[Solved] AMD Dual Core Timing Issue AKA Mouse Bug

[farcaller]

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.

[WinLinMac01]

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

[farcaller]

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.

[Ianxxx]

Slow down your memory timings I guarantee it will help

[farcaller]

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.

[Ianxxx]

What board do you have?

[agrafuese]

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

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese: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.

[agrafuese]

what type of memory do you have?

[Ianxxx]

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

[farcaller]

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).

[agrafuese]

@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.

[Ianxxx]

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.

[agrafuese]

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.

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese: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

[farcaller]

agrafuese:farcaller, i believe you have the same problem that i and numerous others are experiencing.
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 ;)

[farcaller]

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 :)

[agrafuese]

@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. :)

[Ianxxx]

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?

[Firewalk]

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

[farcaller]

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

[WinLinMac01]

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

[agrafuese]

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

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

[agrafuese]

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

[farcaller]

WinLinMac01:try reloading the kext and see what happens. sometimes this happens when the kexts go corrupt.
which one?

[Ianxxx]

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?

[Firewalk]

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

[Firewalk]

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

Firewalk

[Ianxxx]

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"

[Firewalk]

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

[Ianxxx]

Firewalk: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

[Firewalk]

will try. one moment..

[agrafuese]

@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.

[Firewalk]

Hmm dont have an option in bios for Hypertransport..

[Ianxxx]

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.

[Ianxxx]

Firewalk:Hmm dont have an option in bios for Hypertransport..
What board do you have?

[Firewalk]

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

[Ianxxx]

Firewalk:lanxx, 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.

[agrafuese]

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

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese: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

[Firewalk]

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

[Ianxxx]

Firewalk: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?

[WinLinMac01]

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

[Firewalk]

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)..

[Ianxxx]

WinLinMac01:this strange mouse movement could be memory related too you know. have you noticed any performance lag lately?

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?

[WinLinMac01]

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

[agrafuese]

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?

[Firewalk]

WinLinMac01, specs as above..

[StealthMode]

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

[Ianxxx]

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.!

[agrafuese]

Thanks Ian, yeah, that is strange. StealthMode, what are your specs?

[Ianxxx]

I think we should have all posted under this heading, is it me or does this make anyone else laugh.

Slow jerky mouse movement with HD munching

[Firewalk]

lanxxx, my system never fits i built it myself.. still running smooth..mouse not gone mad.

[agrafuese]

@Ian: Hahahaha. Part of me wants you to make a new thread specifically just to have that new heading, but part of me knows we have waaaay too many threads already for this topic (hence my manic gathering of them today).

[Ianxxx]

Firewalk:lanxxx, my system never fits i built it myself..

Me too lol

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:Hahahaha. Part of me wants you to make a new thread specifically just to have that new heading, but part of me knows we have waaaay too many threads already for this topic (hence my manic gathering of them today).

could HD stand for something else?

[agrafuese]

Ianxxx: Firewalk:lanxxx, my system never fits i built it myself..

Me too lol

Well waddya know? ME TOO! Hey, this is the common element to bring us all together: we built our own hacks. So the answer must be to buy a Dell, right? ;)

[Firewalk]

High Definition, Head Donar,Huge Doughnut Lol

[agrafuese]

Ianxxx: agrafuese:Hahahaha. Part of me wants you to make a new thread specifically just to have that new heading, but part of me knows we have waaaay too many threads already for this topic (hence my manic gathering of them today).

could HD stand for something else?

HotDog...definitely HotDog. HotDog munching.

[Firewalk]

Does somebody like hotdogs?..

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese: Ianxxx: Firewalk:lanxxx, my system never fits i built it myself..

Me too lol

Well waddya know? ME TOO! Hey, this is the common element to bring us all together: we built our own hacks. So the answer must be to buy a Dell, right? ;)

I would rather sell my soul to satan and become a hot dog muncher.

[agrafuese]

aaahahahahahah. oh man. i am actually loling. i needed that.

[StealthMode]

Wow, this derailed fast LOL I think I was under some influence when I wrote that :o

[Ianxxx]

StealthMode:Wow, this derailed fast LOL I think I was under some influence when I wrote that :o

Where you watching porn at the time?

[StealthMode]

Uncle Herb perhaps :o

[Ianxxx]

Have any of the suggestions made any difference to your errr problem?

[StealthMode]

I'm on my PowerBook G4 right now, so no...

[Firewalk]

where the weed at?

[StealthMode]

I'm awaiting my herbal supplement as I type 8-)

[Firewalk]

lol

[agrafuese]

well, i guess the next logical question is: do you notice the slowdowns after said influence?
or, there's always the classic half-baked question: ever tried using Leopard...ON WEEEEEED?

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:well, i guess the next logical question is: do you notice the slowdowns after said influence?
or, there's always the classic half-baked question: ever tried using Leopard...ON WEEEEEED?
It's leopard shouldn't it be catnip?

[Firewalk]

who said catnip, you got any go on sell us some catnip..(shake shake shiver shiver).

[agrafuese]

i guess that would explain the erratic mouse movements :)

[StealthMode]

LOL It happens regardless ;)

[agrafuese]

well, bad news for me guys. i just tried stressing my system by opening all of the apps i have at once. at the same time, i was browsing with firefox (checking my email) when it suddenly crashed. i also noticed that the last app i clicked on to open (which was illustrator) didn't open. so i went to restart firefox, and i got this message: "The application "Firefox" cannot be launched. -10810" i've actually had this error before on random occasions. whenever it happens, it does this for all of my apps. so, for example, i tried to open illustrator again, and it gave me the same error. i then closed all of my apps and tried to open them again, and it gave me the same error for every single one. i tried to open a new finder window to test browsing some folders, but it crashed finder all together and all i could see was my dock. at this point i had to log out and log back in (using keyboard shortcuts, since i no longer had a menu bar). well, that sucked. and worse, now i have to start over my long-term stability test for these memory settings since i basically had to re-initiate a new leopard session by logging out/in. at this point, i am fantasizing about going back to tiger. it's not a good feeling. baaarrrgggghhh!! where's the damn catnip now!??!

[Firewalk]

same thing here, ahd alot of apps open and eyetv same crash 1080 on all apps, restarted and now ok again. seems like its not fixed to me. no mouse jumping to speak of the odd speed up but nothing in comparison to the default hypertransport settings. will try different hypertransport settings to see if i get any better results..

Firewalk

[Ianxxx]

what we really need to know is if anyone has had this problem on a non amd system. Is it purely amd related or is it just a bug in leopard that will be fixed in the near future by apple?

[agrafuese]

well, i actually looked up the 10810 thing on google, and it's rare to say the least. apple dev's seem a bit clueless about it, so i'm guessing it's not common on "real" macs. there was a post on the apple forums that said this could have something to do with LaunchServices database needing to be rebuilt. the guy gave a link to an app that would do this, but i'm a little hesitant to try it out. i don't want to screw my install up anymore than it may already be. regardless, here's the post if you've got the cajones to try it yourselves (i have a feeling it wouldn't help though): http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1201327&tstart=60 (scroll down to MarkDouma's post for the app)

[Ianxxx]

well I've run the app and nothing seems screwed but will let you know in about four hours time.

[Snow]

I've been reading through this thread and I have both these issues along with some other which I will not mention yet.

