I have 5 external USB disks on my little Mac Mini, and I've noted that if I don't access them for a time they spin down, and the next time I access them I have to wait for them to spin back up again. I don't care for that, and would rather they stayed spun up.
Is there some system setting or UNIX trick I can use to bring that about? Seems there should be?
I have had this issue for years now on all my Macs.
It happens to me with my current iMac intel, which has 2 firewire drives connected to it (one 800 and one 400).
When the firewire drives randomly spin it, it sometimes makes my iMac stall a bit. Like the beach-ball will sometimes even come up, but otherwise it just like it freezes a split second while it's bringing the hard drive back up the speed.
Why does it do that, and is there anyway around it?
It makes using an external drive frustrating and hurts the beautiful mac experience.
I have 4GB of memory, very fast computer otherwise, so it's not that.
I can't quit, or force quit in finder. Beach-ball continues to spin and spin
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.2)
Anyone else notice that their external hard drives spin up for no reason in Leopard?
View 24 Replies View RelatedI have some iMacs (running 10.5.6) each with an external direct-connect FireWire hard drive. About every ten minutes, these drives will spin up for a minute or two, then spin down again.
Background: The drives are set as Time Machine backup volumes on their respective iMacs. I assume the frequent accesses I observer are not related to Time Machine (because the accesses are much more frequent than the hourly backup schedule). The drives are not remote-mounted anywhere.
i installed 10.6.3 on my 17" MacBook Pro (updating from 10.5.8). All my external disk drives which had all been visible to the system and accessible before the update no longer were visible to the OS. Not in the sidebar and not in the disk utility. After checking all connections etc. many reboots, resetting the pram i still am unable to see or access these disks. From there i updated to 10.6.8 but exactly the same results. i'm not sure where to go from here. i have 4 externals on 2 different usb routers and 1 external on a firewire router. I'm considering removing the routers and trying each drive separately and directly connected to the laptop.Â
View 1 Replies View RelatedI did a software update for Safari to 5.1.5. I rebooted the system as required. Now neither the firewire external drive, nor the USB external drive are mounted.Â
They both spin and click several times and then stop. The disk utility does not see them. Power cycling the disks does not help.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8), core 2 Duo
My 2009 mac-mini started acting up about 2 months ago.The symptoms were:
-- slow response
-- freezing for no apparent reason the going again
-- failure to shutdown forcing use of the power button
-- long boot times
-- finder would freeze and could not be relaunched
-- iTunes would not quit
-- trying to view files on external drives may take an excessive time
I tried "everything" to try to resolve the problem.None of this worked:
-- zapped the parameter ram
-- cleared disk permissions
-- repaired disks
-- booted to safe mode
-- ran fsck
-- reinstalled Snow Leopard
There were several articles that discussed how to "reliably restart the finder". urls....Although none of the suggestions in the article or in the discussion provided any relief, I was finally convinced that I needed to disconnect all of my external drives and reboot.It appears that we have finally discovered the culprit.I have 4 external drives:
-Seagate GoFlex 3TB USB
-Seagate GoFlex 2TB USB
-Seagate 1.5TB Firewire
Toshiba 0.5TB USB (Used for Carbon Copy Clone of the internal drive)Booting from this drive did not change the problem.With all of them removed my computer worked just fine.Adding back the 3TB USB and the 1.5TB Firewire, I still have a working system.Since discovery of this error, I've found several articles complaining that this bug has been around long enough that it should have been fixed by now.Apparently Apple points fingers at the disk drive maker and the drive makers point back at Apple.Refering back to the article above, (the HTTP link), these same symptoms seem to appear because of some rogue applications.It -may- be that because I am using Crashplan 3.2.1 to backup this "broken" disk to another locally attached disk, that Crashplan is the "rogue" application.However, I've been using Crashplan for nearly 3 years and have found it to be a great app -- much more reliable than Time Machine (which proved to be nearly worthless when my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard died and was replaced with a MacBook Pro running Lion.
Info:
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8), core 2 Duo
It is possible to rename an external NTFS formatted Disks Drives??????
I've tried with "diskutil" command but it's no possible.
