shashin'ka
Level 1 (13 points)
Desktops

Q: Mac Pro (late 2013) freezing issues

Hello,

  I bought a couple of years ago a brand new fantastic Mac Pro, but in just few months I started thinking that I made a terrible choice.

 

The computer freezes very often since I've updated it to El Capitan, but it was difficult to work on Adobe Premiere since from the very beginning: ridiculously slow, three hours to render a 4 minutes clip.

 

I contacted the Apple Store, they kept it for a week, they told me that it passed all the hardware’s tests and they found nothing bad.

The mac still hangs. SO FRUSTRATING.


 

I work on Photoshop most of the time, but I experience the "freeze" even simply browsing folders with finder or visiting a website on Chrome or watching movies. I unplugged every usb/firewire device, the mac still freezes. I repaired disk permissions but reports seem ok.

 

I started with Mavericks, I upgraded to Yosemite, I reinstalled from scratch El Capitan.

 

But nothing actually changed related to the freezing issue, every once and then (sometimes up to 8 times a day) I need to force a reboot using the power button, because everything is frozen.

The trackpad and the pen tablet (a Wacom Pro Medium) are frozen, no key is accepted.  

 


Apple has determined that graphic cards in some late 2013 Mac Pros may cause video issues -no video, system instability, freezing- but it seems that only the AMD FirePro D500/D700 GPU are affected (I have the basic model with a D300).

Do you have any hint?? Is there anything I can do to understand what's wrong??


 

I wish I could be able, at least, to reproduce the issue, but sometimes it needs days between a "freeze" and another. Crash reports are not generated either, this is one of the Console error messages that I could find:

      WindowServer[176]: GPU Driver appears to be hung (over 5 continuous seconds of unreadiness)


 

I'm a professional photographer and working is very unproductive and frustrating. I'm loosing time clients money and my temper, and I'd like an answer from Apple about this.

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 26, 2016 9:30 AM

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shashin'ka

Q: Mac Pro (late 2013) freezing issues

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  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Aug 26, 2016 10:01 AM in response to shashin'ka
    Level 10 (188,131 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 26, 2016 10:01 AM in response to shashin'ka

    Seems like it could be because of graphics hardware problem.

    have you looked at this long-running discussions:

    mac pro late 2013 freezes with spinning wheel

  • by shashin'ka,

    shashin'ka shashin'ka Aug 27, 2016 3:23 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (13 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 27, 2016 3:23 AM in response to lllaass

    Thanks Illaas,

    my Mac Pro passed all the hardware tests so I haven't had my D300 graphic cards replaced.

    I’ve been reading many and many posts during these months, included the one you kindly linked above: the issue seems to be exactly the same for all the users, but the answers or suggestions range over a variety of disparate causes: it might be a hardware issue / driver issue / graphic cards issue / overheating issue / usb ports / energy saving settings / ‘displays have separate spaces’ option….. in other words: it could be anything. And I couldn’t find a single case in which the issue would have been fixed since 2014 until now.


    When I explained the problem to the Apple Support I also reported the testimonies I found online: they replied saying that forum discussions are not to be trusted, and that they can’t rely on them.

    I’ve produced evidence of my last 48 reboots by filming the monitor with my cell phone, in order to show something concrete the next time I’ll go back to the Apple Store. But I’m afraid they’ll say that might be due to some device, or some application I’m running, or something else, and still that my Mac Pro is ok.


    I just can’t believe that in almost two years Apple hasn’t answered, considering that this computer has been created essentially for a professional use and aimed at video editing. The Repair Extension Program Apple unofficially launched in February (source: MacRumors) was meant for just some D500 and D700 graphic cards: I wonder why, since the issue concern the D300 too.

  • by albertouch,

    albertouch albertouch Sep 10, 2016 10:55 AM in response to shashin'ka
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 10, 2016 10:55 AM in response to shashin'ka

    I'm exactly in the same position. I got my D300 replaced and still experiencing freezings. They seem not to know what causes the problem. Frustrated and helpless.