Frequent HD corruption

I've recently started getting frequent HD corruption, about every week or two.  Always manage to repair the HD successfully with Disk Utility but then it happens again.  Virus scan does does not detect a virus and all tests pass with Tech Tool and Disk Warrior runs. Have always installed every OS X update. Any suggestions about what to do?  THanks for info.  Mario     

I have TechTool Pro: what tests do you run with that?
I'm inclined to believe that you may have a failing drive that's just not being recognised by the tools you have to hand.  I'd encourage you to make a couple of secure backups as soon as possible, and consider changing the drive forthwith.
Maybe someone else can offer less scare-mongery advice…

Similar Messages

  • Frequent Block Corruption alert .........

    We are getting more frequent Block corruption alert from our production RAC (2 node) db.
    if we use dbv utility to check block corruption, everything looks normal and if we check following dictionary views, we could not find any details .
    GV$BACKUP_CORRUPTION, GV$COPY_CORRUPTION, GV$DATABASE_BLOCK_CORRUPTION
    So do we have block corruption ? what we can do to avoid getting such alerts?

    Hi,
    >>We are getting more frequent Block corruption alert from our production RAC (2 node) db.
    What exactly error are you getting from alert log file?
    >>if we use dbv utility to check block corruption, everything looks normal and if we check following dictionary views, we could not find any details
    In fact, these views above displays information about corruptions in datafile and/or datafile copy backups from the control file. I think this is the wrong place to look at. In addition, there are many possible causes of a block corruption including bad IO, hardware / firmware, OS problems, Oracle problems ... Are you able to determine which database objects have affected by this problem? Have you tried take a look at some trace files?
    Cheers
    Legatti

  • User account on external hard disc frequently gets corrupted - reasons?

    Dear all,
    I have recently written a question regarding a problem with my user account; in this question I have described that I have my data for my user account on an external hard disc (USB2 hard disc), and that all data in this account seemed to be deleted one day (in fact, it was simply set to a wrong path, see below); user V.K. has helped me out of the problem - the problem could be solved by renaming the external hard disc and setting the path to my user data folder in the "user account" settings to my old folder on the renamed disc; You can find our discussions here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1513799&tstart=0 By the way, I use OS X 10.5 (newest version).
    Now, several months later I find myself in the situation that the problem returns frequently, although I do not yet see regularities or the reason; each time the described renaming-procedure helps, but anyway it is annoying, and some programs who have data on my user account folder (such as Linotype FontExplorer X - latest version!) even fail to notice the change and have to be very reset with lot of effort.
    Now, as I can not imagine that I am the only one who uses a user account on an external drive, I start wondering what am I doing wrong. Did anybody else ever experience problems like these? Does it also occur when the user account is stored in a network (on a server) - which must be a very common workplace setup? Is there anything known about the reasons?
    I do not understand what causes this problem; and also, the problem seems to be very intricate - I do not know enough about the internals of Mac OS X, but (if You look into my old post cited above), if You simply try to reset the user path in the user account settings to the folder on the NOT renamed disc, the account stops to work completely, and the user cannot log into it at all; somehow, there seem to be different "stages" of corruption of the account on the external drive - I think that this may help somebody with detailled knowledge to understand the problem, but I am out of the game here... also, all the old names of the external drive keep to be mounted in the "Volumes"-folder on Macintosh HD - although they don't exist anymore.
    I have formatted the external drive to "Mac OS Extended"; is this okay - or should it better be formatted to "Journaled"? The drive is a 500 GB external drive from LaCie - I think it should be okay (I have two of them - one for TimeMachine - the drives themselves work reliably, it appears).
    Is there anybody who can help - or anybody with a similar setup and who could tell me whether or not he ever experienced a similar problem, and what he did against it (if necessary)? Thanks in advance!!!
    With kind regards and greetings from Berlin,
    Björn

    Aside from starting over, losing whatever you've done on the new machine, see Pondini's Transferring files from one User Account to another. If you haven't done much and can afford to lose that data, I suggest starting over, following the steps in Pondini's Setup New Mac guide. That should result in just one user account.

  • Frequent  block Corruption....

