Crashing with a Mac G5

Hi,

I'm running SL in my iBook G4 without problems (or, at least, a minimum of them). However, my boyfriend keeps crashing each time he runs Sl in his PowerPC G5 Dual Processor. We've followed every single advice in the Knowledge base (how to improve your Mac performance), we've been in contact with techical support, we've uninstalled and reinstalled SL and tried everything that we were told... with no succes. As soon as he logs in, the image in SL starts flickering madly, the colors of objects, clothing, avatar etc. keep changing randomly and vertiginously... and after a little while not only SL crashes, but the whole operative system with it...

I've fallen in love with the world of SL, and would like so much to share it with my boyfriend... But now he doesn't even dare to log in, afraid of losing his work files in a crash. Has someone experienced similar problems in a G5? Any idea about what we can do?

Thank you so much in advance,

Lila Aquacade

First--> More details on the video card would be helpful. The Dual G5s came with several different Video cards:
NVIDIA GeForceFX (5200, 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra) and ATI Radeon 9600, and 9800.
Its possible there's an issue with the video card's memory.

Also, Is it overheating? SL puts massive load on the processor, the video card and the hard drives. If the fans can't cool the Mac, it'll shut down.

The other possibility is that the power supply is failing. The flickering 'could' be a result of bad power supply. Continual overload will cause it to shut down.

Thanks so much for your answer, Sterling. The video card in my boyfriend's G5 is NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra.

I dont think is overheating more than usual. My boyfriend works with film and audio editing software and runs many programs at once... And this crashes dont happen with anything but SL (and when we try to run it, we shut everything else). However, I'll tell him to have a look at the fans performance.

The power supply... Well, I dont see how that could be a problem if every program, apart from SL, runs smoothily...

I dont know if my answer helps you at all to figure out more about this problem... I'm not at all a computer expert myself...But if you want to know more, please tell me, I'll ask my boyfriend to give me all the pertinent data.

[One question about my own computer, an iBook G4. I can't change its graphic card, an ATI Radeon 9600 XT OpenGL Engine with 32 M of memory, but I could add more RAM and VRAM... How much would you recommend? If it improves performance as much as people comment in this forum, I should really try... It would be funny to be so happy with SL and then discover that I had not seen anything yet... ]

Thx again, Sterling.

The power supply will shut down if the computer demands too much power, or if it overheats. The Video card with SL is VERY worked. It ALONE will generate a lot of heat and draw power. The G5 itself runs VERY hot as is--that's why it has water cooling inside.




Make sure ALL the cooling fans work and are clean. (what's it have, six of them?)Also, if there are any expansion cards inside the G5 that are not needed, remove them--they are taking power and giving off heat.

A new power supply will run about $150 for the parts. Depending on the model, it may be a quick do-it-himself fix. But let's hope that its NOT the power supply, and try to narrow it down to Video Cards.
The 5200 is at the Bottom of the List of acceptable graphics cards for SL.
http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php
So here's what I'd do to try to determine whether the problem is the vid card:

-I'd try these things in {SL graphics and advanced graphics prefs}:
Turn off the bumps and rippling water. Bring in the Draw distance to 64. Change the 'video memory' to 64Meg. In other words, make SL more ugly and less visually interesting.

-Also, on the {G5 system preferences}, I'd change the screen resolution to 800x640 (or thereabouts. Depends on your monitor.) The point is to have Bigger, Fatter, Fewer pixels so the video card doesn't have to work so hard. Also, there may be (I don't remember for NVIDIA) a control panel in System Prefs that determines how much onboard 'memory' the Video card uses. If you can find one, try changing it to 64Meg.


Then I'd play SL. If the problem goes away, start easing up on the uglification a little at a time, until it starts to crash again. If the problem Doesn't go away...then the choices would seem to be either a new vid card or a new power supply. (figure $250 for a wonderful Video card. Shop around, again. Make sure it'll fit the G5. and ReRead the forums here before spending your RL Lindens.


===================
More thoughts. If your BF's G5 has been crashing a lot, he may have disk errors. Encourage him to use Disk Utility to check his hard drives. If he has serious problems, there's a FREE utility called "Applejack" that will fix his disks. It may look scary, but just follow the directions.

===================
Your iBook would LOVE more memory. You WILL be amazed at the difference. My advice is: if you intend to keep the machine for 2 more years, then put as much memory into it as you can afford. The maximum expansion chip is a Gig for those, I think. Shop around. That'll set you back $150 with tax and shipping. Installation is do it yourself. Google on "install memory mac ibook G4" for lots of sites with instructions. You just made yourself an iBook that will last FOUR years instead of two!

Sterling, you made my day... After reading your meticulous reply, I'm full of hope. We'll go through all the steps you recommend, from the easiest to the more radical, until we see the light...

(and if we don't see it, I know who to ask about which damn Mac we should buy next, hehe)

Thanks SO much for your help, seriously. It's the first real help I've had with this, and I greatly appreciate your generosity in giving me time and thought.

I'm looking forward to the day me and my boyfriend will meet you in-world and bow happily to you

If I may add one thing onto this since I'm sure others may be looking. SL's client prefers to be on the main monitor for those of us that have two. Running it on the second display may either make the application unstable or at worst cause a Kernel Panic. Looking at the panic.log I'm not entirely certain it's SL's fault either since it involves some pretty low level IO graphics drivers.

Max makes a good point.
If you have dual monitors, be sure to run SL on the MAIN monitor.
(put your web browser, text editor, etc. on the second monitor).

YOu can copy and paste Scripts and stuff from SL on the main to the text editor on the secondary.
BUT the massive Graphics Intensive SL window should always be on the main monitor.

(I've heard, but have not experienced personally this: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRAG THE SL WINDOWS onto the second screen. (Don't try to move your inventory, for example, onto the second screen.) As cool as this would be, the vid drivers apparently get upset with this.)

I recetnly replaced my clunky PC with a used G5 from work. It starts and runs SL like a dream for a few minutes... then crashes. I've done a clean install of the operating system and SL, done disk repair, tried applejack, etc., but am still having this issue. I am running OS 10.3.9 - the minimum for SL - I see Linden strongly recommends using 10.4.3. Might this be the problem, or could it possibly be an issue with my machine? Everything else seems to be running ok.

Specs:
PowerMac G5
1.5 gigs of RAM
GeForce FX 5200

Thanks so much, Laxx

Laxx
Ask again in a new thread, you may get other points of view.
but, "yes", updating to 10.4 might help. Current version is 10.4.8 with a rumored 10.4.9 soon.
The reason its important is the video drivers. SL really works the video and graphics hard. Its important that OpenGL be as current as possible. With nearly every OS release, (and certainly from 10.3 to 10.4) Apple fixes bugs in the video drivers.

But, that said, if you don't want to wait to go to the Apple store, go to the NVIDIA site and see if they have newer drivers... http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

If you can hang on for another few months, OS 10.5 will be out.

Others are able to run the GeForce 5200 with other Macs. See this:
/164/4c/55535/1.html
As I say, a new thread might get you more points of view.

Thanks Sterling,

I'll take a look at the drivers and post another thread. Getting a little discouraged because Photoshop CS2 is crashing as well. Thanks for your input.

Laxx