OSX runs well and randomly locks up (beachball, cannot force quit)

[macfreya]

Aloha to the great OSx86 scene!

 

I'm a happy OSx86 user for many months now, having installed Kalyway 10.5.2 + 10.5.3 update + kernel patch + latest updates up to now, on this rig: Intel DP35DP, Core 2 Duo E8200, 4 GB RAM, GeForce 8800GT 512 MB, 2x750 GB SATA hard drives

 

A little bit about the installation: I do like to experience with packages and Time Machine saved my ass a few a times, and I noted that really only Kalyway 10.5.2 installs for me (iAtkos 2, JaS 10.5.4 installed but didn't boot up... it's probably due to the many installations and the GUID partitioning I'm using). Sound: I could use analog and digital out with the STAC9271D testing patch, but I prefered to get an M-Audio USB Transit sound card which definitely sounds much better than my motherboard's built-in codec. Video: QE and everything works great, after hacking some EFI strings back then (probably there are tools to do it now). I experienced with almost all the kernels available out there, some had sleep, some didn't, and now I'm using the 9.4 vanilla that doesn't sleep, but hey that should be my biggest problem.

 

Actually, I have a bigger one, and I cannot really reproduce or locate it. Everything works as usual for many hours, or a day or two, then suddenly a few applications freeze - it seems they completely lose control with the HDD for some reason. I get the rotating beachball and I cannot force quit the application, when I look at the process list in the console, it shows in (parenthesis) so I concluded it should be some zombie process stuck in the kernel/driver somewhere.

 

This happened once running Windows XP in Parallels, and even though Parallels completely freeze (didn't react to quit or force quit), the XP kept running, and worked fine, until I tried reading any directories, opening the desktop for example. I cannot save documents in Office, and I cannot browse any directories, it seemed I'm completely cut off from HDD I/O.

 

When one application goes into this zombie state, slowly others join him and even though Finder works for 10 more minutes, once it will stop reading the directories and just show an emtpy window or freeze completely, and I cannot relaunch.

 

I'm browsing logs, reading the console, looking for panics but there are none. Not a single error message that I could find, and I had the same problem sooner or later with all kernels I tried (ToH, kabyl, sleepkernel, modbin, vanilla 9.2 and 9.4)

 

My question is, have you ever had a problem similar to this, do you know any way how I could pin down this, or even reproduce? I'm suspecting it is a software failure (if the SATA driver failed I wouldn't just lose a few applications, but get a decent kernel panic, I think) and I'm also suspicious of the M-Audio sound driver, somehow all applications that freeze used sounds.

 

Ps.: I'd like to thank this great scene for all the work and information available on these forums. It simply was amazing, I'm easily finding answers to all my problems for many months now - you're doing an amazing job guys, thank you!

[jcatlanta]

well I by no means have had the same sucess with my hack, but am experiencing some similar problems. Leopard just randomly freezes on me and I cannot pinpoint why. Granted I have little experience still with this unix based os, but even to find a common denominator that would point me in the right direction seems futile. Initially I thought it was a wireless issue (Broadcom chip) and figured I needed the correct drivers/kext files. I installed the broadcom bcm43xx script by mcsmart even tho the wireless card was detectd OOB. Then I stumbled on the fact that i had 4 gigs RAM installed and leopard can only support 3072mb so I fixed that. This actually lenghtened the time the system would remain stable, but eventually it would give way and freeze. I ran the system in cpus=1 mode and left it with airport on and the system would freeze. Last night I tried booting up in -x mode and once booted, the login screen would be offset to the left so I could not type in password. The mouse would move but it's origin would come from the left edge of the screen (this is actually another problem that I would encounter upon restarting the computer. Sometimes if I activated sleep and awake with power button 2 times it would return to the normal desktop). Then, I left the computer on all night in safe mode (-v) with airport off and it actually stayed on! The screen saver was still normal and the system did not crash. Shortly afterwards, I enabled airpot and downloaded a torrent and began browsing which was followed by another freeze. It's not even the beachball it's just the system slowly locking up. My initial distros was Kalyway 10.5.2 but switched to IDeneb v1.1.

 

Sorry to implement my issues on a thread about yours, but this issue has been plaguing me for months now and I read and read and cannot find something that would point me in the right direction. I wanted to start a thread but chances are that it would get ignored so might as well and combine my efforts with yours to see if something that be solved.

[madvillain]

i have a similar problem, but my osx86 box only seems to freeze when the display/monitor has switched off (as specified in energy saver) or i sometimes turn it off. trying it with the energy saver settings disabled for the monitor and just running a screen saver for now to see if that fixes my issue

[macfreya]

After a while, I still have this problem. Not frequently, maybe just once a week, otherwise I have 3-5 day uptimes with Leopard. I unplugged the M-Audio card and that helped a little, but freezes still happen, sometimes during a Time Machine backup, sometimes during other operations.

 

Anyhow, I'm gonna reinstall my system completely, I get rid of the GUID partitioning that only caused trouble so far, and install a brand new Leo from iDeneb 10.5.5. I'll let you know in this thread if that solved anything.

[macfreya]

I must say the new iDeneb 10.5.5 is really amazing. Flawless install, working sound card, video drivers, vanilla kernel, correct SMBIOS settings, everything as it should be. Though I had to activate the partition manually (I got only a blinking cursor after restart) but no freezes at all. I also installed an extra fan because the chipset was over 90-100 Celsius.