    Hi,
    Oracle documents mentioned , block corruption rarely happens but i have to frequently face this problem ,mostly logical corruption. And when this happens i have to recover that datafile from the backup which is very much time consuming and loss to business.
    What should i do to prevent these corruption....both logical and physical???
    Can anyone share their experience to solve the problem taking proper precaution??
    Thanks and Regards,

    844860 wrote:
    I am not sure...how to find the answer???Perhaps there was no block corruption? After all, you have the best h/w on the market and how could it cause corrupted data blocks when an Oracle I/O call give it a data block to write to disk?
    Or perhaps you are lying to yourself about this "best in the market" b/s?
    Block corruption means that the data block Oracle writes from memory to disk, does not arrive on the disk intact - or that the block is afterwards read from disk 'incorrectly' and arrives in memory as a corrupted block.
    If this happens frequently, there are two basic core issues:
    - this is h/w related (old failing disks, errors in storage system, etc)
    - this is s/w related (the I/O fabric layer and driver used for I/O is faulty/buggy)
    The h/w related one is usually easy to diagnose as h/w tests and probes can be done (e.g. running smartctl for SMART analysis of disks).
    The s/w related one is IMO a bit more difficult to diagnose. I have seen this with using ASMLib with certain 3rd party driver software, with older OFED driver version for SRP (Scsi Remote direct memory access Protocol), and so on.
    Bottom line is that block corruption generates errors and you need to look from the top of the s/w stack down to bottom of the h/w stack to see where these errors are being recorded and what the errors are saying is wrong.

  • Illustrator CS4 - frequently generates corrupt EPS files that will not parse

    I have used many versions of Illustrator prior to and including the CS lines.  I am currently running CS4 and this is the first time I have experienced this issue.  Approximately half of my EPS formatted illustrator files will not parse.  I use Quark Xpress 7 for my layout (never liked any of the Indesign programs).  If I try to generate a PDF with my CS4 generated EPS files placed at least 60% of the time the placed file will corrupt the PDF export resulting in no PDF being generated. 
    Further to this PDF export issue, if I attempt to parse the same EPS file into Photoshop, Photoshop will give me the error message "Could not complete your request because Photoshop was unable to parse the PostScript" and it will abort the attempt to open the file.
    Anyone else having Illustrator EPS file issues?
    Background info (if needed) Dual 2.0 Ghz, PowerMac G5, 8 gb RAM, running Tiger 10.4.11
    I have attached a sample Illustrator file that will not Parse.  It will open in Illustrator but not parse into Photoshop or if placed in Quark will not parse and allow for a PDF to be exported.

    Thanks for taking the time to write Steve. 
    I understand that I can drag and drop between programs.  Ultimately, when attempting to parse an EPS in photoshop I am merely doing it to confirm that the EPS is indeed corrupt. 
    As mentioned previously, I predominately use Quark Xpress for my page layout program and until I installed CS4 I have had zero complications with using EPS files.  Now I quite commonly can not export PDFs due to corrupt EPS files. 
    My question to the public is I am alone in this glitch or do others experience the same issue.  My first thoughts are that CS4 has a glitch and I should be expecting an update in the near future.  But, if I am the only person suffering from this issue than maybe I should be looking at my own software.

  • Frequent 'Filesystem Corrupt', Invalid File count

    I have been getting this message every a couple of days in my MBP or iMac running 10.6.2. It happens/visible only when I runs Disk Utility and Verify Disk. Of course, this brings unsettling point to me when it comes now and then. Not to mention I have to boot from DVD to run disk utility to fix this
    Error Message: Invalid file count (It should be xxxxx instead of xxx+1) AND
    Error Message: Invalid volume directory count (It should be xxxxx instead of xxxx-1)
    Any idea what causes this and what's the impact i.e. do I lose any files?
    Thanks!!