Firewalker: Same problem here after running for a while mouse goes mad like its on d***s jumps to corners and so on

Agrafuese: "The application "Safari" cannot be launched. -10810" error (mine is with Saf, not FF)

It's hard for me to believe these issues are latency related. I think when having latency probs we should experience a lot more issues like crashes, slowdowns, freezes even. And these issues even occur when our systems run idle.
I'll try relaxing them anyway. I'm slightly overclocked and timings are also slightly tightend. Mind you, for those playing games in windows and loosening the timings by a lot you will loose some FPS. That could be a prob if you need all the FPS you can get.
I believe my HT is still at the default of 5x so I will try the 3x but I think it's more of a placebo effect lads.

Anyway, thx for all the info you guys put here and hopefully we can sort this issue out soonish.

Laters ;)

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:well, i actually looked up the 10810 thing on google, and it's rare to say the least. apple dev's seem a bit clueless about it, so i'm guessing it's not common on "real" macs. there was a post on the apple forums that said this could have something to do with LaunchServices database needing to be rebuilt. the guy gave a link to an app that would do this, but i'm a little hesitant to try it out. i don't want to screw my install up anymore than it may already be. regardless, here's the post if you've got the cajones to try it yourselves (i have a feeling it wouldn't help though): http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1201327&tstart=60 (scroll down to MarkDouma's post for the app)

This is worth someone else trying it, it certainly doesn't seem to brake anything which is the main thing. I'm not sure its working as I said earlier I don't get the funny mouse movement thing any more since changing memory. But my computer has been on since about 3 am thats over 7 hours ago, nothing has crashed so far.

[farcaller]

Can someone please tell me how could hardware problem (timings) be magically fixed by just re-spawning a bunch of processes?..

[Ianxxx]

farcaller:Can someone please tell me how could hardware problem (timings) be magically fixed by just re-spawning a bunch of processes?..

It couldn't

But that's like asking how could cpus=1 fix a networking problem.

[farcaller]

Ianxxx:But that's like asking how could cpus=1 fix a networking problem.
lol. However I can find an answer to this one ;)

[Snow]

Alright lads, a little update.

I've ran my PC with HT x3 this morning and got even worse problems then before.

I'll post a little diary on what happend:

- Safari Crashes
- When trying to restart Saf it shows 10810 error
- Menu icons have dissapeared except for Quickeys (3rd part app) and Spotlight
- Cannot start a single app anymore
- When closing apps that are running I loose a bit of the screen content, meaning, Dock quits, then Menubar closes when trying to quit from the menu.
- Can't even reboot anymore and nothing is displayed on the screen except for tha wallpaper.
- Need to RESET PC to get things fixed.

Voila, there you have it. Before this Saf would just crash or I would get the mouse behaiour but nothing liek this. Coincidence or cause of HT adjustment, I have no idea. I do know though that the mouse (or all else for that mater) wasnt any smoother by changing HT setting.

I have now lowered my timings too so I'm running HTx3 with 3-4-4-8 timings (default timings for my RAM)
I'll keep you guys updated!

Btw for testing I suggest you open iTunes, Saf, Mail and another app like Photoshop and leave it there for a few hours. Then come back to the PC and start to work with it.

Good luck!

[Snow]

And now Time machine doesnt work anymore too. Could not find backup volume error. It has been a while since I backed up so can't tell what happend since then. Nothing major though.

Tried Erasing, reselecting, other SMBIOS & IONetworking, all to no result.

[Voyn1x]

I'm another one suffering from these issues. I think it's possibly connected to having multiple cores. I found this thread on Insanelymac about X2 users, not sure if its still valid for leopard.

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=7405&pid=199818&st=120&#entry199818

It talks about the use of kernel flags such as idlehalt=0, cpuidle=0, platform=X86PC, fn=3. Also here's a quote from the thread:- "I think the key it is in FSB....OSX loves to run in high FSB."

Edit: Firefox is also crashing with the 'divide by zero' error. Not sure if thats connected at all?

[farcaller]

New "feature" of the mouse bug. I've got QE/CI working and now when the bug appears not only the mouse behaves slowly, but it's very hard to type anything on keyboard too - all UI seems to be frozen

[Voyn1x]

Well i've found out what the -10810 error is. It happens when you have runaway spawn processes. Apparently its often caused by having SMB sharing on, i've turned that off for testing now. Fingers crossed, not sure if this is related to the mouse issue.

Do any of you guys have SMB sharing turned on?

[agrafuese]

@voyn1x: no, i don't have SMB turned on.

@farcaller: it seems i recall the same keyboard issues.

@snow: next time instead of force-restarting, do apple+shift+Q and it will allow you to log out. then you can log back in with GUI working again.

ok here's a little report for now: i've had my system up for 10 hours now without reboot. i have ianxxx's suggested memory settings: cas latency @ 3, cycle time @ 18, row refresh @ 18, HT @ 3x. things are still running fine, however, i haven't tried stressing the system out again because i don't want it to freak out and give me the 10810 error once more (thus forcing me to reboot and start my long-term testing all over again). admittedly, most of these 10 hours were spent with the system being idle because i was asleep, so only about 2-3 hours of that time was me actually using the system. so, nothing intensive was going on. just a little bit of itunes, some web browsing, and some entourage email checking.

@ianxxx: not to be a pest, but for me a 7-hour stint still isn't enough. i've had this problem happen after many more hours than that. in fact, to me it seems like it may not even be an issue of time at all, but rather just the right combination of apps and usage. for example, i've had this issue happen after using Linotype Font Explorer (it's a great app for font organization, btw, if anyone is interested. google it.). this app, i believe, it highly RAM and CPU intensive, and i did notice once or twice that my system started acting up after it had been up for an hour or so. also, as i mentioned in a previous post, i used to run Tomato Torrent (not anymore though, because it sucks in general) and that also seemed to cause the problem, especially when i'd leave it running with torrents over night. i'll run Font Explorer now for a while and see if i can get the system to act up again.

now, here's a noob-ish question: what is this talk about "spawns"? can someone explain that to me? if it is what i think it is, then it makes sense because essentially Tomato torrent has many simultaneous processes going on (connecting to many peers, gathering data, etc.)...and Font Explorer also has this same thing going on because it has to process many different fonts (gathering info on the font, displaying the name of the font with the actual typeface, etc.).

ok that's all for now. sorry for the TLDR guys, hope you actually read all of this :)

[Snow]

I stopped reading at the @ sign bro, then I went back to reading when I saw my nick mentioned ;)

Thx for the suggestion on logging out.

So to add to this, I havent got any probs so far running my RAM at 3-4-4-8 and HTx3. Before this I was running my RAM at 2,5-3-3-7 and HTx5. And this time, with relaxing my RAM timings Leo does feel a bit more responsive overall. When this turns out well I think I will bump the HT back up to x5 cause I have a feeling it might only be the RAM timings.
Let's hope it stays this way. I'm willing to cope with the lower timings if it fixes the whole crash/mouse issues.

Thx all for the input and fingers crossed!

