[geeks] The Woes of Mac Pro

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Aug 18, 2008, at 19:11 , Mark Benson wrote:

> Stuff font ant text related, like Mail.app. Using Safari with Flash  
> sites like YouTube. it seems to be the same things time over that  
> set it off, as you say.

Yeah, I saw quite a few that mentioned a font library too.

>> As I said, a re-install to 10.5.4 appears to have fixed most of my  
>> problem.
>
> Re-install?? Oh lord. Did you re-import your user profiles, /Apps, / 
> Library and crap like that from your old setup or start totally  
> afresh?

Well, I can't boot my boot DVD, and Apple refuses to give me a new  
one, so I did a live install from my running 10.5.4 OS.

Basically you just navigate on the install DVD to /system where the  
installer packages live, and run osinstall.mpkg.

That let's you install to another hard drive, full install.

I ran that, then ran Combo 10.5.4 and picked the new drive as target.

I then booted the new drive and let it run data migration.

There is one caveat: Apple's data migration tool is broken.  It  
frequently appears to die at the last step for network configuration.

That's actually misleading because it is actually hung waiting for  
your answer about registration.  For some reason, the network setup  
dialog never disappears, and registration is hidden.

If you just hit Command-Q to quit, you'll get a warning about not  
registering, but it appears to be otherwise harmeless, and data  
migration then exits.  It's some kind of dialog glitch that does not  
always happen.

Anyway, migration also is not perfect.  Some applications had  
incorrect permissions, like BOINC, and others needed to be reinstalled  
for various reasons.

I only had to reinstall about 4 programs, the rest seem find.  No data  
lost anywhere else.

The other issue is that data migration does not take care of /etc and  
some other system configuration, so you'll lose a few things here and  
there like sharing setup, etc.

Otherwise, it seems to work well.

Before I did the OS upgrade, I updated my Time Machine and CCC backups  
though.

> It doesn't help that the *whole UI* is OpenGL powered though, you  
> have to admit :P

True, but I figured maybe pushing it made the problem worse.

Running EVE triggered the weirdness several times before I did the OS  
reinstall.

>> Still, so far it seems much better.
>
> Hmmm... I'll grit my teeth and see if 10.5.5 shifts it. If not I may  
> have to bite the bullet and reinstall. I hate having to do that on a  
> Mac, it's UNIX, you shouldn't have to do dumb Windows crap like  
> this :(

Well, you can try running Combo Updates, as that will sometimes fix  
broken files.

Of course, it does you little good for corrupt files that were  
unchanged from the original.

That's why it is so important to be able to update your install media  
to what you run.

> It'd help a ton if you could get to anything. It's not like a Sun or  
> an IBM where you undo catch A and undo captive screw B and the fans  
> slide out. I hate Apple's nice designs sometimes.

The airflow from CPU->memory boards is kinda bad too.  I don't quite  
understand the point in the artificial obstructions they put in  
there.  It causes dust to settle, restricts airflow, and doesn't  
sufficiently cool the Northbridge.

It's better than a lot of other machines, but it is a very common  
source of Mac Pro overheating.  My solution to that was to speed SMC  
base speed to 1000rpm.  It's still very quiet.

> A slot lock would have been great but I don't see how you could make  
> it work at that length of board, unless it was some insane  
> contraption like SGI used to hold boards in... or maybe just a  
> couple of tabs with those cute 'Erm, Mr Jobs, I can't actually do  
> those up with my fingers' captive thumb screws they used to such  
> total non-effect on the PCI-e slots :P

I've seen a lot of systems that deep with good board locks.  It's not  
that hard.


-- 
Shannon Hendrix
shannon at widomaker.com