    Leonard Ong wrote:
    Hi Tim,
    By default, it is HFS+ Journaled (non-case sensitive). So I have also the same understanding that journalled filesystem should be robust as you wrote it. But the fact that this comes now and then, It created some doubts.
    Is this a harmless error message or should I be worried about it. That basically my questions. I do repair when I see this.
    It can't be because of disk is failing for a number of reason:
    1) I have the same behavior both in my iMac and MBP
    2) Both HDD has been replaced with new one recently
    3) Both HDD has passed through surface scan from TechTool Deluxe 5.0.6, so no bad blocks
    Still a puzzle...
    Are you sure that the errors are showing up on both computers when performing either a "Verify Disk" or "Repair Disk" and NOT just a "Verify Disk Permissions" or "Repair Disk Permissions"? Permissions errors are mostly harmless. Filesystem errors (the sort you see when you ask for "Verify Disk" or "Repair Disk" in Disk Utility are not harmless and you should be worried about those.
    If so, then either both drives are failing or your drives are being exposed to a strong enough magnetic field to damage their data (and that would have be pretty strong -- a common refrigerator magnet wouldn't do the trick.) In all of my years of working with journaled filesystems (or operating systems with "filesystem logging" which is the same thing) I have NEVER seen a journaled volume have filesystem errors unless it was physically failing.
    Journaling will prevent filesystem errors if it's enabled for pretty much every cause except for a physically defective or damaged disk. Here's the short version of how journaling works...
    Journaling (aka "filesystem logging") is intended to prevent filesystem corruption... and it's pretty rock-solid.
    1) A "journal" (or "log") area is added.
    2) A hard rule is established that, under no circumstances may the OS be performing writes to both the journal and the regular filesystem at the same time. One must be flushed before it can work on the other and vice versa.
    3) When a write operation is about to happen, the OS writes information to the journal indicating which blocks on the filesystem are about to be changed and what it's about to change. This information is flushed to disk.
    4) The OS can then perform the write on the actual filesystem areas it intended to change. These must then be flushed to disk.
    5) The journal can now be cleared.
    That's pretty much it (simplified). But think about what this does. Normally if something interrupts a write operation (something crashes, a kernel panic, a power loss, etc.) there is something that will still have integrity because the OS will not write to both the journal and the regular filesystem at the same time.
    If a failure occurs while writing to the filesystem it's no big deal. When the system boots back up, it notices the journal wasn't cleared so it "replays" the journal. This re-writes any blocks that might only have been partially written thus clearing any chance of corruption on the volume.
    If a failure occurs while writing to the journal it's still no big deal. When the system boots back up it notices a corrupt journal, but that means the regular filesystem itself wasn't being touched so the filesystem is guaranteed to not have errors on it (although it does mean the last file you were about to save probably didn't get saved -- and that file wouldn't have written successfully even if journaling were off. At least this way there is no filesystem corruption.)
    While it sounds pretty solid (and it is) there's still a potential for corruption, but it's rare. If a drive swings the access arms to a specific track and starts writing data, the assumption is that the write head is above the correct track. If the head is "sloppy" due to wear, then the head may be slightly mis-aligned and bleeding writes into the adjacent track. This will cause filesystem corruption even with journaling enabled.
    If these drives came with the computers then the only warranty would be via Apple. If you purchased these drives on your own then they probably came with a pretty good manufacturer warranty -- most drives I've purchased in recent years had at least a 3 year warranty.

  • Frequent Disk Corruption

    A few months ago I started having problems with the my hard drive corrupting on my 2011 15" Macbook Pro.  After it got to the point where I was repairing the hard disk in recovery mode every day I went out and replaced the drive.  I now have a crucial solid state drive installed (M4-CT512M4SSD2 ). 
    However the disk keeps getting corrupted even with a brand new hard drive.  After a trip to the Apple store I went ahead and followed their recomendation to reinstall Lion.  They said all the hardware tested fine.  It has now been a week since I reinstalled Lion and my hard drive was corrupt today. 
    Any ideas on a good next step?  Should I do a clean install and set up the machine as new?

    I have TechTool Pro: what tests do you run with that?
    I'm inclined to believe that you may have a failing drive that's just not being recognised by the tools you have to hand.  I'd encourage you to make a couple of secure backups as soon as possible, and consider changing the drive forthwith.
    Maybe someone else can offer less scare-mongery advice…

  • Frequent link corruption

    I've had quite a few issues with text links recently. When I post a text link which ends in / like this one, it works fine, but sometimes when I post a link like that one [which suddenly works even though it didn't when I posted it in another section of the boards just a few minutes ago], it becomes corrupted even though it has been input correctly. I have to leave a space at the end of the link, before the " to get it to work. Up until a few days ago, I had only seen it happen once, but it occurred 3-4 times in my recent posts. This is pretty annoying.
    Is it just me, or are there other people with the same issue ?
    Edit : When I say corruption, I mean that %22 or something of that kind is added at the end of the URL, rendering it unusable ...