[agrafuese]

Just a little update: I've got music playing in iTunes, a large file transfer going on in Transmit, iChat open talking to someone, Safari with multiple windows, and Firefox just sitting idle (wow, it's not crashing!). I also just opened Font Explorer up and activated an additional 60 fonts (up to about 350 fonts all together now). If this stays stable for a while, I'll add a little more stress by opening up Photoshop and Illustrator. At that point, it will be a pretty typical working scenario for me, and therefore a good test for the problem to arise. Here's one question I have though to derail this whole memory issue:

I've never bought RAM for a "real" Mac before. So how does it work? Can you just go on newegg.com and buy some Kingston RAM or Corsair, or some other fairly "standard" RAM, or do you HAVE to buy it from an Apple store? The reason I ask is because what would happen if I stuck my RAM in a real Mac? Would these problems be happening? Furthermore, can you change memory timings on a real Mac? It seems to me that if these things aren't necessary for a real Mac that there could in fact be some kind of tweaks done to Zeph's release so that we don't have to worry about these memory timing settings. Also, this kind of safeguard MUST have been implemented in my old Tubgirl version of Tiger 10.4.10 because wouldn't it also need to have specific memory timings if this weren't the case?? Don't get me wrong (Ianxxx, lol), I'm not trying to kill your theories, but I am still skeptical because it seems really ridiculous for every AMD user to have to tinker around with his system. And what about Intel PC users? Are they worrying about this? Or does Kalyway take care of it somehow? I really think we need to push this in Zeph's direction and see what he has to say. We have different systems! There are enough of us here now that this can't be small potatoes. There must be a blanket solution for us all. Anyone with me on this?

[agrafuese]

damn, where did everyone go? anyone else have any news on this?
i was running for a solid 21 hours without rebooting. no crashes, no slowdowns. then, suddenly, safari started crashing out of nowhere. the first two times it crashed, i could start it back up, but then after the third, it gave me the dreaded -10810 error on all of my apps and nothing would start anymore. if anyone cares to look through it, here is my console log:

3/17/08 11:20:18 PM ReportCrash[796] Formulating crash report for process Safari[721]
3/17/08 11:20:19 PM ReportCrash[796] Saved crashreport to /Users/agrafuese/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Safari_2008-03-17-232013_AMD-Mak.crash using uid: 501 gid: 20, euid: 501 egid: 20
3/17/08 11:20:19 PM com.apple.launchd[95] ([0x0-0x99099].com.apple.Safari[721]) Exited abnormally: Floating point exception
3/17/08 11:20:20 PM kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=798[ATSServer] clearing CS_VALID
3/17/08 11:20:36 PM /usr/sbin/ocspd[800] starting
3/17/08 11:24:19 PM ReportCrash[802] Formulating crash report for process Safari[799]
3/17/08 11:24:20 PM ReportCrash[802] Saved crashreport to /Users/agrafuese/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Safari_2008-03-17-232417_AMD-Mak.crash using uid: 501 gid: 20, euid: 501 egid: 20
3/17/08 11:24:20 PM com.apple.launchd[95] ([0x0-0xad0ad].com.apple.Safari[799]) Exited abnormally: Floating point exception
3/17/08 11:24:21 PM kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=804[ATSServer] clearing CS_VALID
3/17/08 11:26:58 PM /usr/sbin/ocspd[809] starting
3/17/08 11:28:39 PM ReportCrash[813] Formulating crash report for process launchd[95]
3/17/08 11:28:39 PM ReportCrash[813] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/launchd_2008-03-17-232839_AMD-Mak.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
3/17/08 11:28:39 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[95]) Exited abnormally: Floating point exception
3/17/08 11:28:39 PM kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=814[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
3/17/08 11:28:42 PM ReportCrash[813] Formulating crash report for process Safari[807]
3/17/08 11:28:43 PM ReportCrash[813] Saved crashreport to /Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Safari_2008-03-17-232839_AMD-Mak.crash using uid: 0 gid: 0, euid: 0 egid: 0
3/17/08 11:28:53 PM /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock[107] spawn_via_launchd() failed, errno=22 label=[0x0-0xb20b2].com.apple.Safari path=/Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari flags=1

the good news is, it seems the slowdowns have disappeared for now. if i could choose, i suppose i much prefer this -10810 error to the slowdowns, but the truth of the matter is i have to reboot my system either way. i still haven't run that app that Ianxxx tried from the link i posted. maybe i should take the leap now :\

[Snow]

Argh bad news, I could say it's just Saf being a dick and that real macs also have this issue but since the error is rare I think we can still conclude it's AMD related (or at least OSX86)

I need to do some more testing to post updates on this matter m8.

I'll keep you updated.

[Voyn1x]

After a lot of searching, i have discovered that Apple ensures that all memory modules meet their timing requirements by not POSTing if incompatible memory is installed in the system and that it is very important that Mac users should only use memory that's specifically made for the Mac.

Because all Macs configure their memory timings based on the SPD that Apple specifies, all memory is configured to have the same timings regardless of what the modules are capable of - in other words, all Mac memory performs the same!

This would explain why Ianxxx suggestion of playing with the ram timings seems to work.

@Agrafuse: Open up terminal and type 'top'. This gives the terminal equivalent of Activity Monitor. Keep that open and when you start to get the -10810 error have a look to see how many processes are running, you should be running 55-80 on average. If the amount has sky rocketed you should be able to see the offending process.

[Ianxxx]

Hi everyone, I'm gonna throw something new in to the mix, my broadband got disconnected last night problems with provider, so I did a test, put my memory overclocked etc.
Its still running this morning, I left it on when I came out of the house and will be back to see whats happening around dinner, but I'm begining to think that this is in someway network related.
And that the memory is just like the cpus=1 which helps but is not the cure.
for info I am using a realtek 8169 lan card with the apple kext supplied on 10.5.2 rev 1 dvd.
what configs are others using?

[Snow]

Hey Lanxxx

Actualy I was thinking the same thing yesterday. Remember the crash issues with the net on Zephs rev1 release (first one)
Mind you, I'm not using the Nforce LAN with fixed forcedeth or whatever but I'm using the MArvel Yukon (other LAN port on my ASUS A8N SLI)

And btw, by overclocked do you mean higher speed and/or tighter timings?

Cause I'm still running my ram overclocked at 230 but with lower timings 3-4-4-8 (default)
Only the timings seem to affect the issue for me so far (I'm not jumping yet)

So for me I went from HTx5 FSB 230 RAM 2,5-3-3-7 (which I have always used for such a small OC) to HTx4 FSB 230 RAM 3-4-4-8

Hope that helps with info

[Ianxxx]

my ram is now set at htx3 fsb 450 3448

The more I think about it the more i think this is a network bug. I ran my system succesfully for over 8 hours no problems and "no internet".
So the question is "us with the bug, what do we have or do different to those without.
So question to anyone who doesn't have it, did you change anything network related since you installed leopard? Different IONetworkfamily.kext? Etc?
For those who do have it, are you like me no changes to network since installation. Also any thing else anyone can think of, I'm thinking this must be something really simple and really subtle as some don't and some do and there doesn't seem any apparent link, what are we all missing?

[agrafuese]

Yes! I woke up this morning and began to believe it was network related too! Here's why: I can almost 100% guarantee that this problem will occur when I've left my computer on overnight with torrents running (this time I was using BitRocket, before it was Tomato Torrent). I have a feeling it is also upstream-related because I only had one torrent downloading. It was only around 100MB, and it finished just before I went to bed. So performance was still good when it finished and started to seed. I have an auto-stop when ratio hits 2:0, so after I seeded 200MB, there could be no more peers connecting. So this problem must happen fast, with only a few peers connecting over a short period of time. I should also say that I have Little Snitch running, and I use it in demo mode (so it stops after 3 hours into the night). I have no idea if this has anything to do with the problem at all, but it's just some more info to throw at you all. Also, one last thing I've noticed is ALWAYS associated with this problem is this console message that repeatedly occurs throughout the night:

3/18/08 8:41:32 AM mDNSResponder[17] mDNSPlatformRawTime went backwards by 4 ticks; setting correction factor to 206737245

The number of "ticks" differs, and it seems that the higher the number, the worse my mouse movements and GUI will perform. I've had it go up to 15 or 20 in the past. Also, the more frequently this message occurs, the worse performance is too. For instance, right now the mouse and GUI are slow but not as bad as usual, and I noticed that the tick numbers are all around 3-4 and the message only occurred a total of 5 times at random instances throughout the night/morning.

