Spinning Beach Ball of Death in Finder Only

Question

Spinning Beach Ball of Death in Finder Only

Hello Community,

I have a 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 model, still running Snow Leopard and acting as our office server that has been unbelievably great till today. When I started my day, the finder was frozen in Spinning Beach Ball of Death mode After a reboot all seemed well, but within a few minutes the problem arose again. This only affects the finder, not any applications that are running, as I can change to different Spaces, click on any open application and use the application as long as I don't try to involve the finder (for instance by saving the file or opening a new file). Also, I have 4 hard drives in the unit, and 2 of them have Snow Leopard installed, so I can start from either of two completely separate installations of Snow Leopard on different hard drives and still have the same problem. This makes me pretty confident my problem is hardware based, and I'm thinking maybe the memory chips are starting to go? The unit doesn't have Apple Hardware Diagnostics on it anymore due to my upgrade to Snow Leopard years ago, so I haven't been able to run that. Any ideas?

Thank you all...

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Late 2008 Mac Pro

Posted on Oct 9, 2018 6:03 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

128,335 points

Oct 10, 2018 12:16 PM in response to StrummerHummer

Mac Pro with Xeon Processor has error Correcting Code RAM memory. It works perfectly, until it halts with an uncorrectable error.

User Tip: Mac Pro and Error Correcting Code RAM Memory

But do check how much RAM MacOS says it has working. If it fails the power-on self test, failed memory is set aside and not used.

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 10, 2018 12:33 PM in response to StrummerHummer

1) is all the RAM you paid for showing up when you choose

 menu > About this Mac > Memory ???

if yes, do not spend a moment more fiddling with or thinking about RAM.

"It works perfectly until it Halts with a kernel panic, machine check."

Reducing RAM to 2 GB will make your Mac impossible to use in a very short time. This may not be related to the issues you saw before. El Capitan and later need at least 6GB of RAM for reasonably-responsive operation.

--------

If you are concerned about wonky operation of this Mac, run etrecheck, and share its report back here:

User Tip: Using Etrecheck

.

Reply

Answer 3

Oct 10, 2018 12:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi Grant,

Thanks for the quick advice. Does the error correcting RAM eliminate the possibility of my issue being caused by the RAM? It seems to me that a problem with the RAM like I think you are describing could cause the problem I'm experiencing, since the computer works for a period of time, then the finder freezes. I've been experimenting this morning by taking out some of the RAM boards. I have 10GB total RAM comprised of 2 -4 GB RAM modules and 2 - 1GB RAM Modules (the modules from original purchase). Here's what I've found:

With only the two 1 GB RAM modules from Apple installed, the SBBOD issue starts happening within a minute or less. Activity monitor says I have about 600MB available RAM at this point. Interestingly, when I boot from the second Snow Leopard drive (the backup one that I normally never use) the machine won't even finish booting up, it just freezes after I enter my password.

With the two 4GB modules, I get a few minutes of use before the SBBOD freezes up the finder. So the problem seems to at least be related to the RAM in some manner. Activity monitor in this configuration shows about 6GB available RAM depending on what applications I've launched of course.

Thanks again!

Reply

Spinning Beach Ball of Death in Finder Only

Similar questions