    Thanks Brian. I always check my links before and after posting. Tow days ago, I had the same issue, but instead of adding a space, I simply edited my post, and seeing that my link was correct, saved the changes. After trying my link a second time, I realized that it had been corrupted again.
    My links do not contain ", it is simply what I put at the end of my text link, as follows :
    < a href = " URL <font color=red>"</font> >
    My guess is that I accidentally typed "" instead of ", but still, it happened several times, and I always check before posting, plus I can't believe that I would miss that during editing time. Anyway, I'll check more carefully next time ...
    Mac mini1.25 Ghz G41 GB RAM40 GB HDDAirPort Extreme   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   External 250 GB LaCie HDDLaCie FW DVD-RW DL 16x20 GB iPod w/Color Display

  • Frequent Filesystem Corruption

    *+Hello Interwebs!+*
    OK, I'll just jump right into the heart of the matter. I'm a tech for my local school district and we are having some problems with our iMac Multimedia Lab. Over the past nine months, 5 of the 22 iMacs have suffered from filesystem corruption. The only recourse for these machines has been to completely wipe out the OS X partition and start fresh (with appropriate restore from Time Machine.)
    *_Here's the list for why I know it's file system corruption:_*
    The iMac will not boot OS X. I have seen it stop at the "throbber", the progress bar, or just the Apple logo.
    Mounting the iMac disk via Target Disk Mode (love that feature) succeeds, but only for the Bootcamp partition. The OS X partition fails to mount.
    A verify of the disk reveals the OS X partition needs to be repaired (I've seen invalid sibling entries, orphaned children etc.). Attempting to repair the disk fails. This latest attempt (just yesterday) said that the catalog B trees could not be rebuilt. I should have made more complete notes on what was said each time, but each time until this last one I assumed it was an odd one-in-a-million kind of event. A fluke
     Attempting to repair or rebuild the drives with Drive Genius 3 also fails
    So far 98% of the user's files have been recoverable via Data Rescue 3
    The physical hard drive does not appear to be failing (retrieving files from the drive does not hang or "beachball", the drive does not appear and disappear in Disk Utility, Finder remains responsive, etc.)
     Normally I'd chalk it up to a series of bad drives. Just happened to be the unlucky guy who purchased a bad run of iMacs, right? Here's where things start to get interesting. I submit to you, the list of oddities:
     The drives verify as good via SMART
     The RAM checks out
     After deleting and re-creating the partition (and re-installing OS X) all problems disappear.
     The corruption has not happened to the same Mac twice
     Bootcamp is installed on the same drive and functions before, after, and during the corruption on the Mac side.
     The Bootcamp partition has not had this issue on ANY of the iMacs
    *_Also, to rule out the obvious:_*
     There have been no brownouts or surges
     We seriously doubt a virus, as the malfunctions appear anywhere from simultaneously (two machines went down at the same time about a month ago) to months apart. Plus, the user's documents are restored after reformat, so one would surmise that if it were a malicious program the Mac would keep failing again and again.
     The machines have been in a climate-controlled area
     It has not been the same user affected
     Sometimes the problem occurs after an unavoidable hard shutdown (which occurs only infrequently. These machines are not being excessively powered down improperly. Only what you would expect with a Mac Lab running multimedia five days a week), other times it is completely out-of-the-blue
    *_And last but not least, the specs:_*
     iMac 10,1 (21.5 inch)
     Stock drives
     OS X Snow Leopard (latest updates)
     Stock memory
     Joined to our Active Directory infrastructure
     HFS+ file system (not case sensitive, the default for OS X Snow Leopard)
     No out-of-the-ordinary drive maint. programs. Drive Genius was loaded yesterday afternoon (AFTER recovering from the latest failure) to run a verification on all iMacs, but was not installed prior. All Macs, both those that have failed in the past and those that have never failed, passed with flying colors.
    *_Frequently used software includes:_*
     iPhoto
     iDVD
     iMovie
     Safari
    The machines are also loaded with Parallels 5, which loads the Bootcamp partition into a VM. Parallels was setup via the standard wizard, no oddball configuration or hacks.
    TL;DR:
    *The OS X partition has become corrupted on five different iMacs, but the physical drives are fine. WHY!?*

    I have TechTool Pro: what tests do you run with that?
    I'm inclined to believe that you may have a failing drive that's just not being recognised by the tools you have to hand.  I'd encourage you to make a couple of secure backups as soon as possible, and consider changing the drive forthwith.
    Maybe someone else can offer less scare-mongery advice…

  • Please Help - Screen corruption while in Aperture - graphics card problem?