...now, for the cherry on top...I found this little line in there as well:

3/18/08 9:11:38 AM kernel skgeosx ERR: ouputPacket() zero segments

skgeosx is the network driver I am using.

I am using the same network setup as Snow. Marvell Yukon 88E8001. I too have the nLan adapter, but I haven't been using it because I had problems with it in the past. I am running 10.5.2 rev1 right now, so I don't know if it would work better now with this release. Maybe I'll give it another try. What network adapter/driver are you guys using?

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:Yes! I woke up this morning and began to believe it was network related too! Here's why: I can almost 100% guarantee that this problem will occur when I've left my computer on overnight with torrents running (this time I was using BitRocket, before it was Tomato Torrent). I have a feeling it is also upstream-related because I only had one torrent downloading. It was only around 100MB, and it finished just before I went to bed. So performance was still good when it finished and started to seed. I have an auto-stop when ratio hits 2:0, so after I seeded 200MB, there could be no more peers connecting. So this problem must happen fast, with only a few peers connecting over a short period of time. I should also say that I have Little Snitch running, and I use it in demo mode (so it stops after 3 hours into the night). I have no idea if this has anything to do with the problem at all, but it's just some more info to throw at you all. Also, one last thing I've noticed is ALWAYS associated with this problem is this console message that repeatedly occurs throughout the night:

3/18/08 8:41:32 AM mDNSResponder[17] mDNSPlatformRawTime went backwards by 4 ticks; setting correction factor to 206737245

The number of "ticks" differs, and it seems that the higher the number, the worse my mouse movements and GUI will perform. I've had it go up to 15 or 20 in the past. Also, the more frequently this message occurs, the worse performance is too. For instance, right now the mouse and GUI are slow but not as bad as usual, and I noticed that the tick numbers are all around 3-4 and the message only occurred a total of 5 times at random instances throughout the night/morning.

...now, for the cherry on top...I found this little line in there as well:

3/18/08 9:11:38 AM kernel skgeosx ERR: ouputPacket() zero segments

skgeosx is the network driver I am using.

I am using the same network setup as Snow. Marvell Yukon 88E8001. I too have the nLan adapter, but I haven't been using it because I had problems with it in the past. I am running 10.5.2 rev1 right now, so I don't know if it would work better now with this release. Maybe I'll give it another try. What network adapter/driver are you guys using?

I am using a realtek 8169, so thats different, just out of interest are you using a router? If so what have you set mtu to in osx and on router?

[agrafuese]

yeah, i'm running the classic WRT54G router. MTU is set to auto (1500) in the router and auto (1500) in osx as well. i've always had these settings in osx since the days of tiger 10.4.8. what does your realtek adapter use for a driver? does it use its own third-party driver?

[agrafuese]

yet another update:

i decided to install another fresh copy of 10.5.2 rev1 on a spare partition just now, but this time i am using nLan for ethernet (forcedeth) instead of my marvell (skgeosx), which I have now disabled completely in BIOS. everything else is totally pure on this installation except for the video kexts i need to modify for my video card to run. i also updated leopard (including the new safari 3.1), and patched everything with marvin's. for now, i've decided not to install AppleSMBIOS-27 or the fixed IONetworkingFamily, and i am leaving the mach_kernel at the default 9.2.0. if i get problems with this setup, i will replace the AppleSMBIOS and then try the fixed IONetworkingFamily. as a test, i will be downloading a 3GB torrent with bitrocket and little snitch running. may leave it to seed over night as well. i'll report back with my results when i find out something new.

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:yeah, i'm running the classic WRT54G router. MTU is set to auto (1500) in the router and auto (1500) in osx as well. i've always had these settings in osx since the days of tiger 10.4.8. what does your realtek adapter use for a driver? does it use its own third-party driver?
My lan card uses apples driver, so I haven't changed IONetworking, I'm not sure which AppleSMBIOS I'm using can't remember wether I changed it on this installation or not.
I have a wag54gs router just updated the firmware on it "you never know".

[Snow]

Hmm, I still have a Realtek 8139 PCI network adapter laying around that I actualy used for JAS 10.4.8 and Tubgirls 10.4.9 (10) in the past. Maybe I should try the card again. I haven't had any issues so far though so I'll wait till they start to occur again.
Im' still at HTx4 FSB230 3-4-4-8 here.
I remember the issue with the nForce LAN was that the OS crashed when using iTunes radio stations or Front Row movie trailers or cd previews. I don't even know which skge kext we're running anymore lol, is it a modded one from Zeph or?
Thing is though, Lanxxx is using a totaly different network solution and still has the same issue.
For now we can just update this thread with our latest experiences.
Did all of us (with the issues) change the SMBIOS kext? I wonder. My Time Machine broke too and I can't figure out what happend. I did change the SMBIOS cause I had issues with Photoshop but, I've tried the old ones again and Time Machine is still broken. Photoshop doesn't crash anymore though, for now.

Laters

[agrafuese]

Snow, I just thought of something. Maybe when you changed your SMBIOS, it affected the way your MAC address is displayed to Time Machine, hence the MAC address error it's giving you? Perhaps when you changed it back, you didn't reload the kext cache? We're a little off topic on this now, I guess.

Oh, I checked the skgeosx driver that we have from Zeph and it appears to be the same one that was initially released by the guy who made it. Forcedeth, on the other hand, was modded by Zeph, afaik. And I don't know if I even have the latest one. I am using 10.5.2 rev1, but has he done anything new to that kext since then? Anyone know? It doesn't say so in his rev2 thread. It worked alright for me, but it didn't display or connect to network computers properly, so I had to dump it and go back to skgeosx for my Marvell instead. Bah. So much for that test.

[Snow]

Hmm, I always use Kext Helper lately which seems to update the cache.

Btw , Agra, YOUR BLOODY INBOX IS FULL ON INSANELYMAC! lol
Guess I wasn't the one to clean out my nox after all.

Anyway, is there any way to completely reset or even reinstall Time Machine?
Ah so it does work, no crashes but it doesnt work well on the local network. I don't think he updated it since rev. 1 m8.

Was about to send you the cpui.txt until I got the inbox is full error from you so I will paste the link here bud:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jhq2sg

I've edited the file so it only displays the one file that needed to be patched. This is after I've done Safari 3.1 and latest Airport and Security updates.

Good luck son!

[Ianxxx]

Hiya all
well hope in a way I'm wrong about this, cos it will piss me off a little if it turns out to be right.
So far uptime just over 5 hours.
I have to go out in a few mo's and won't be back till tomoz so can't test any longer till then, so maybe someone would like to try this if you haven't already.
I only made two changes
1 I updated the firmware for my router. linksys wag54gs
2 configured my lan card to half duplex 10baseT <-really hope this isn't the answer. Having gone out and purchased a lan card for £7

Anyway so far no crashes no weird mouse, just running fine. opened about a dozen apps I'm not using just to stress pc a little more, still fine.

now 6 hours no faults

[Snow]

I don't have a router nor did I configured the lan card.

