Apple/NVidia Driver Bug — Question Deleted 703
Joe Drago writes "I purchased a Mac Pro within the first week that they were available, and immediately upgraded to 3GB of RAM (knowing that OSX loves memory). When playing 3D games (World of Warcraft mainly), the game would Kernel Panic the machine if I had played it for a few hours, or if I swapped in and out of the game a few times, etc. I eventually found out (from an official Blizzard poster) that NVidia has a bug in their drivers that kernel panics a Mac Pro if any memory past the 2GB boundary is addressed in the driver. After waiting months for a resolution to this, I decided to post on Apple's support site. Here is an image of my post.. Within a few hours, they removed it from the site, placing it under 'Posts Removed by Administration.' What's going on here? Is Apple trying to hide this bug, or is there something more serious going on between Apple and NVidia?"
Apple Policy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Apple Policy (Score:5, Insightful)
A new Apple icon needs to be added to Slashdot, showing a man gagged by an apple.
Re:Apple Policy (Score:5, Funny)
Is this what you're looking for? [wikipedia.org]
P.S. I can't believe you got modded troll. Sorry, what I am saying, the world is full of idiots.
Re:Apple Policy (Score:5, Funny)
Good idea! If it's done properly, it could also be re-used as a GIMP icon.
Re:Apple Policy gagged (Score:5, Informative)
And, name me one thing that Apple has done that involves DRM, besides the iTunes Music Store. You can't, because they haven't done ANYTHING. And the music store only has DRM at the insistence of the record labels.
As for the iPhone, I can't argue there - I can only hope that Apple will come to its senses in the next six months, and open it up for public development.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Apple Policy gagged (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You have bad memory
2. You have a f-ed up or non-Intel compatible device driver or kernel extension/prefpane loaded
3. Your OS install is corrupt
I've seen this a ton of times when experienced Mac users get their hands on their new toy. They install their old versions of DiVX, APE, Adobe Bridge, scanner drivers, Quicktime extensions old HP all in one 3 gig "printer drivers" or just do something rash like copying over their entire
Friends don't let friends transplant their cobwebs between machines.
Back up your users folder (and ONLY your users folder), nuke & pave, and use the migration assistant to move the old account over to the clean system. Don't copy them by hand.
Then get the absolute latest drivers for your devices (only get Intel/Universal compiled drivers, prefpanes and kexts) and do NOT install Adobe Bridge CS2.
Do this, and unless you've got crap RAM, you'll have a clean system that doesn't flake out on you.
Re:Apple Policy gagged (Score:4, Insightful)
You can go to your
If ATI drivers are coming up and erroring out, they got loaded in there somehow, which means that you have other cobwebs in there deep.
Best of luck,
droog
Re:Apple Policy (Score:5, Insightful)
If so, then they should post a reply to that effect -- not delete the whole thread!
Re:Apple Policy (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they should just not remove it! If you're looking at Slashdot or any of the various other forums around the Internet, you can usually go back all the way to the beginning and read any post that was ever made. There's no reason for Apple's forums to be any different.
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As an Apple customer, I did!
Look, Apple can do what it wants. But if it wants business from people like me, it'll do what I want. And what I want is for it not to ignore its customers' problems, especially when they're caused by flaws in the product! Instead, I want it at least to acknowledge those flaws, even if there isn't anything that can be done about it. If nothing else, it'd be nice to know I'm not hallucinating if I experience
You didn't get the memo? (Score:5, Funny)
Its all about competing with Microsoft to make sure they don't get yet another monopoly, this time on Evil ...
Two years ago, it was Sun's turn to be evil ... last year it was google's ; Novell tried last month, but they pretty much failed it, so Apple got the nod.
Re:You didn't get the memo? (Score:5, Funny)
It's their responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's their responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
You are incorrect, ATI and nVidia do write the code for the drivers that are included in the OS. I searched around the net, and I couldn't find any convincing evidence, but as a former employee, trust me. ATI/nVidia write the drivers, Apple does most of the Q&A. If you file a bugreport on a driver it will end up as being readable by ATI/nVidia, they have access to that category of bugs.
Doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Also you'll have to excuse me if I don't trust you because of a random claim you make on the net. If I had a nickel for the number of people on the net claiming to have insider information on something and being full of it... Regardless the point is that telling the person it's not Apple's problem is wrong. It's similar to buying a Dell computer and the harddrive breaks. You don't call Maxtor or WD or whoever made it, you call Dell. They are supporting the whole package.