    Over the past few weeks, I have noticed frequent screen corruption within the confines of the image that I am currently editing. The corruption only occurs when in Aperture. The corruption occurs as multiple thin (one pixel?) horizontal lines of random color and random length that occur in random locations within the image. If I force a re-calculation of the image (such as change white balance) the random lines will disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. The actual image (after export) is never corrupted, only the display. Recently Aperture has started to "hang" in random ways, sometimes freezing the whole machine, sometimes crashing, sometimes beach-balling.
    This sounds like a hardware problem to me, but the standard Apple hardware test runs without errors, as does an extended memtest. Setup: Mac Pro, 5GB, SW fully updated to 10.4.11 and Aperture 1.5.6. I tried re-seating the graphics board to no avail.
    Are there any programs that I can use to test the Radeon X1900 card?
    Any other suggestions?
    Thanks in advance.

    Thanks David,
    I did some more research and it appears that quite a few of us (unlucky) users with an early version of the Radeon X1900 graphics card are now seeing failures that appear to be due to poor heat dissipation by the graphics card. There's a huge thread on the subject here:
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    The problem with random display glitches doesn't show up for most people until they upgrade to Leopard, which puts a larger strain on the graphics card than Tiger. I am still running Tiger, but the glitches show up for me when using Aperture, which of course uses the graphics card more aggressively than most other programs. I assume that Aperture increases the heat which causes the glitches.
    I tried cleaning the dust out of the Radeon's heat sink, and I added a tool (smcFanControl) that lets me manually override the default fan speed. By keeping the card's temperature lower, the glitches have gone away. If I let the temperature rise, they come back. Looks like I'll be needed a new graphics card.

  • Corrupt jpg export

    The camera files seem to be just fine, but my jpg files frequently get corrupt on export. They get these random horizontal lines through them, as well as big gray sections that begin part way through the file. If I re-export them, they usually come out all right. I would like to pin down the cause. I'll change the process priority from normal to realtime for now and see how it goes.

    Hi,
    Sounds like a hardware problem on the target device or ram. Perhapst there is a background process running on the target folder (like dropbox) that confuses lr.

  • Logic File Corruption

    I wanted to share my experience with other people that might be looking for an explanation for file corruption under Logic.
    For many months I was experiencing frequent file corruption under Logic Pro and I could'nt find what was causing it.... until now.
    FYI, unfortunately I still haven't found a way to fix the corrupted files. As far as I know, they're doomed.
    I would work on a song for a few hours, withouth any glitch, then close the file.
    When I would open the file again and start playing it, all my audio would go crazy (loud sounds and noise blasting through my headphones).
    The file was doomed, corrupted and no way to fix it. I would have to start from an older backup and loose all recent changes.
    Did lots of research on the web withouth success. I thought the culprit might be some of the virtual instrument I was using, including a new one I installed recently called, "Myroslav Philarmonic".
    It was not.
    I finally realized I had "Time Machine" running every couple of hours for backups, and it was corrupting any opened Logic files!!!
    Lost so much time over this.
    Hope it might help someone in the same situation.
    Sly

    Thanks Erik,
    This was easy and solved it.  I knew it had to be an easy solution I just overlooked. Keep up the great work!

  • Frequent index loss reported by cache cluster

    what could be the reason of frequent index corruption ?
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    4253235 ERROR Logger@9220659 3.3/387 Coherence - 2009-02-05 16:16:36.863 Oracle Coherence GE 3.3/387 &lt;Error&gt; (thread=Distr
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    54253238 ERROR Logger@9220659 3.3/387 Coherence - 2009-02-05 16:16:36.863 Oracle Coherence GE 3.3/387 &lt;Error&gt; (thread=Distr
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    java.io.EOFException
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    at com.tangosol.io.AbstractReadBuffer$AbstractBufferInput.readUnsignedByte(AbstractReadBuffer.java:577)
    at com.tangosol.util.ExternalizableHelper.readObject(ExternalizableHelper.java:2158)
    at com.tangosol.util.ExternalizableHelper.fromBinary(ExternalizableHelper.java:205)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache$ConverterFromBinary.convert(DistributedCache.CDB:4)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache$Storage$BinaryEntry.getValue(DistributedCache.CDB:13)
    at com.tangosol.util.InvocableMapHelper.extractFromEntry(InvocableMapHelper.java:289)
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    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache$Storage.updateIndex(DistributedCache.CDB:18)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache$Storage.insertPrimaryTransfer(DistributedCache.CDB:33)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache.onTransferRequest(DistributedCache.CDB:108)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache$TransferRequest.onReceived(DistributedCache.CDB:1)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.Service.onMessage(Service.CDB:9)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.Service.onNotify(Service.CDB:123)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.daemon.queueProcessor.service.DistributedCache.onNotify(DistributedCache.CDB:3)
    at com.tangosol.coherence.component.util.Daemon.run(Daemon.CDB:35)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
    54253239 ERROR Logger@9220659 3.3/387

