[Solved] AMD Dual Core Timing Issue AKA Mouse Bug
 

After some time in MacOS mouse stops to move as it should be. The cursor is being moved on a very small distance with significant delay. One time this was fixed on its own but mostly I have to spawn iterm with spotlight and reboot.
Applies only to movemet, buttons/scrolling works perfectly.
Applies to al mice in system: touchpad, usb mouse, bluetooth mouse.

Any ideas?

Admin Edit: Thread renamed

Addendum by R0GUE
To summarise this for future reference; it is not a 'mouse bug' per se, but a dual core timing issue.
Symptoms include:
• Mouse lag - early signs are drag and drop inaccuracies, trail skipping
• GUI lag - Finder window movement becomes choppy and acceleration degrades
• Random restarts - caused by the 'divide by zero' error resulting in kernel panic
• -10810 error - applications will not start until a restart or log out/in
• increased CPU fan noise and temperatures - due to dual core synchronisation errors
• general erratic behaviour - system feels sluggish, unresponsive at times

Remedy (Temporary)
• Boot using the 'cpus=1' kernel flag - this can be done at the beginning of each boot at the Darwin boot prompt, or permanently by editing the com.apple.boot.plist which can be found in: /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Addendum by Naquaada
This error must not affect all Dual-Core systems, they can work without problems. The most Photoshop users have this issue, maybe the software installes something what an AMD Dual-Core cpu doesn't like, Adobe software needs a lot of resources and makes various changes in the operating system.

Why don't you try to reload the kext for the mouse. What type of mouse is this, USB or PS/2?

as I've already said, this applies to all mice at the same time (PS/2 touchpad, USB mouse, BT mouse). I've tried to turn BT on/off (thus "restarting" BT mouse) but that didn't help.

Slow down your memory timings I guarantee it will help

can you please say, how *this* could be connected with memory timings? I'm running 333MHz clock (DDR2), no overclocking etc.

BTW, my BIOS doesn't allow memory underclocking.

What board do you have?

farcaller, i believe you have the same problem that i and numerous others are experiencing. does your mouse also jump around a bit too? that is what happens for me (and others). i've also noticed that the GUI is actually a lot more laggy too (window animation, dock animation, etc). as of yet, there is no known cause or solution to this problem. as far as i know, it is not memory timing because my memory (as well as others i've talked to) are set to stock settings. leopard may be different, but I have to say that this was never an issue for me in tiger. what's even more annoying is no one is acknowledging this as a "real" problem, which is very frustrating because it IS a "real" problem, as it means at least one reboot every day. and, as a side note, rebooting is also very frustrating for me because i suffer from the sound volume back-to-default-level-on-reboot issue that other people are also not considering a "real" problem. well, all i can say is good luck getting help with this. if you do, let me know.

specs, once more:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium NF4
AMD 3800+
1GB DDR2 400
evga 8800GT 512mb

Just because something is on its stock setting doesn't mean changing it won't make a difference, I am telling you what works for me, I had this bug usually after about 3 hours usage, I don't have it any longer, the only difference are my memory timings.

what type of memory do you have?

At the moment kingston DDR400 but I've tried it with a couple of other sticks of ram I have lying around

Try changing cas latency to 3
Row cycle time to 18
Row Refresh time to 18 or higher

See if it makes a difference before you tell someone else that it doesn't work

as I've said earlier - there's no way for me to modify RAM timings. I wonder if this could be connected with absense of QE/CI (still I have to choose - QE/CI or menus. I do like menus).

@Ian: Hey alright, you don't have to get all fussy about it. It's no offense to you. I'm just a bit frustrated because myself and others have been ignored on this issue for a while now, and it seems that having to change memory timings from default values is not a proper solution if there is something that should be fixed within the release itself. Additionally, I am a bit skeptical because this was never an issue before in previous versions of OSX, so why Leopard? Anyway, we have the same brand/make of RAM, I think. I'll give it a try and report back. Sorry for making waves in your lake.