Re:It's their responsibility (Score:5, Funny)
The bug only just got published to
Re:Apple Policy (Score:5, Insightful)
the "problem" (Score:5, Funny)
Macs "just work". Everyone knows that. Obviously the "problem" is your fault, and/or you're a troll.
Re:the "problem" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the "problem" (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously you can't do either now. You replied...
Here's my take on it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's my take on it (Score:5, Funny)
No, slashdot has always been run by control freaks (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, slashdot has always been run by control fre (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, slashdot has always been run by control fre (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's my take on it (Score:5, Informative)
some more MS source code for you (Score:5, Funny)
#endif
scientology (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's my take on it (Score:4, Insightful)
is there really any reason to archive it for posterity?
To strongly worded? (Score:5, Insightful)
It still comes across as a bit unreasonable to remove it, however. But it's Apple. They don't expect you to upgrade things on your own.
Re:To strongly worded? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To strongly worded? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To strongly worded? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:To strongly worded? (Score:5, Funny)
Forum rules? (Score:4, Interesting)
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He may have expressed irritation, but he still asked a perfectly valid question. He's entitled to know if Apple agrees that there is a driver bug or thinks that something else is going on, and if it is a driver bug, are they working on it and when can the fix be expected.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A screen grab? (Score:4, Interesting)
Was their expectation of it being removed? I find that more confusing then the fact that it was deleted.
Re:A screen grab? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A screen grab? (Score:5, Interesting)
The screen grab wasn't of his original question, but of his question after they deleted all but the subject line.
It was only after the question was deleted that he began questioning Apple's motives.
My take on it is that nobody would buy a 3-gig box if they can't properly use the extra gig of ram, and this could hurt sales, as well as give people justification for post-xmas returns (and then buying the 2-gig machine at a post-xmas price).
Re:A screen grab? (Score:5, Informative)
How often do people take screen grabs of their posts to a forum? Was their expectation of it being removed?
Apple routinely deletes posts discussing known defects; it's very well known among Apple-using techies. Apple has done it in almost every case where there have been hardware defects of any kind. A classic example would be the iBook motherboard failures. I would imagine they do it to a)keep other owners from finding out and demanding fixes as well, b)keeping the press from finding out, and c)to defend themselves in any lawsuits which can claim "well, people reported it on your forums, so you must have known about it!" So...yes.
Web forums and mailing lists fuck with a classic PR/customer service move: deny all knowledge. I had a problem with speakers in my car, which in some cases had caused smoke or fire in this particular model. We called the car company, and each member of the forum, over a period of several weeks, was told "we have no knowledge of any other reports of problems with this model." They lied straight through their teeth. We later found out that over ten years before, a vehicle had completely burned to the ground because of the same defect, and company reps came out, looked at the car, purchased it back off the owner no questions asked, etc. They knew about the defect for over a decade and a half, and only after lots of bitching to NHSTA, did we get them to do anything about it. Oh, and dealing with NHSTA was another barrel of monkeys. Call their 800 number, and you get an operator who cannot do a single thing except ask for your address and send you the forms to report a problem. Once you do, they completely prevent you from speaking to the investigator at NHSTA to communicate further details et al.
Exactly! (Score:3, Informative)
Next I found that the keyboard has the worst key-bounce since the Shadio Rack Mod I. A bi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is just the point. If you don't know the exact problem it is impossible to find info on it. The parallels problem I had to dig through the Parallels forum to find a discussion of it and it wasn't the OS. It flat didn't work on the Mac pro and they knew it and weren't talking. Last time I checked, Parallels was finally offering a beta version for it months after I bought the machine.
all the places that would have the info are heavily censored.
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Re:Sorry. Not Correct (Score:5, Funny)
Intellectual property (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, there are enough forum admins that I'm not too scared about 'leaking' like this. Note that I'm keeping the exact details secret
Re:Intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
But frankly, with all the other nonsense that goes on surrounding Apple, their products and all that, it just fits. I find that Apple is so incredibly arrogant about the way they refuse to fix problems (for example, the 128GB limit bug for some older G4 machines and before) I see Apple eventually going the way that Sony will be going -- relying on the ignorance of uninformed people who buy their brand because of the recognition and prior reputation.
EVENTUALLY, enough sales people at Best Buy and the like will tell people what's wrong with Sony and Apple and the word will get out.
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That's an ATA controller than was made before support for Large Disks (e.g., >128GB).
It cannot be fixed with any kind of firmware or software update.
So, not a bug, and not planned obsolescence. Just an ATA controller made before Large Disk support was remotely common. Further, you can just buy an inexpensive ATA PCI card if you really wanted to use disks larger than 128GB. No need to buy "newer stuff" from Apple.