    Hi user1696,
    This is a known bug (Index restore doesn't work when backing map is not an instance of com.tangosol.util.ObservableMap) which was fixed - you need to upgrade to the later Coherence release or change your cache configuration to use observable backing map.
    Regards,
    Dimitri

  • Power Mac G4 Wake from Sleep Crash

    I have been having wake from sleep issues since I installed Mac OS 10.5 on my Power Mac G4 three months ago. Technically, this machine is supported by Leopard: it's an 867 MHz G4 with 512 MB of RAM. And indeed, the Leopard installer allowed me to install fine, and while it runs slower than I'd like, it seems to run all the applications just fine. The major problem is that it does not properly wake from sleep. Nearly every time the machine wakes up from sleep, it crashes and needs to be rebooted. It may be a display issue -- the screen frequently looks corrupted when it has crashed -- but the console logs have not given me any clues. It does seem to be related to the amount of time that the machine has spent sleeping, but I have had it crash after a sleep of as little as a few minutes. I have a USB 2.0 PCI card installed, but removing that for a week didn't have any noticeable effect on the problem. I'm stumped, and preparing to downgrade to 10.4, as the machine takes too long to boot for me to live with the option of shutting down and starting up every time I use it.
    I've been very happy with this machine for years and years and frankly I've never had this much of an issue with the Mac OS on an allegedly "supported" machine. As a last resort, I thought I'd ask here whether anyone has another idea that I can try.

    I'm having a similar problem, though with my Powerbook G4, since installing Leopard. It's a 1.5 Mhz model. Everything seems to work properly, but it takes 10 to 12 seconds to wake from sleep. When it is woken, it shows the old screen image and remains frozen for over 10 seconds, before displaying the updated screen and coming back to life. It seems to me that this pause is progressively getting longer. It was only a few seconds to start with, but is now over 10 seconds.
    Any clues?

  • Note regarding ATI X1900 XT with Mac Pro, Leopard

    To all who are experiencing any of the frequently reported problems with the hardware/software combination listed in the subject heading:
    I purchased the ATI X1900 XT as an upgrade fro my Mac Pro in January. I never experienced any issues with the card in OS X Tiger, but several months ago I began to experience overheating issues in Windows XP (Boot Camp) when playing graphics-intensive games. The overheating caused visible graphics corruption/artifacts, graphics system resets and even spontaneous system restarts. The frequency and severity of these symptoms actually increased over time, leading me to believe that the card was either defective or that the overheating was causing degenerative/cumulative damage to the graphics hardware.
    I recently upgraded to OS X Leopard, and all **** broke loose. Immediately after upgrading, I began to experience frequent graphics corruption/artifacts (in the form of spurious horizontal lines), system lockups/freezes and spontaneous system restarts. None of these issues were present in Tiger. The system became completely unreliable and essentially unusable.
    It was initially a popular belief that Leopard's graphics drivers were somehow buggy or incompatible with the X1900 XT. After my experiences, I don’t believe that’s the case. I think that the issues reported are symptomatic of hardware, not software problems. Leopard is merely a catalyst. Leopard's increased leverage of OpenGL stresses the graphics hardware in ways that Tiger did not, causing an overall increase in graphics hardware temperature. I believe that the glitches/artifacts/system freezes/restarts that I experienced were not due to buggy drivers, but due to the graphics card overheating as a result of the increased load placed on it by Leopard.
    I brought my X1900 XT in to my local Apple store today and asked for a replacement. Fortunately, they had one in stock, and they gave me a new card on the spot. The technician was apparently well aware of the issues, and mentioned that they have had a lot of similar problems with new iMacs.
    Since installing the new card, I have experienced no graphics corruption, system freezes or spontaneous system restarts, either in OS X Leopard or in Windows XP gaming.
    I would urge anyone who is experiencing problems with the X1900 XT (in either Windows or OS X) to have their card replaced by Apple - assuming that their card or system is still under warranty, that is.
    I suspect one of two possible scenarios is true:
    Theory #1: The Rev 1 X1900 XT is inherently flawed and has problems with overheating, which is exacerbated in OS X by upgrading to Leopard. Due to Leopard's greater leveraging of OpenGL, there is increased thermal stress placed on the card relative to Tiger. The overheating is evident in Leopard as graphics corruption/artifacts, system lockups/freezes and spontaneous restarts. The Rev 2 X1900 XT has (theoretically) corrected the problems inherent in Rev 1.
    Theory #2. The thermal management system of the X1900 XT (all revisions) is inherently flawed. The card will slowly cook itself over time, and the effects are degenerative and cumulative. As the age of the card increases, so will the occurrence of graphics corruption, system freezes and spontaneous system restarts, especially when playing graphics-intensive games or running OS X Leopard.
    I sincerely hope that Theory #1 is the case. I’ll be watching my system closely as I continue to use the new card, and hopefully there will be no further problems with overheating.
    If theory #2 turns out to be true, then Apple has a huge PR nightmare on its hands, as each X1900 XT for the Mac is essentially a ticking time bomb that will self-destruct within months of purchase.
    The funny thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve had graphics card trouble with one of Apple’s “professional” towers. I bought a G5 several years ago when they were first released. I had problems with the stock nVidia graphics card in the form of what came to be known as the dreaded “black screen of death.” This became a commonly reported issue, experienced by many owners of the G5 in its first revision. Apple replaced my card and the problem never reoccurred. I’m hoping that I’ll be as lucky this time around.
    I think it’s apparent that Apple’s batting average with graphics cards isn’t exactly stellar. It’s curious, considering that Apple offers a very limited selection of graphics options for their towers. One would think that by Apple only offering 3 graphics options, they would be able to have fairly tight control over the quality of the hardware, and plenty of time and resources to devote to testing. Unfortunately, I’ve had more graphics hardware-related problems on my Macs than any PCs I’ve ever used. That’s embarrassing, and Apple needs to do much better than this.