 

So it might help to do a clean install and import all your data and apps from a Time Machine backup. Also take care of your hardware - if you get sudden shutdowns, that's definitely a thermal problem, but a too warm chipset can definitely cause some random freezes, especially during I/O active operations. Hot memory is not helping either, run a memtest if you get strange CRC errors, memory operation failures, or sudden freezes.

[ASNNetworks]

If you have an nForce based motherboard, don't install any onboard LAN drivers...they seem to cause the freezes...At least with me, I have the ASUS P5N-D 750i nForce...

 

When I didn't install the driver/kext my PC was running like 3 hours, without freezes, then I turned it off myself...As soon as I installed the nForce driver/kest...It froze upon me like after a few minutes...

[Donw35]

Had problems with freezing as well, I bought a PCI netgear GA311 network card ($25) and my OSX is solid now.

[cloner]

Same Problem here...

Leo 10.5.5 running Kalyway on MBR partition and Chameleon Kernel...all drivers working so far. graphics card is expertvision geforce 8800GT 512 MB - working presently...

MOBO is Gigabyte EP35-DS4. Standard Liteon DVD Recorder, very good RAM from Geil - 4 GB, 2,4 Ghz intel Quadcore ... Everything fine except for some very weird freezes but no error logs locateable...just does a complete freeze but doesnt show a screen that it occurs from kernel or so...just dimms a little like the standard kernel panic and thats it.

Absolutely randomly. Had it twice yesterday - 3 times today..sucks.

tried different nvinject for graphic card but that didn't help...very, very, very strange. Seems to occur from somehow graphics area or sound or something like it...not too sure...

 

maybe different kext, kernel....whatever. but hey - need to work for university and not for osx^^

 

 

its just no good at all if one wants to work without hitting the save button every few minutes like in windoze :-)

Anyway - as soon as anybody has a guess....post it...as I say - no clue what it could possibly cause....just too random.

keep up the good work everybody!

[chappatti]

---Yup. Freezes here too. Kalway 10.5.2 straight to 10.5.5 using Netkas AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement trick. Couple I could find:

 

--Trying to get AppleHDA patched (for on-board sound) caused freeze. Best to restore ORIGINAL 10.5.5. kext. Remove ALCInject stopped freeze also.

--Time Machine causes freeze...seems to be a known issue...try googling...cannot find solution. Time machine quirks can also cause programs to stick in dock....force quitting does not work!!

---Video card...qe/ci not working may cause freeze. Actually qe required for Toast Titanium otherwise would not run (known issue..fixed after qe enabled). Able to fix with Bronya's latest release for 1950 Ati series.

-- ???? I have needed to repair permissions USING Disk Utility several times to get things stable. So don't just rely on terminal commands. You will be surprised what Disk Util does with ur extensions folder after you think you did a proper 'terminal' install.

--One good thing. WMP54GS WiFi card always "works out of box".

 

Some freeze issues from Apple Discussion forum:

 

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?t...8&tstart=75

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8126945

[TheBogieMan]

Funny this thread should pop back up again

 

Mine has started doing the same thing, first it was only Safari, then iTunes started playing silly buggers now all of a sudden I can't even get to the log in screen....just get the blue screen and mouse pointer.

Tried repairing permissions, no difference, tried booting up in safe mode, no difference and when booting up in verbose nothing seems to be falling over or causing a panic....most odd

[xitrium]

I'm having this issue. My computer works perfectly for a while, but when I start doing a lot of things at once (having iTunes scan my music library and transferring a lot of files, for instance) my computer will stop responding and display the spinning beach ball of death / magic pinwheel. Usually this is only for one application, but it spreads as macfreya's did to other applications, ending with nothing responding (although the mouse still moves across the screen). My hardware:

 

EVGA 780i

Q6600

GTX 260+

SATA + IDE drives

iAtkos v7

 

Could this have something to do with my system being quad core? I don't need the cpus=1 flag to boot successfully, so I haven't been using it...

 

Things I've tried:

different sound drivers/no sound drivers

kernel 9.5, 9.7, and vanilla (using 9.7 now)

speedstep / no speedstep

ps2 / no ps2

acpi x86 fix / none

dsmos / apple decrypter

maybe more...

 

Also I've been doing a complete reformat and reinstall every time; is this necessary?

 

Thanks in advance!

[likeatiger]

Hi,

 

I've got the same problem on an HP DC7800. Third party drivers include the SATA fix, a Netgear USB NIC, the M-Audio Transit (we seem to have that in common) and a driver for the Broadcom PCI-E NIC since the Intel one doesn't work (although I found drivers for it so will do some testing..).

 

Has anyone developed a workaround or a solution?

[will1384]

Mine started locking up, when downloading torrents, and only after installing

the "Realtek RTL8111/RTL8168 driver" and from what I understand its a well

known problem, and even happens to real Macs, there is a bug that only

seams to come up when something is using the network heavily and makes

lots of network connections

 

Here are some Links

 

WoW LEOPARD USERS: Current Issues & Resolutions

 

Transmission causes leopard slow death

 

I went back to the way my network was before and no more lockups, BTW that was

using the network settings and the network driver the "myHack installer" used, but

buy doing that I lose Bonjour