Also, you're wrong that there has "never been any such problem for PCs
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Wrong; it's a driver/firmware issue. LBA48 support could have been added via a firmware patch but Apple chose not to do that. The fact that the HiCap driver from Intech works (see http://www.speedtools.com/index.shtml [speedtools.com]) proves that the hardware is capable. It's also proven by the fact that the IDE driver in Linux has no problem accessing large drives on those controllers (just make sure your kernel is in a /boot partition within the first 128GB on the disk). It's a software problem, not a hardware one
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What was that Hi-Cap driver that I installed to allow access to the 300GB drives I have installed in the boxes then?
Something that bypasses the 128GB limitation of single partition size by doing a little trickery. I trust you noticed that you have to partition the drives into less than 128GB chunks.
There are no "inexpensive" ATA PCI cards that work for a mac. They are starting out at $65+ everywhere I have seen them. Cards for
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Unless things have radically changed in the decade or so since I last dealt intimately with the IDE interface, the controller hardware has nothing whatsoever to do with block addresses.
The command registers are stored in the drive not the controller. Updating the system to deal with large disks is a device driver issue, not a hardware issue.
You have to partition large drives into 128G chunks on older hardware so that the BIOS can boot the thing. Booting from a larger partition would require a BIOS updat
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http://www.48bitlba.com/ [48bitlba.com] http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pd f [seagate.com]
Neither of those two pages suggest new hardware is necessary is solve the issue - they both say that updates to software alone is sufficient. If that's the case in Windows world then why should the Mac world be any different?
Re:Intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
In a recent Slashdot article [slashdot.org] about an effort to write an open source driver for Nvidia cards, people such as mgemmons were asking "What is wrong with the proprietary driver?" [slashdot.org] Well, what a perfect example you have there: Nvidia is actively trying to hide serious bugs/limitations present in their drivers ! WTF ! This sort of vendor behavior is precisely one of the reasons why some of us would like open source drivers.
Re:Intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the current posting, yeah, it is possible. Apple is not high and mighty. They have been shown to be "evil" at times. Of course, it is not that surprising. Lots of companies do things like this.
Don't do it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, this is an easy test. Just submit the same bug by 1000 or more different ppl on this list. Once that happens AND
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I'm sure that some Apple customers would feel reassured to have proof of someone inside who's watching out for their (customer) interests and keeping them (customers) informed. However, if you're concern is about your job, don't get too cocky about your ab
Driver support (Score:5, Informative)
I'd love to see the commercial (Score:5, Funny)
PC Guy: Hi, I'm a PC.
Apple Guy: *itching crotch*
PC Guy: Got a problem there?
Apple Guy: No, I'm fine. (*cockroaches fall to floor from pant leg*)
PC Guy: Having a little problem with that "Nvidia card"? (chuckles)
Apple Guy: *walks off set*
PC Guy: Don't mind him, he's just trying to support more than 2GB of RAM...
Re:I'd love to see the commercial (Score:5, Funny)
Apple's Bugs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple's Bugs -root cause is Apple QA dept! (Score:3, Informative)
Its WORSE than you think! The Apple bugs are now rampant.
Apple, like all software companies large and small, maintains an internal employee BugBase or bug database.
Other companies also include feature requests in such databases with acknowledgement from engineers.
It was a shining example from apple until a couple years ago some managers at Apple decided to irrationally ban thousands of Apple employees fro
Simple, stupid bugs. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's been my experience. When Windows fails, it's usually some strange registry corruption or chunk of spyware, taking down the entire system, and generally, you won't be able to fix it -- or it will be simpler and cheaper to reinstall the OS.
When Linux fails, either it's something in hardware (Linux seems to be more sensitive to bad RAM than Windows, which I consider to be a Good Thing), or it's something easily fixable -- not even by a kernel hacker, but by a competent admin with a little shell scripting ability. Even Gentoo isn't usually that hard to fix.
When OS X fails, it's going to be some annoying little thing. You'll contact Apple about it, they'll get back to you -- sometime this century -- and in the meantime, it'll piss you off enough to want to install Linux, or even Windows (if you're lucky enough to have an Intel Mac -- mine's PPC).
My bug is simple and stupid, and very annoying. My Powerbook has f1 through f10 or so mapped to hardware functions, which is actually quite nice, and I don't know if I'd easily get used to using the fn key to trigger those functions. That is, just hitting f1 would adjust monitor brightness (I think), whereas the alternative is having fn+f1 do that. But it also means that in order to pass it through to apps, or even the OS (other than hardware controls), I have to hit fn... So, to tell Expose to show me all windows, it's fn+f9.