So far I haven't ran into any issues after I've relaxed my RAM timings. Only thing that's been broken now is Time Machine.
I just need to keep working until issues occur (hopefully this wont happen)

I do suggest trying one thing at a time. I changed the applesmbios recently and that could be the cause of Time Machine not working anymore but I don't seem to have the Photoshop crash.
So for now I'll just focus on the ram timings.

Uptime here about 4 hours

[Ianxxx]

Snow:I don't have a router nor did I configured the lan card.

So far I haven't ran into any issues after I've relaxed my RAM timings. Only thing that's been broken now is Time Machine.
I just need to keep working until issues occur (hopefully this wont happen)

I do suggest trying one thing at a time. I changed the applesmbios recently and that could be the cause of Time Machine not working anymore but I don't seem to have the Photoshop crash.
So for now I'll just focus on the ram timings.

Uptime here about 4 hours

Did you use the fix for time machine?

[Snow]

Yeah bud, no good.

In time machine prefs I get: Backup volume could not be found

My thread about this issue is here: http://osx.kbot.de/comments.php?DiscussionID=775&page=1#Item_8

[agrafuese]

Last night I gave up on the nLan adapter after I discovered that it doesn't handle local network shares properly. So I went back to my original Leopard installation with skgeosx/Marvell lan adapter. System has been up 14 hours now and slow jerky mouse is back. This time it's less intense, but I'm leaving my system on to see if it gets worse over time. Some notes: Last night when I left the system on, I forgot that Little Snitch was off, and I was running Transmission. Coincidentally, Transmission crashed only two hours after I fell asleep, so I didn't get a good test out of that. However, I re-opened it, and turned Little Snitch back on. After about 2-3 hours, the mouse jerking is happening. This is also what I was doing while it happened:

Safari 3.1 - I was aggressively browsing and downloading about 30 MP3 files ranging from 2MB-16MB in size.
Quicktime - I was sampling each of the MP3s I was downloading.
iChat - talking to one friend (about the MP3s, hehehe).
Transmission - as I already mentioned, downloading a 3GB file from approx. 20 peers and seeding at the same time to others.

As soon as I noticed the mouse jerking, I stopped Little Snitch to see if it would help. It either didn't help or the difference was very slight.

Now, as I check my console again, what do I see? Oh! The f**king mDNSresponder tick messages and a host of cs_invalid_page messages again! This has to be somehow related, and the only things that come up on google about these messages are related to hackintoshes or VERY rare "real" mac problems not related to our issues at all. Here's a text file of the console messages. Go through them if you'd like, and let me know if you get anything at all similar to this. Most importantly, I want to know what "lssave" is, and if it has anything to do with Little Snitch, because I am getting that particular cs_invalid_page message A LOT (as you'll see).

<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?gyaimyb06ks">http://www.mediafire.com/?gyaimyb06ks</a>

[agrafuese]

Ok! I just googled the "lssave" thing and found out that it has to do with the same LaunchServices thing I was talking about a couple days ago. Coincidentally, I found an apple discussion link that once again pointed to that LaunchServices database rebuilder that I gave the link to. I will now try it out and report back with results (if any).

EDIT: Ok, tried it out, and no luck on clearing these "lssave" cs_invalid_page messages. I don't think it will help me out in any other way, but I'll report back if it does somehow.

[WinLinMac01]

I know this might sound like a very basic problem, but what is the severity level of this issue? Is this mouse movement noticed in all of your computers everyone? Or am I the only one not facing problems with this release, lol. =)

I would like to hear. Thanks everyone.

[cosgrove]

I had a whole big post typed out but i accidentally hit command+left arrow and lost it :(

Long story short, I'm in the same boat as the rest of you (computer is a x2 3800+ OC'd to 2.5Ghz via FSB increase running zephyroth 10.5.2 rev1) and have the seemingly random 10810 errors. I get random reboots too while I'm away from my computer, so it's never on long enough to see the jerky mouse all the time.

I tried running everything I have at once to run it out of threads, but it didn't work. I'm going to try relaxing the FSB and see if that helps tomorrow.

[agrafuese]

what mobo/chipset do you have? and what kind of ram do you have? do you have any constantly running apps in the background (like little snitch)? at this point i've given up on finding a solution, and i just want to know what common link divides those of us who are having these issues from those who are not. there has to be an answer.

for me, a sure-fire way to get the system to start acting strange was to run torrents with little snitch turned on. so i turned off little snitch and started downloading a torrent, and so far i've been running for 10 hours without an issue. additionally, i've only seen ONE mDNSresponder "tick" error since. normally i would have seen about 10 by now. that's all i've got to say though :) i'm sure this problem will return in some way or another.

[agrafuese]

here's a little something to try out, posted by bhast2:

http://osx.kbot.de/comments.php?DiscussionID=676&page=1#Comment_10072

the theory is that cutting down on system logs will free up performance a bit. try it for yourselves, but give it some time guys. post back with your results. after i do it, i'm gonna try for a 24 hour run with some torrent downloads and little snitch.

[WinLinMac01]

that would be amazing if cutting the system log works, crossing my fingers. =)

[bhast2]

agrafuese:here's a little something to try out, posted by bhast2:

http://osx.kbot.de/comments.php?DiscussionID=676&page=1#Comment_10072

the theory is that cutting down on system logs will free up performance a bit. try it for yourselves, but give it some time guys. post back with your results. after i do it, i'm gonna try for a 24 hour run with some torrent downloads and little snitch.


As i can see this doesn't work at all still get the errors

[cosgrove]

I have an NF4 DFI Lanparty Ultra-D with G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000), and a radeon x1900xt. I had little snitch installed at one point then I decided I didn't need it and uninstalled it. I haven't ran a torrent for a few weeks. Nothing starts at login.

[Ianxxx]

How is everyone getting on with this? Still having problems?

[Snow]

Still no issues here bud. Same RAM settings (HTx4 / 3-4-4-8)

If it turns out to be true then you made my system 100% stable, ya silly tit ;)

[Ianxxx]

Snow:Still no issues here bud. Same RAM settings (HTx4 / 3-4-4-8)

If it turns out to be true then you made my system 100% stable, ya silly tit ;)
Gee thanks ;-)

[Snow]

Woops spoke too soon bud, PS just crashed again. Hmm, this didnt happend in a while though. I'll just post the console log here:

20/03/08 20 maart 20:34:04 Adobe Photoshop CS3[339] *** _NSAutoreleaseNoPool(): Object 0x1df78820 of class NSThread autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking
Stack: (0x925aa12f 0x924b6ec2 0x924bc954 0x1e32c6 0x52e71a 0x61e9e9 0x219bee 0x219d31 0x3272 0x3199)
20/03/08 20 maart 20:34:07 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] objc[339]: Class EpicController is implemented in both /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_personalization.framework/adobe_personalization and /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration. Using implementation from /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration.
20/03/08 20 maart 20:34:07 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] objc[339]: Class EpicJSWindowExternalHandler is implemented in both /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_personalization.framework/adobe_personalization and /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration. Using implementation from /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration.
20/03/08 20 maart 20:34:07 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] objc[339]: Class EpicWizardController is implemented in both /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_personalization.framework/adobe_personalization and /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration. Using implementation from /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration.
20/03/08 20 maart 20:34:07 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] objc[339]: Class EpicPanel is implemented in both /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_personalization.framework/adobe_personalization and /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration. Using implementation from /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3/Adobe Photoshop CS3.app/Contents/Frameworks/adobe_registration.framework/adobe_registration.
20/03/08 20 maart 20:35:33 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=361[lssave] clearing CS_VALID
20/03/08 20 maart 20:40:43 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=364[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
20/03/08 20 maart 20:45:53 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=369[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
20/03/08 20 maart 20:46:07 mDNSResponder[23] mDNSPlatformRawTime: last_mach_absolute_time EC45A25300000EAB
20/03/08 20 maart 20:46:07 mDNSResponder[23] mDNSPlatformRawTime: this_mach_absolute_time EC3520C400000EAB
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:04 Adobe Crash Reporter[373] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:04 Adobe Crash Reporter[373] 339
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:04 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] 2008-03-20 20:48:04.270 Adobe Crash Reporter[373:10b] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:04 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339] 2008-03-20 20:48:04.271 Adobe Crash Reporter[373:10b] 339
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:13 ReportCrash[374] Formulating crash report for process Adobe Photoshop CS3[339]
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:19 ReportCrash[374] Saved crashreport to /Users/Snow/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/Adobe Photoshop CS3_2008-03-20-204805_Moeder.crash using uid: 501 gid: 20, euid: 501 egid: 20
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:19 com.apple.launchd[119] ([0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop[339]) Exited abnormally: Bus error
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:20 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=376[ATSServer] clearing CS_VALID
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:37 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=380[lssave] clearing CS_VALID
20/03/08 20 maart 20:48:38 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=381[Console] clearing CS_VALID

[Snow]

I booted PS back up and bam, after a few mins another crash.

Log:

20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] 388
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:31.407 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:31.409 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] 388
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] reproStepsString:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:35.530 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:41 com.apple.launchd[119] ([0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388]) Exited: Terminated
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 Adobe Crash Reporter[373] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop reproStepsString:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop 2008-03-20 21:05:49.353 Adobe Crash Reporter[373:10b] (null)

[Ianxxx]

Snow:I booted PS back up and bam, after a few mins another crash.

Log:

20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] 388
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:31.407 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] Process Id:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:31 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:31.409 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] 388
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 Adobe Crash Reporter[400] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] reproStepsString:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:35 [0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388] 2008-03-20 21:05:35.530 Adobe Crash Reporter[400:10b] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:41 com.apple.launchd[119] ([0x0-0x53053].com.adobe.Photoshop[388]) Exited: Terminated
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 Adobe Crash Reporter[373] (null)
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop reproStepsString:
20/03/08 20 maart 21:05:49 [0x0-0x4a04a].com.adobe.Photoshop 2008-03-20 21:05:49.353 Adobe Crash Reporter[373:10b] (null)

Oh well, so we know memory times improves things but doesn't cure. I am 100% its network related and even more specifically internet.
Snow how are you connecting to the internet? router, modem etc?

[agrafuese]

Don't be too sure of that yet Ianxxx. I thought the same for a while, but...

Last night, I turned Little Snitch off (to rule it out) and I was running Transmission to download a couple of torrents. I added an XVid torrent and started downloading it to my desktop. I looked over at my Console and suddenly, I noticed that "quicklook" (the process that creates thumbnails for files) was trying to create a thumbnail for the XVid movie. The thumbnailing process failed (probably because the file wasn't done downloading yet), and it was rapidly spitting out this same error message over and over again:

3/20/08 2:06:44 AM quicklookd[1193] [QL ERROR] 'Creating thumbnail' timed out for '<QLThumbnailRequest /Users/agrafuese/Desktop/xxxyyyzzz.avi>'
3/20/08 2:07:35 AM kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=1206[lssave] clearing CS_VALID

It repeated this about a thousand times (not exaggerating), and the "p=" part of that second line grew higher and higher in number.

Now, I know why this happened: it is because Finder tries to create thumbnails for any file that is in an "active" window. Since the desktop is technically a constantly "active" window, it wouldn't stop trying to create the thumbnail as it failed each time. So, because this error was repeating and Finder was trying soooo hard to make it happen, my system bogged down A LOT, and lo and behold: The return of the jerky mouse! I eventually stopped downloading the file, moved it to a folder that wouldn't be in an "active" window, and the errors in Console stopped. However, the jerky mouse remained. It appears that when Leopard gets stressed, it doesn't recover after the stressful incident has stopped. It doesn't "refresh" itself in any way, apparently.

Now, this thumbnail scenario is very rare, and I know it is not THE ONLY reason that a jerky mouse will occur. BUT, I believe the answer lies in this following statement:

The mouse, GUI, and performance problems will occur when the system is under large amounts of stress of any kind. Period. There is no ONE solution, and it is not always related to the internet or networking. It could be anything: an intensive process, a power-hungry app, too much file-processing, repetitive errors (in my case), and on and on and on.

So what do we do about it? Well, if I am correct, there is nothing that can be done. We don't know if Zeph can do anything, because this may be a genuine Apple bug straight from the developers' desks. All we can do is keep Zeph notified and hope he chooses to help us out in any way he can.

Well guys, that's my 2 cents. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but I have a feeling I'm not. Good luck to us all.

[cosgrove]

I went back to non-overclock setup, and so far I haven't gotten any 10810 errors, nor system reboots, but after coming back to my computer after a while of being idle (an hour or two), i've come back to a crashed photoshop, and just now, a crashed firefox. This is an improvement, but still not what I'd like. If I stay stable like this for a few more days I'll install logitech mouse drivers again and see if they run fine.

[Ianxxx]

The mouse, GUI, and performance problems will occur when the system is under large amounts of stress of any kind.

I agree with this totally agrafuese. Thing is now for me these faults always happen after 3 hours use, I left my system on but no internet connected and it didn't happen.
To me it sounds like some kind of memory leak, whatever it is it obviously mounts up over time and then causes the instability.
I would love for someone else to try using there system for over 3 hours with no internet just to see if they get the same results!

[agrafuese]

Ianxxx:To me it sounds like some kind of memory leak

Yes!! I was waiting for someone to say this because I wasn't sure if that was the correct term to use! (I know nothing about advanced crap like that, haha) Also, back in the days of Tiger, I recall Netkas (I think) dealing with some setting inside the kernel that had to do with processor timings. I wonder if I can go that far back on his site and find what he was talking about? This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be investigated.

Question Ianxxx, what are you doing with your system while it is unhooked from internet? Any apps, anything intensive? And when it IS connected to the internet, what are you doing? And what if you simply connect it to the internet and walk away? Would it still slow you down? After the slowdowns, are you seeing anything excessive in Console? Anything repeating? Any "CODE SIGNING" messages? Sorry for so many questions, but they're all important :)

[Ianxxx]

If I leave the system with just firefox running connected to net but do nothing. After 3 hours as soon as I start to use apps it won't be long before I get a crash "usually firefox" programmes that upload as well as download seem to do this best.
Not connected to the net seems to work fine after 3 hours photoshop coding videos etc etc.
Just need someone else to test this out, if I am right at least it narrows things down a little.
A few folks have mentioned java " I think thats a possibility" except this problem seems to be amd only.

At the moment I have one error in console that persists

com.apple.launchd[1] we crashed at instruction: 0xffff0315 (sent by PID 0)

The error is there at startup

What is this anyone know, or more importantly how to get rid of it?

[Snow]

@lanxxx: I'm using a modem, Ethernet conn, proxy.