Disks I put in the Superdrive, external hard drives, or anything in the USB or Firewire (thumbdrive, etc) -- nothing shows up on the desktop. All are visible in Disk Utility. USB thumbdrives and external hard drives are visible in the sidebar in Finder, but disks are not (only disk utility).
Because of this I can't burn a disk because the disk is not being recognized. In Disk Utility, the external hard drives appear mounted and can be opened in Finder, but why aren't they appearing on my desktop (they used to)?
I've connected my new Iomega Minimax with a firewire cable directly to my iMAc but nothing appears on my desktop.
Info:
iMac
I have a Macbook Pro Intel Core Duo (first generation of MacBook Pro released). I run OSX 10.6.5. My disk utility has detected a problem and says I need the install disks that came with the computer. Called apple and they said I could reboot from snow leopard or the upgrade.** Problem is that I don't have any disks with me except those that came with my brand new iMac. Can I use those to reinstall the system? Is there any other way?
**They also said that after 2007, the install disks that come with computers are keyed to that specific computer so I "might" not be able to use the disk to repair.
Additionally, and I don't know if this makes a difference but I have the airport/time capsule which backs up my computer for easy restore.
I've got a Mac Pro 2008, with 4 noisy hard drives in it.
I wonder if there is an easy way to manually spin down/up the unused harddrives when you feel for it? (That would be much easier that powering down the whole computer, and unplug the disks.
A couple of weeks ago I was running Parallels on my Macbook Pro. I had inserted a USB stick to get a file from it to windows. In doing so, the Macbook completely froze. I took the battery out and disconnected the power supply and waited for about a minute before booting it up again.
When I booted the Mac, it looked like it was starting up fine. However, it got to the point where it loaded my wallpaper, opened Finder and then froze for a few seconds. It appeared to try and restart again, got to the same point, froze and has been in a spin ever since.
I booted the Macbook Pro off the OS disc holding the D down to do the hardware test and it came back fine. I also reinstalled just the OS, but I'm still having problems. I ran the Mac if verbose mode too and I managed to get a crash log. I wasn't able to access it until last week as the Mac was in a spin. For some reason last week I put the Mac into sleep mode and the next day I was able to see the hard drive (though I'm not able to run anything as it seems to want the admin to login - which I am).
I noticed that on my macbook pro retina, i never heard the fans spin up.Â
I tried Prime95 to stress the CPU, temperature went up to 98°c and the fans stayed at about 2000rpm... I immediately stopped to avoid damages.  Â
Info:
MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
When I go to turn on my MacBook pro nothing happens. No sound no hd spin no nothing. Last put computer to sleep and had it plugged in charging. Now when plugged in led doesn't turn green or any color just stays off and battery detector on side of laptop does nothing at all.
View 19 Replies View RelatedI was noticing a lot of slow-down while playing computer games on my MBP. My computer far exceeds the minimum requirements for everything, so I reckoned it must have been something other than a slow processor (2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo), low ram (4 GB) or a completely inadequate graphics card (Nvidia 9400M). The games range from 'Day of Defeat: Source' to the 8 year-old 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein'. After a bit of research, I came to realise that my exhaust fan is never speeding up past 2005 RPM no matter WHAT the load on the CPU is. To test this, I downloaded smcFanControl and ran CPUTest. As the CPU went from 50*C to 95*C, there was hardly any change in the fan's speed. The variation went between 1995 and 2005 RPM.
In order to keep the computer relatively cool when playing games or doing anything that is CPU-heavy, I have to manually increase the fan's RPM in smcFanControl. I find that setting the fans to the maximum, 6000 RPM, keeps the computer cool enough to process these games. This program works wonders and I've not had any slow-down in games as a result. However, I am worried that there might be something wrong with my Mac. Why does it not automatically increase fan speed when reaching higher temperatures? I've even reset my SMC (SHIFT-CONTROL-OPTION-Power) on start-up just to be sure I've tried everything. Any suggestions as to why my fan seems stuck at 2000 RPM?