Well, of course that was annoying as hell, and I often used Expose to peek in case something got lost -- my virtual desktops being buggy (still waiting on Spaces), often I'll accidentally move a window to another desktop and have it somehow bury itself under everything. Also, Adium has a habit of opening popup windows of any kind under what you're doing, which is nice, but a few kind of popups in particular don't trigger any notification (no growl, no sound, no duck bouncing in the tray), so the only way to see them is to hit Expose and check under your windows every few minutes to see if, say, someone had invited you to a chat, or sent you a file, or whatever.
So I mapped Expose to cmd+semicolon. Which is very nice on Dvorak, as the semicolon is where Z is on QWERTY -- looking on your keyboard, they are right next to each other (for PC people, that "Windows" key is the cmd key). The only problem is, the OS forgets this mapping every reboot. And, this being a Powerbook, I often just let it sleep -- for weeks at a time -- until an upgrade forces me to reboot, or I feel like showing off the Ubuntu livecd (or trying to get Linux to work again), or whatever. So it's not like this is part of my morning ritual -- boot computer, login, remap Expose. No, this is pretty random, and every time, it annoys the hell out of me.
Well, I submitted a detailed report on this issue. I would paste it here, but after digging up the original email, it seems that Apple places bug reports under a blanket non-disclosure agreement -- so certainly I may not paste their response here. However, I do know how to make a detailed and helpful report.
Their response: It's a known issue, currently being worked on by engineering. On the website, the bug's state is: Dupe. The website also confirms: I submitted this bug on July 25th, 20006. Their reply -- the email basically telling me it was a dupe, and that they're working on it -- came on September 22nd, 2006. As far as I know, the issue has not been resolved.
Frankly, I'm not surprised that Apple has been deleting bug discussion -- I don't know if they actually use their bug database for anything other than reassuring consumers that they know what's going on, but I now know that their standard response to bugs (or any flaw or deficiency) is to bury their head in the sand and pretend it never happened... until they fix the problem, and then claim it was always a good idea, and always what they were planning. Remember how they toted the G5's "Intel-crushing" performance (or was it "Pentium-crushing"? Whatever), before they suddenly switched to Intel, and now they're all a
Oh fer cryin'... (Score:4, Insightful)
Either that, or the tinfoil hat's beginning to cut off circulation.
Possible reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Redundant bug: fix to be backdated (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe your post just sucks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't you try Apple's bug reporting site instead of the Discussion forums? You know, the place where you actually report bugs?
Easy Answers (Score:4, Insightful)
Dumb bug on someone's part, but you're looking for a conspiracy where there is likely none.
BBB (Score:4, Informative)
http://bbb.com/ [bbb.com]
Use "Use"net (Score:3, Insightful)
First and foremost messages can be easily lost forever due to software or hardware failures, they can be censored by individuals who want them gone (Nazi Moderation). They also tend to not exist after a finite amount of time due to companies closing up shop or local retention limits. With usenet messages are propogated throughout the planet to thousands of separate stores.
Second using a browser even with all the modern trinkets and features still stinks compared to a real editor/news client.
Third to get answers that people take the time to post publically as a service to others tend to expose you to mounds and mounds of crap due to the proliferation of sites that exist to make money from google adwords.
Fourth categorization and search is much easier with a common protocol vs ad hoc web applications.
Fith access performance and just plain getting crap done factor was generally much higher in the good ole days before PHPBB and similiar technologies.
I know the above is one sided and there are lots of advantages to local systems.
Anyway I remember posting a message to one of the most popular soft phone forums a while back basically saying how stupid they were for allowing hyperlinking to SIP uris that just dial phone numbers without any kind of user say or any way to disable it short of registry hacks. A rediculous, stupid and obvious security problem. My post disappeared 20 minutes later but eventually after many months and lots of counseling I got over it and still use their software :) I figured at least they were smart enough to realize they were being stupid.
NVidia bug OR memory upgrade issue? (Score:5, Informative)
(Couldn't access the article's screen capture - site's bandwidth exceeded.)
I did some googling around, and it appears that Mac Pro systems have been known to Kernel Panic in a number of cases after a memory upgrade. Have you considered that you might have TWO (intermittent) problems?
According to this [xlr8yourmac.com]http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/Mac_Pro/mac_pro _ram.html [xlr8yourmac.com] upgrade memory should have larger heatsinks than standard heatsinked FB-Dimms. It has links to: memory test utilities, ECC correction reports, and most notably:
Questions:
Hope this helps!