I think you guys are on the right track here. Memory leaks could well be the prob. If we look back to our windows days we had similar probs like this. Games in particular can be affected by this.

My scenario yesterday when I had the crash was not very intensive. I was viewing a PS tutorial in iTunes while performing the excersice in PS CS3. PS then crashed while not doing anything particular so I can't simulate the behaviour. No specific error msg, just the log thingy. Then when trying to run PS again it crashes again after a very short period of time.

I still don't know if I have the seperate PS crash issue (due to not proper installation or non crack usage) or if this is related to the mouse bug and other crash probs.
Thing is, PS still crashes, but less and I don't have the mouse bug anymore.

Now, Lanxxx, I'm willing to do the network test but what exactly do you want me to do. unplug the ethernet cable from my pc and let the pc run for a few hours? How long? what apps to run? how much stress do you want me to put on the system? Gimme some spec details fo test scenario.

We should also look into what kexts we are running, those with and without issues cause it might just be a simple kext replacement for all I know. What I'll do know is completely get rid of the d-forcedeth kext. It's still on my disk just in case I ever need the nLAN but I remember some having issues with the net even though they weren't using the nLAN and I think Zeph or someone else recommended removing the forcedeth kext completely.

[Puttabong]

Sorry if this has been thought or said already, or if it's wrong, but I didn't have the time to read any posts in the thread!

I remember exactly this Issue! However, this only occured with an early 10.5.1 version for me.

Now it never happened again.

I thought that it was somehow related to nForce LAN, because when I switched to Wi-Fi and disabled nF4-LAN in BIOS, it never happened again.

[mrburns05]

Ianxxx: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?

in getting random crashes from firefox

and then some regular pc crashing:

Once = computer stayed on all night, next morning all applications failed to launch (gave me an error), had to reboot.

Everyother time = left PC on all night (without azureus) system log says (?:??am) We crashed at 0x0000....forgot the numbers)

with azureus i think its a Java issue, i dont know, ill leave it on again tonight and get a log

[Ianxxx]

Snow:@lanxxx: I'm using a modem, Ethernet conn, proxy.

I think you guys are on the right track here. Memory leaks could well be the prob. If we look back to our windows days we had similar probs like this. Games in particular can be affected by this.

My scenario yesterday when I had the crash was not very intensive. I was viewing a PS tutorial in iTunes while performing the excersice in PS CS3. PS then crashed while not doing anything particular so I can't simulate the behaviour. No specific error msg, just the log thingy. Then when trying to run PS again it crashes again after a very short period of time.

I still don't know if I have the seperate PS crash issue (due to not proper installation or non crack usage) or if this is related to the mouse bug and other crash probs.
Thing is, PS still crashes, but less and I don't have the mouse bug anymore.

Now, Lanxxx, I'm willing to do the network test but what exactly do you want me to do. unplug the ethernet cable from my pc and let the pc run for a few hours? How long? what apps to run? how much stress do you want me to put on the system? Gimme some spec details fo test scenario.

We should also look into what kexts we are running, those with and without issues cause it might just be a simple kext replacement for all I know. What I'll do know is completely get rid of the d-forcedeth kext. It's still on my disk just in case I ever need the nLAN but I remember some having issues with the net even though they weren't using the nLAN and I think Zeph or someone else recommended removing the forcedeth kext completely.

Hiya Snow
yep disconnect lan would be good and run for over 4 hours 3-4 hours seems to be the crucial amount of time. Put the system under as much load as you can be bothered, if you don't get any problems after 4 hours I think we have narrowed down our culprit. I'll be away and won't be back till sunday night, but would really appreciate you doing this test. If we can narrow it down to internet related I think that would be very useful.

[Snow]

K, I'll try this today bud. Do I get payed though?

Next post will be with results!

[Ianxxx]

Snow:K, I'll try this today bud. Do I get payed though?

Next post will be with results!

Only payement is that you'll know for yourself if this is net related.
And possibly an appreciative following. "you could end up famous HONESTLY" ;-)

[WinLinMac01]

With eddie11c's my mouse had a problem once where they would be a 2 second delay. It resolved after I reset the safari browser. I don't think this equates with the problem though.

[Ianxxx]

Okay I don't have time to fully test this until tomorrow but for anyone wanting to try a possible solution.
If your memory isn't running in accordance with its spd. Then try it, if your motherboard doesnt have the option of run by spd use cpuz in windows and get the info from there.
As I said this is looking promising so far but can't continue my tests till tomorrow.

[agrafuese]

Ianxxx:
Hiya Snow
yep disconnect lan would be good and run for over 4 hours 3-4 hours seems to be the crucial amount of time. Put the system under as much load as you can be bothered, if you don't get any problems after 4 hours I think we have narrowed down our culprit. I'll be away and won't be back till sunday night, but would really appreciate you doing this test. If we can narrow it down to internet related I think that would be very useful.
Hmm, yeah, curious to see what you guys come up with on this one. Right now, I am trying to think of a way that I can disconnect from the internet, but at the same time invoke some kind of repeat Console error message, such as the one I described with the thumbnail creation error above. It in itself wasn't an internet problem of course, but it happened because I was in the middle of downloading a video that needed a thumbnail created...sooo...kind of a catch 22, haha. I'll try to think of something though. There's a certain Office 2008 problem I am considering. Hmm...could Microsoft help us for once? :)

[Snow]

k guys. I unplugged Ethernet cable but ran Mail and Safari, Photoshop, iTunes showing a tutorial vid and Garageband playing a few tracks.

No probs but I do have to say that my system wasn't crashing that often anyway. And I've only had probs with PS so far. Saf has crashed before with the same error as Agra but that happend very rarely.
So I'm not too excited yet but so far it's stable.

Errors displayed while testing

21/03/08 21 maart 18:33:11 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=395[lssave] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 18:34:04 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=398[Mail] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 18:38:17 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=403[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 18:43:27 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=404[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 19:07:34 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=407[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 19:46:50 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=412[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 19:52:35 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=413[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 19:59:14 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=414[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 20:09:15 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=417[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 20:35:18 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=422[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 20:53:15 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=423[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 20:59:27 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=424[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 21:06:12 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=427[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 21:18:40 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=428[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 21:26:14 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=433[lssave] clearing CS_VALID
21/03/08 21 maart 21:26:43 kernel CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page: p=435[mdworker] clearing CS_VALID

+ 3 hours so far but I'll let it run till I'm off.

[agrafuese]

Before I try the thing I mentioned previously, I do want to say that I'm up 14 hours here. Internet is on, Little Snitch is on, and I have every single app on my dock running at once, including CS3 apps, Office 08 apps, Linotype Font Explorer, iTunes, and too many more to mention - about 15 in all, plus others that I've been opening and then closing (small stuff). On the flip side, I am not running torrents this time. My console is rock solid stable, aside from the usual CODE SIGNING messages (like Snow just posted) and the occasional mDNSresponder messages which seem to have lessened since I upgraded to Netkas' new AppleSMBIOS. Aside from this new AppleSMBIOS, nothing else has changed on my system aside from the new security update and Safari 3.1. I'm wondering if any of these changes have helped solve the -10810 errors? Though, I have to say, I think I was getting those errors after I tried Ianxxx's memory timing settings (which I have since changed back to default). Also, Firefox seems rock solid, although I am only doing light browsing with it. All of my aggressive browsing is being done in Safari (which I am now in love with since 3.1 came out). Oh, and I have been doing some heavy FTP downloading too throughout this period. No uploading, though. Maybe the next test will be uploading some files, as it seems like that could be the reason torrents cause the slowdowns when I run them.