MBP, 13-inch, 4GB RAM, 2.53 GHz
My computer stays at about 40C normally but when I watch videos or dvds my computer gets as hot as 81C but the fan is still at 2000 rpm. If my fan spun faster it should dissipate the heat more right? Is my fan supposed to spin faster? btw I put my umbp (mid 09 2.53ghz) on a fan cooler by antec.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI've recently uninstalled Fan Control and smcFanControl from my Macbook Pro, after trying them for a minute or two. I reset my SMC by using the method on Apples website (Clicking Shift-CTRL-Option-Power Button at the same time). It haven't worked it seem, as I have tried running some games and even at 85-90C degree, its not increasing its RPM. I don't wanna go any higher as I don't wanna risk the CPU overheating.
View 8 Replies View RelatedSetting aside criticisms and the general derision that seem to attend this sidekick program of Toast, it's...what...I'm...used...to.Except now on a G5 desktop upgraded to 10.5.8 (end o' the line for this beast) I can record an LP on CD Spin Doctor (companion to Toast 8 that came on this used G5--I used to use Toast 6 on an older G4--10.3.x) but either trying to play or edit tracks brings up the spinning pinwheel of death.
Going back to the ironically named CD Spin Doctor 2 which is the companion to the earlier Toast 6 is the same difficulty. Restarting doesn't help and there is nothing to do with this unedited LP track except Force Quit. I did finally save it but I still can't play or edit it.IknowIknowIknow about Spin Doctor and Leopard (and that's not even relevant here), but did compatibility for these older Spin Doctor versions run out somewhere in OS 10.4?
My 11 month old macbook pro (2011) was recently sent under warrenty for Harddisk SPIN RETRY COUNT value increase. They changed the harddisk and installed new Toshiba harddisk. Which ran 100% S.M.A.R.T health for two weeks and now it is showing same Spin retry count problem. I am thinking its not the harddisk but something else is causing the problem( may be power supply problem). I am from nepal so it takes a lot of effort to send it in for repair.
Info:
MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Why do I get the spinning wheel while I'm typing? It holds me up for 3 seconds at least each time.Â
Info:
MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Server
I am not quite sure the difference between the AUTO and ON power options. When I have it set to ON the drive will power on when the computer powers on, power off when the computer powers off and it will spin down when it has not been used for a while. Isn't the ON option not supposed to spin down when the drive has not been in use for a while?
Currently the AUTO setting does the same as the ON setting. It powers on and off with the computer and spins down when the drive has not been used in a while.
Basically, after the fans rev up to 6200rpm, the rpm stays there and never comes down, even after the computer is sitting idle for awhile. I installed the smc update and am using coolbook to try to avoid core shutdowns. Is anyone else having this problem? I'm going to try replacing the thermal glue tomorrow, to see if that helps, but it seems somehow unrelated to me. I'm using smcfancontrol to monitor the rpm of fans.
View 11 Replies View RelatedI'm having a worrisome problem with my MDD dual 1ghz g4. It will sometimes turn off when in sleep mode. When I try to boot it back up, it comes on and chimes and I can hear the HDD spin up, but then it will just turn off. Usually after about 3 or 4 attempts it will boot up just fine.I thought it might be the battery on the logic board, since the clock would re-set every time the machine was powered down, so I replaced it. That fixed the clock issue, but the machine is still turning off and taking several attempts to start back up.