Re:NVidia bug OR memory upgrade issue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Similar story from 10 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
USR apparently did not want to deal with the product liablity. It would have bankrupted them to fix all of the modems. Instead they quietly dropped the product line and completely ignored me. I solved my problem by buying a bunch of modems from another manufacturer.
JSL
Re:How did you get the screenshot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:4, Funny)
...if he bought a dell, his nvidia card would work, genius.
"The answer is the same whether you want to admit it or not"
Funny, it doesn't sound the same.
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the stock car stereo in your new Ford emits magic smoke one week after you drive the car off the dealer's lot, do you contact your the Ford dealer network or Delphi?
Of course you know the answer. Not suprisingly, if you buy a Dell it IS Dell's fault. Dell claims to sell computers, not assembly services for a pile of Intel, Nvidia, and Seagate parts. Dell is even obligated to support the majority of the Microsoft software that it "merely" installs on those computers under the terms of the various licenses and supply agreements that it has negotiated. And we're not even discussing Dell, we're discussing APPLE. The mere suggestion that the end user should have to resolve a bug by contacting an OEM parts supplier, however famous, is laughable.
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Funny)
Next week on Slashdot.
I sent Michael Huang a detailed letter describing my problem and he shredded it without responding. Is this any way to treat the customers of your clients customers customer?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wrong place? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Does Apple not have a reputation for excellent, reliable hardware that "just works"? I know Slashdot knows better, but the majority of people believe what they are told. Hushing things up makes perfectly good business sense, because by annoying a few customers, they avoid many potential customers learning to doubt the reliability of the product. They probably don't care that it isn't very nice for those customers, because they are a co
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Apple has the reputation for ease of use and quality marketing, both of which rely upon the hardware working. Unfortunately, the hardware is not providing the foundation it needs to provide.
Re:I really wanted to buy a MacBook Pro but... (Score:4, Informative)
Of particular mention is a security bug - complete with stack traces, register values and other goodies. No response and the bug still exists after 3 releases of the product.
Re:I really wanted to buy a MacBook Pro but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I really wanted to buy a MacBook Pro but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I should only have to report a problem to Apple. I should not need to report a problem to some random third-party "expeditor".
OS-X is tightly bonded to Apple hardware. Apple should do all within its powers to assure the hardware is nothing less than excellent.
Re:Hopefully this won't be deleted soon. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A more obvious conclusion... (Score:5, Informative)
Not the same (Score:3, Informative)
On the Mac, the issue is as simple as upgrading your memory to 3GB, and can be done by any user.
On the PC if you upgrade your memory to 3GB, it won't happen, because you still have a 2GB per-process memory limit. You can get 3GB per-process memory limits with the switch you described, regardless of how much physical memory you have (remember virtual memory).
The thing is, you can't really toggle this switch by accident. You have to specifically set it in your boot.ini file. The only thing I can think
Re:Some suggestions (Score:4, Insightful)
You're suggesting that he purchase a new card on his own dime to correct the problem?
2 Take out one stick of memory. 3GB is kind of excessive IMO for OS X unless you REALLY need that much memory. I used to run WoW, iTunes, Firefox, Ventrilo, and other apps just fine (when I played WoW) and never had any memory issues with 2 GB. I think the Mac Pro benefits from interleaving as well (don't quote me on that, I don't have one) and requires a specific memory configuration.
There are plenty of reasons a Mac Pro owner would need over 2 gigs. Real time rendering in Final Cut or Motion, for example. Or large Photoshop files (particularly with the Rosetta crutch.) He uses WOW as an example but I doubt he bought a $3000 workstation to run a game that will play on an iMac. At least I hope he didn't.
3 Play WoW under windows with bootcamp. It was always a little faster for me under XP than OS X, but my subscription ran out a little while ago.
Obviously unacceptable. Booting Windows is not a solution. For one, you'll be going online, which means you will need to become a Windows security expert quickly-- and you will have to purchase a retail copy of XP, again on your own dime, to solve a problem Apple should fix.
This is Apple's problem. If it is a known issue they should fix it, or issue a recall to replace the cards. If the machine is under warranty he needs to raise a continual stink to get the problem fixed (one thing I do know about Apple support, if you draw one "genius" who won't help you you have to keep trying until you find one who will.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you give up something which you do not have? Apple users never had the freedom to modify, study and distribute NVidia's copyright code in the first place. Owning an Apple computer does not stop you using, modifying, studying and distributing software which you are entitled to use, modify, study and distribute. The only thing st
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