Thats okay I've got frustrated for similar reasons in that I keep telling people this fixes the issue and no one tries, appoligies to people who can't/don't have settings in bios.
I didn't have issues with tiger either, only leopard.

I should add its a bit of a bugger for me I usually run my memory oc and it score 166 in xbench now down to 130 ish.
But hell it works

Also add
firefox used to quit on me occasionally doesn't seem to be doing it any more can't swear its related but guessing that it is.

Thanks for sharing the knowledge. I just got back from changing the settings, so I'll make it my duty to report back here and share my experiences with everyone on this. I haven't done a bench test yet. I was on full default (no OC) in BIOS before this, so it would be a bummer for me too if I lose some performance because of the new settings. The hard thing about this for me too is that I can't tell what initially causes the slowdowns. I can have my computer on for 3 hours or 18 hours and it always seems different, but it's most likely to happen if I leave my system on overnight. I'll try experimenting with different programs and whatnot. Thanks again.

Cool look forward to your input

Next time you'll catch this one log the state of WindowServer process ('ps aux' in console), something like:
_windowserver 555 1.5 0.8 389596 17540 ?? Ss 10:20PM 0:03.47 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon
I feel it's the problem. At least when I've killed it ('kill -9 <PID>', 555 in the line above) - everything got back to normal. Still I don't know the OSX process tree yet, so I feel like killing X11 on linux and all GUI stuff with it. Anyways, this is somewhat faster than reboot ;)

hmph. Got macports and pstree. Seems that WindowServer is not spawning anything on its own (I could guess that). Ok, the only way to find the bad guy is one-by-one shotoff :)

@farcaller, thanks for the info. i never knew about that.

@Ian, i did three different bench tests after changing the memory timings (xBench, OpenMark, and OpenGLev). everything seems normal. again, i never had any OC settings in my BIOS, so for me, changing the memory timings doesn't seem to have caused any drawbacks so far. all in all, system performance seems the same, so really it's just a matter of long-term testing to see if the slowdowns come back. as i said, i'll keep this thread updated after i've left my computer on for 24+ hours. in the meantime, i will be going back to all of the posts on this forum where this subject has been discussed, and i'll try to rally everyone to this post. we'll make it a somewhat "official" post for this bug and see if we can all try to work together on figuring it out. maybe we can even get enough attention from Zeph so that he might look to the internal workings of leopard for some solutions. :)

How many people who are suffering from this also have random crashes from firefox, for me I'm pretty sure the issues are related?
Also this bug used to come on if I downloaded/uploaded a lot.
Are these the things other people recognise?

Same problem here after running for a while mouse goes mad like its on d***s jumps to corners and so on, i cant say that i have noticed a system slowdown as such as i always reboot when the mouse goes off on one.tried the memory timing thing to no avail.reset bluetooth tried different mice all produce same mad mouse movements.
i dont use firefox so cant check crash problem..
Firewalk

@lanxxx don't have firefox installed yet (I like safari ;) ), but I'll give it a go

try reloading the kext and see what happens. sometimes this happens when the kexts go corrupt.

@Ianxxx: YES! I have that same FF problem too! :)

@Firewalk, can you post your specs? Maybe we can find a common ground here...

@WinLinMac01: to clarify, do you mean rebuild kextcache?

which one?

Would people are able try a quick experiment.
turn your HT frequency to 3x instead of 5x and tell me, from first booting does your mouse seem a little smoother or is it me?

agrafuse, my specs are Motherboard: asus 690 chipset sb600 i think m2a-vm hdmi,CPU: amd x2 4800 (no overclocking),RAM: 4gb ddr2 800mhz, Video Card: ati X1650 ddr3 256 dual dvi. Migthy Mouse Mac Keyboard and Remote....

Firewalk

Hi lanxxx, Sorry for stupidity but whats HT frequency?.

