible by setting the screensaver to 'Flurry', setting your computer to never sleep and letting the screensaver run for any length of time (6-48 hours in my experience). The display will eventually freeze yet the computer is still actually running. I can ssh into it, ping, etc. Disconnecting the Thunderbolt Display and connecting it to a different Thunderbolt port will make the system come back to life although it will be very slow requiring a reboot.

Franz71

Level 1

0 points

Dec 10, 2015 12:15 AM in response to mauro16

I have written to major blog (9to5mac.com, appleinsider.com) describing the major problem. Write you too, maybe it's the only way to get noticed by Apple.

It can become a MacPro-gate!!!

Dec 10, 2015 6:55 AM in response to mauro16

Dear mauro16,

I think that I have found a workaround to fix problem, I have made 15 days to continuous work without freeze.

You may be having an issue on your computer that is a result of a bug in OS X that affects OS 10.8 and higher.

You can try the following to see if it helps:

From Applications/Utilites, launch Terminal.

In the Terminal type:

sudo nvram boot-args="dart=0x0"

and when it asks for your password, enter your password.

Then restart your Mac.

Please let me know this goes.

Max

Dec 10, 2015 6:59 AM in response to maxcarella

what is dart, and why does setting it to zero change anything?

Dec 10, 2015 7:15 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I don't know why. This workaround is sent me from Metric Halo Support.

They tell me that is a parameter about protection NVRAM limit Bandwidth of a thunderbolt connected devices (such HD, and audio cards).

Let me know if it fix the freezing. In my case it helps me.

Max

shing123

Level 1

8 points

Dec 10, 2015 7:30 AM in response to maxcarella

newest update to 10.11.2 was no help. crash within 10 mins of restarting. Really regret getting the macpro. All 6 cores are of little use. A xeon computer that crashes unpredictably. good grief

Dec 10, 2015 7:32 AM in response to shing123

Let me know if the fix that I have indicated in thread helps you...

Max

Dec 10, 2015 10:17 AM in response to maxcarella

I had been looking for just such an option. I'll give this a shot later today and report back if there's any success. Thanks!

Dec 10, 2015 11:21 AM in response to mauro16

IPv6 should be set to "link-local only" if available. Bonjour uses it to find local devices such as Printers on your local network.

If IPv6 is not ON, it will not interfere with anything, and working harder to shut it off is not productive.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 10, 2015 12:00 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

maybe i forgot to update the thread aboout this, i tried any possibile setting of ipv6, and always had the freezing.

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 10, 2015 12:18 PM in response to maxcarella

I might probably try what you suggest, sooner or later. But one question is: if this in my case were to worsen things, how would i restore the former settings?

Currently i have installed windows 10 on the mac pro and it works quite fine, the problem is just when i shut down the mac and then boot it again. Typically in the period right after the boot the mac shows instability, that is usually it reboots itself one time and that's all (at times there might be a second self-reboot and/or some driver crash). Then it works for days and days without any driver crash, reboot or other problem. Now it's 8 days it works without problems, but i know the next time i reboot it i will have this instability.

Another small problem is that with windows the system is very slow to wake from sleep (it usually takes more than 1 minute, so i often prefer not to put it in sleep mode). I tried to change the energy saving options but could not solve this problem.

Dec 10, 2015 12:56 PM in response to mauro16

Several pro audio manufacturers are recommending this solution to audio dropouts in Yosemite:

Intel CPU's include a virtualization technology called VT-d that allows the OS to prevent I/Odevices from accessing areas of memory outside the area allocated to them by the OS. OS X 10.8.2 introduced a bug that can cause crashes when VT-d is enabled. Apparently the bug is even more troublesome in Yosemite.

The fix is to disable VT-d by entering the following command in Terminal, then restarting the Mac:

sudo nvram boot-args="dart=0x0"

This change is reversible by deleting the boot-args parameter in nvram, which you can do by entering the following command, then restarting:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Max

mauro16 Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 10, 2015 1:41 PM in response to maxcarella

does this apply also to El Capitan? Are you using yosemite or El Capitan? I have El Capitan 10.11.1 on the Mac side, it's at least 40 days i don't even use mac os.

Dec 10, 2015 2:06 PM in response to mauro16

yes The bug affects also el captain

mac pro late 2013 freezes with spinning wheel