08/08/2005, 7:40pm, EDT
Monday, August 8th
Problems documented with single-processor G5 desktop
Apple released the single-processor 1.8GHz Power Mac G5 as an low-price alternative to its dual-processor configurations in 2003 and subsequently released an update to this model--with a slower bus speed--in 2004. The problems appear to be isolated to updated 2004 model--which also has since been discontinued in June of 2004.
The website documents three specific symptoms that cause the system to crash: The "Eject Syndrome", caused by pushing the CD eject key, sometimes crashes all applications related to mounting or unmounting a volume/drive; a second sympton is described as a "Wake from Sleep" syndrome, where the machine will not properly wake after being put to sleep; and the third is called the "Full Screen OpenGL syndrome" under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, which causes the machine to cease all graphics functions after quiting a full-screen OpenGL-based application following a few hours of operation. These symptoms have been reported by dozens of users on Apple's free support area.
"The best thing about this bug is the fact that it can be reproduced. The worst thing about this bug is the fact, that it affects only (you guessed it) PowerMac G5 Single (late 2004). The freezing symptom can be noticed from within safari, too. After about two hours of uptime there is a high chance that the mac freezes when watching an embedded quicktime movie. A good way to reproduce this failure is surfing to the apple quicktime page after two hours of usage."
The site offers a few workarounds that seem to help some users, including turning off some power management features, reverting to Mac OS X Panther, using the more expensive Mac OS X Server, and more; however, the workarounds appear to be temporary and in some cases, cost the user time and money. Interestingly, the site notes that one particular "freeze" may be temporary and the user may regain control of the machine after waiting a few hours.
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I've been suffering with this since the day it arrived at my doorstep, and in combination with my Powerbook "losing" its lower RAM slot, I'm getting VERY annoyed at Apple and their definition of "Warranty" and "Service".
Are you going to see people having issues with their machines or software in discussion forums? You bet! But to conclude from this that a systemic problem exists with that hardware or software is a faulty assumption.
Of the total number of this particular PowerMac model that have been sold, what percentage are experiencing the EXACT same issue resulting from the EXACT same cause? And yes, it has to be confirmed that it is the exact same cause behind the similar issues. Different culprits can manifest themselves in similar symptoms. And yes, it has to be a hard number percent, not some wild arse guess.
Once you have that solid number, how does it compare to Apple's acceptable failure rate? How does it compare to the industry's acceptable failure rate?
When you get solid answers to those questions, and not just hunches and suppositions based poor observations, then you will know if your conspiracy exists or not.
Until then, stop with the petitions and web sites. Move on with your lives.
Pisses me off, too, because Apple refuses to even acknowledge complaints. Their representatives all say "no... no reported problems that we've heard of." And if it weren't for my hanging out on MacNN, I would have never known that there are a good amount of people with the same exact machine experiencing what appears to be the same exact problems.
If any of you had ever experienced one of these freezing machines, you'd understand completely exactly why people are bitching.
Quit generalizing and get some solid data.
(Proud owner of the exact same machine in question and never have suffered any of these issues–beyond mucking my own system.)
I went through the same discussion at http://www.toyoland.com/ with regard to sludge in Toyota Camry engines. People blamed the owners, said they were making it up, etc., etc. Turned out sludge in the oil was a pretty widespread problem, not affecting ALL of the cars, or even most of them...but if it happens to you, you get MAD when the company insists it never happens to anyone!
I'm perfectly willing to believe this; Apple lately has been fairly lax in their quality control (10.40 anyone? how about 10.0.0?).
"I tried for 5 minutes and it didn't happen to me. It must be your MONITOR" isn't a solution or "technical support". Its called "passing the buck." When I take a machine in because it isn't working, and it recieved completely new internals, and the "fixed" machine "works" (fails) in the exact same manner as before "repair" the statistical probability of this NOT being systemic is very low. And they don't believe me when I say it has never gone A DAY since I purchased it without crashing.
I don't care if there isn't another person with the same failure, I just know that my situation is NOT acceptable (even if the failure rate globally is below the rate needed to warrant a recall). But when I find out there are other people suffering with the EXACT same failures with ONLY the same machine, the suspicion of POOR DESIGN is 100% confirmed. The only common element between these exactly similar failures is the motherboard and CPU.