Firewalk

Hypertransport, link between cpu and memory

should have options from 1x up to 5x "default"

Oooh is it in the bios? would it be hpet in bios? sorry its not something i am familiar with..

not sure but if it goes from one up to five then I would guess so

will try. one moment..

@Ianxxx: Just gave it a try. I was on "auto" actually, but I set it to 3x. It is either smoother now, or there is no difference at all, haha. I can't tell.

Hmm dont have an option in bios for Hypertransport..

I asked because I original had my pc overclocked when I set memory down to default etc etc. I forgot about the ht link and left it on 3x
Having turned it up to five it just doesn't feel as smooth, I'm thinking again this could be related.
Remember the problems socket 7 amds had with win95/98 I'm wondering if this is something similar.

What board do you have?

lanxxx, Its ok Asus call Hypertransport = LDT Bus Freq. Mine has option in speed ie 600,800,1066, i have selected the third one and yes i must say things seem a little smoother. will have to do a full check over time but feels better.

Thank You for your help.

Firewalk

Cool I think this is probably the real solution + memory at loose timings or very good memory.

Any idea how these changes might affect windows? I don't have it installed on my system right now, so i can't check.

Should'nt make a whole lot of difference.
Might be a fraction slower but other than that no bad effects

Will test as i have triple boot xp. can anyone recommend any benchmarking proggies for xp and vista. to test i shall revert settings and run benchmarks, then change settings and run benchmarks to compare..
strangely my keyboard seems more responsive..
Firewalk

I don't think thats strange everything in my system seems more responsive with the slower settings
Not sure about best benchmarking software, sisoft sandra, 3dmark?

this strange mouse movement could be memory related too you know. have you noticed any performance lag lately?

lanxxx, gotta say this has made my system feel smoother more reponsive.

one again thank you for the idea

Firwalk

P.S need something else to fix now, quickly running out of bugs real life looming (need a crash)..

The fact that slowing down the hypertransport link makes a huge difference I would think suggests very strongly that it could be memory related.

Question is why are some people having this problem and not others what is the difference in those systems?

@firewalk, I was just wondering, what are your system specifications?

IMHO, the verdict is still out on this one because it can take hours or days until this slowdown occurs, from my experience. i'm taking extra care not to restart my system so i can see if it is indeed memory related or not. i am also trying to run performance-intensive apps to speed up the results.

we've got varying setups, from what i can see. firewalk's specs as he told me are:
"asus 690 chipset sb600 i think m2a-vm hdmi,CPU: amd x2 4800 (no overclocking),RAM: 4gb ddr2 800mhz, Video Card: ati X1650 ddr3 256 dual dvi."

he and i have nothing in common, system-wise. i have an NF4 chipset and 1GB DDR2 400MHz, not to mention a different GPU. so that sounds a little fishy to me. Ianxxx, what were your specs?

WinLinMac01, specs as above..

I too am having this issue, I was referred to this thread after I posted my own. Anyway I seem to recall having a problem where my Tiger install would lock up periodically, I was overclocked at the time (stable in XP) so I put it back to stock and it fixed my issues. Now after reading the replies here it makes sense that turning the HT link down or loosening up the RAM timings might in fact fix this issue. I am currently overclocked right now which hasn't made it any worse than before (different CPU than I had with Tiger). I am going to loosen the timings and I will let you know if it makes any difference.

AMD Opteron 165 (Dual Core)
DFI Ultra-D nForce4 Ultra
G.Skill 2gb RAM
eVGA Geforce 6800GS (QE/CI)
Buffalo WiFi (Broadcom chipset)
WD 120gb SATA (Leopard)
WD 250gb SATA (Time Machine)
WD 250gb SATA (Windows XP)
WD 500gb SAT

nforce 4 ultra
3800 + socket 939
2 gig DDR 400
So it looks like me and you have similar systems but firewalks doesn't fit.!