I have no idea what is causing this. One thing I do know is that this house is pretty old and the wiring seems iffy. I have a battery backup on another machine and sometimes it will start beeping like it's lost power, but it's still plugged in and the light indicating that it's receiving power is on, so I think sometimes the power from the wall fluctuates. This might explain the MDD spontaneously shutting off, but does it explain the difficulty restarting?BTW, I searched the forums to see if anyone had asked this question, but found no threads,
I have had my macbook pro just over a year with no problems. Now I am trying to burn a folder with work in it (indesign, etc) but when I put a blank cd or dvd-r in, it is not recognized. It doesn't spin, no noise, etc. I have tried clicking on the folder and choosing the "burn this folder" option, but the result is the same. Music and data CD's are recognized. I already have an appt. with the genius bar, but I'd really like to avoid the hassle if possible. I just did all firmware updates and software updates.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI got a new macbook black that is not covered under warranty, the magsafe fried on it and it used to boot up but not charge the battery or show any signs of power from the magsafe so then I bought a new magsafe that connects to the logic board and replaced it and when I plugged the power adapter in it tried to turn on right away and then the fan spinned and the sleep light light up then it shut off right away and I didn't smell nothing from the macbook or logic board. The battery now charges and the light on the magsafe adapter lights up so I tried to turn it back on and it doesn't the same thing turns on and then right off just the fan spins and then the hdds spin lasts for like a sec or two. I tried to turn it on with the battery out and with just the battery in nothing swapped the RAM same thing went from two 1 gig sticks to 2 256mb sticks and then tried another two 2gig sticks same thing then I tried a different hdd and have the same thing happen? What I need to do to get this working and yes I tried a google search and every1 ended up taking it to apple and I cannot do that.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a G5 that is about 5 years old. For some reason it will not sleep or shutdown. When I try to do either one of those actions it does simi-sleep/shut down, but not completely. By that I mean it sounds like the hard drive spins down but then fans still are running. After about two minutes the fans spin way up and the Mac won't start back up. I have to pull the power on my battery backup. I took it to the shop (Not an apple store) and they reinstalled the OS for me and put some new ram in. Supposedly they "Fixed' the problem.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have brought a new iMac 27'' the i5 model. I have noticed that the fans never change speed no matter how hot my processor gets ? Is this normal ? I have ran prime 95 and istat pro to check the temps and fan speeds. Nothing changes apart from the temperature.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
There appears to be a rather serious (IMHO) design oversight in OS X's file system routines, as concerns the handling of external drives with power-save features. I've never bothered mentioning this online before, as I've always expected it to be resolved, "in the next update". But I've been waiting now since 10.4 Tiger and nothing yet. So I figured I'd raise the issue in here, at least to see what others might have to say about it.Â
I keep an external (Seagate) USB drive connected to my personal iMac, for use mostly by Time Machine. I'm sure I'm by no means alone in this practice. :-D The drive is, of course, modern and nice enough to power down when not in use (well, "spin down" at least.)Â The trouble is, even though OS X's disk caching system really ought to know (IMHO) that the drive has not been unplugged or accessed by anything else since OS X itself last did so -- alas, for the likes of Save As ... dialog boxes, we still get a several-second Finder UI "lock up" -- usually accompanied by "the spinning beach-ball of death" -- while the OS merely waits for the external USB drive to spin up and say, "Yup. Still here. Nothing has changed and all is well. Carry on!", before finally presenting the list of places I might want to save my file at.Â
This happens in all applications, apparently any and every time the OS wants to refresh the list of available storage devices. So it's obviously an OS X cache/driver issue, as opposed to anything in user-land. Wouldn't you agreed?Â
I guess my first question would have to be, "Is there something I've not been able to find, which I can in fact already do to fix this problem?"
I know it's not just me, actually, because we have five (5) Macs in and about the home office, which all exhibit this highly frustrating behavior. Two use Seagate USB drives (one is 5.25", the other 3.5") while two others use Western Digital drives and the final has two Samsung drives, in custom enclosures. In fact, that last machine -- with an second drive solely for additional mass storage -- has us waiting while both drives spin up, in turn, which is frankly just terrible.
Indeed, the retired TV producer gentleman who owns this particular machine, swears that his iMac is, "the worse Mac I've ever owned", solely because of this problem of, "... constant $@#% delays ...", as he puts it.
Meanwhile, I've been trying to convince the old fellow that doing a full system re-install is highly unlikely to fix his problem. He harkens back to the days of OS 7?P.S: While I remember it -- there's another problem you might have come across, whereby if an external display is connected but turned off, the UI (mouse pointer etc) continuously pauses about even second or so, forcing me to either unplug the external (DVI) display or leave it turned on, even when I'm not using it for hours on end. This one is not nearly such a biggie as the USB drive one, in my view. But a curiosity, none the less.
Info:
iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4), 16GB RAM