    I replaced my G5 Quad with a Mac Pro 8-core. The Mac Pro's thermal design is far superior to the G5's. The G5 Quad's liquid cooling system has a much bigger task (IBM doesn't publish the thermal dissipation numbers on their PPCs but I suspect they are high) than the more efficient Intel Xeons. The G5 liquid cooling units are troublesome and the issue is something I think Apple is quietly solving by replacing failed liquid cooled G5's (that are still under warranty) with Mac Pros (a very smart PR move). My primary concern when I switched to a Mac Pro was issues with the X1900 XT graphics card failure rates posted on the web and in these discussions. The very latest generation of the X1900 XT (July 2007) are reported to be more reliable. Many G5 owners are still reporting failed cards. Given the much higher thermal environment and the remarks in this thread, I can now see why. The interior of a G5, especially Quad, gets too hot for this ATi card. I had the nVidia GeForce 7800 GT in my Quad. That was a very good card. Still, the issues with the ATi x1900 XT may indeed be a thermal design issue that AMD may need to either address directly, or turn to a 3rd party solution.
    I installed a 3rd party cooling alternative, Arctic Cooling's Accelero S1. It's a passive system that replaces that hairdryer fan with a large heat sink. The package includes upgraded heat sinks for the power regulator (much beefier than the stock), and for each memory chip. The heat sink is a large conductive cooling assembly that uses 4 heat pipes. The vendor claims that using this system increases the case temperature by 1°C, which is easily handled by the system cooling system. So far, their claim appears to be valid. Since there's no longer a fan, you can imagine how quiet the system has become. The only installation hitch is that the black support clips were made for the PC version and the Mac Version adds a beefy support rail on the spine of the card. The workaround is to trim off the lower tang of the clips so they just rest against the support rail.
    After reading this, I'm tempted to add the "Turbo" option, a couple of high volume low speed fans that fit on the radiator. I'm trying to "stress" the system by running SETI@Home 24/7 while doing all the other work to see how hot and how loud I can get this system. So far, no disappointments. This is the quietest workstation I've ever worked on. Even when "hot", the fans are not loud. The passive cooling system seems to work very well. I left Star Wars-Empire At War up and running in the menu for hours one day and it didn't seem to suffer from any ill effects. I have owned this system for just over a month. I will add more thermal load after I crank the system memory up to 24 or 32 GB. If there are any real cooling issues, I will find out about them next summer. I really dread the prospect of plunking down another $2k for the nVidia 4500 FX (I really don't need the 3D audio support) to get comparable video support.

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