[WinLinMac01]

I still find this problem very freaky, lol. =)

[agrafuese]

You find it freaky only because you ain't go it :) The rest of us find it a pain in the arrrrsseeee!

On a side note, I just want to say a big W-T-F?!?!? I've been running now for 18 hours straight and still no problems! Is it torrents??? This is the only thing I haven't done yet. And Firefox is behaving! What the hell is up with this shit?

[Ianxxx]

i was telling winlinmac, I come up with a crazy theory.
I was reading about mac memory specs. The importance of spd was stressed a lot in what I was reading.
As real macs don't use bios, but efi.
Is it possible that osx somewhere is reading the spd and using that and the bios is set differently?
I've set my memory to run with spd settings which is a bit of an arse for me as my memory is 2T memory. But so be it.
I've noticed in the past that if I open enough applications that although I might not get apps crashing and mouse jumping, I can tell that the mouse movement isn't quite as smooth.
With memory running at spd this doesn't seem to be the case, so testing will continue.
And thanks for testing my other idea snow.

[agrafuese]

Ian, what is spd? Can you explain it for a memory noob such as myself? Or link us to the thing you were reading? Btw, here is my latest report:

I'm coming up on 20 hours straight now. I'm still jerky-mouse-free! Still FireFox crash-free. No -10810s, no crashes anywhere, actually. I had all of my apps open for a very long time, but I've closed most of them except for a couple CS3 apps, Linotype, and iTunes. I'm constantly opening and closing Safari and FireFox. Both are behaving really well. I was even running YouTube videos in them, and that's about as taxing as you can get with a web browser, short of maybe Flash games or something? I still haven't run torrents. So now I'm starting to think that my Leopard's weakness is torrents and repetitive system-logging, because otherwise I've done just about everything I can think of to make my system freak out. And as I said, I think the 10810s haven't come back because I am back to default memory timings. I'm not doing any overclocking either. Full default in BIOS. So, take that how you want, but this is my report. I'm going to leave my system on as long as it will let me and see what happens. So far it's perfect. If I could have it be this way forever, I would no longer have a single complaint, and I could stop dreaming about Tiger ;)

[Ianxxx]

I can't link to the stuff I was reading but basically I think I googled mac ddr memory or something similar.
SPD is the firmware chip on your memory that tells bios etc the exact speeds to run it at. I bet if you boot up in to windows and run cpuz you will see that the memory settings your running at are the same as the ones set by spd. I'm pretty dam certain that will be the case.

[agrafuese]

So wait, how would I know what the spd settings ARE? Unfortunately, I no longer have Windows on this machine (took out the hard drive it was on). I can tell you this: I have my memory settings set to "auto" in BIOS. Does that mean that it will set them to whatever spd tells them to be?

[Ianxxx]

Yep I would guess so. Reads info from chip.
And as I said I'm begining to think that this is the important thing rather than the actual speed.

[agrafuese]

But you and I have the same RAM don't we? Kingston DDR 400 Dual-Channel? I may be wrong about the brand though. It's been a while since I looked at the chips. I have two 512MB sticks. When was the last time you had it on auto settings in BIOS?

[Ianxxx]

Today is the only time i have had it on auto or in case of my board use spd.
Although we both have kingston DDR 400 mine are 1 gig modules and quite frankly there are loads of manufacturers that the actual chips could have been made by, I think samsung is a favourite of kingston but certainly not the only one they use. You could only say we have the same memory if we compared numbers printed on actual chips.

I have set the memory slower than the spd setting but it never occured to me before that it might have something to do with firmware, I maybe totally barking up the wrong tree, I don't even know if osx does read memory firmware or if this is done purely by efi. But hell this seems to be the best "stablest" yet so who knows.

[agrafuese]

Man, you know a ton about RAM, I'll give you that! :) All I know is: makes shit run, and the more you have, the better the shit will perform, haha. Good to know, though. Thing is, I've only ever changed my memory settings ONCE and that was when you told me to do it. Since then, I've changed back...soooo...I dunno...:\

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:Man, you know a ton about RAM, I'll give you that! :) All I know is: makes shit run, and the more you have, the better the shit will perform, haha. Good to know, though. Thing is, I've only ever changed my memory settings ONCE and that was when you told me to do it. Since then, I've changed back...soooo...I dunno...:\

Hmmm, strange. Mind you I must say I still have HT link at 4x rather than 5x

This is confusing I think other than through trial and error as we are doing at the moment it would take someone like netkas or who ever wrote the efi patches for hacks to tell us the full story, but anyway so far so good my system is certainly behaving better than it did.
As for knowing about memory, you could say hardware is my obsession lol. I've been building PCs for about 13 years.

[agrafuese]

Hmmm that made me think - I wonder what would happen if I ran Leo without EFI? The last time I did this was with 10.5.1 rev1 and I can't recall whether or not I had any performance problems. If I can clear a spare drive, maybe I can give it a try with a standard MBR Leo 10.5.2 rev1 install. I think I'd have to take out my 8800GT, though, since it needs the graphics update to run properly (and updates are out of the question without EFI, right?). I can always swap it out for my old card, I guess. Does this sound like it would do any good as a test for our problems, or just a waste of time?

[Ianxxx]

I wouldn't bother I ran 10.5.1 with efi and can't remember having this issue.
Though i must admit I ran tiger without efi and its the stablest thing I've ever used. Just used to piss me off cos reboot wouldn't work and there seems to be no chance of updating it to 10.4.11 everyone whos doing anything is doing it with leopard.

I must say though for all the shit we've been having we're running something on hardware it wasn't meant to be run on and its still better than vista. Always good to keep perspective.

I don't think my system is cured. No crashes but that roughness of the mouse movement is back and I've only been online one and a half hours. Boll*cks

[Ianxxx]

Think I'm gonna build an intel rig next week.

[agrafuese]

You're definitely right on perspective.
So, I'm on hour 21-22 now and I just got done running some really stressful processes in Photoshop and Illustrator as a test. I took a look at my Console after a while, and to my dismay, I saw my first mDNSresponder "ticks" message. Ugh! I know now that it's all going down from here. This is the thing that I never want to see because as soon as it happens, the mouse gets rough. It's the same way you describe it Ian - not exactly jerky yet, but rough - though, if I leave it this way long enough it will eventually get jerky. So can you do me a favor? Can you look in your Console, make sure "All Messages" is clicked over on the left, and then do a a string search for "ticks" and see if anything comes up? I really hope we can at least find a common ground with that message if nothing else. That's my last hope of finding any explanation, though I don't even know what the "ticks" message means in terms of what's actually causing it other than system overload.

EDIT: I was thinking of building an Intel also, once I get some more cash. Thinking about using a GA-P35-DS3L for the board. What about you?

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:You're definitely right on perspective.
So, I'm on hour 21-22 now and I just got done running some really stressful processes in Photoshop and Illustrator as a test. I took a look at my Console after a while, and to my dismay, I saw my first mDNSresponder "ticks" message. Ugh! I know now that it's all going down from here. This is the thing that I never want to see because as soon as it happens, the mouse gets rough. It's the same way you describe it Ian - not exactly jerky yet, but rough - though, if I leave it this way long enough it will eventually get jerky. So can you do me a favor? Can you look in your Console, make sure "All Messages" is clicked over on the left, and then do a a string search for "ticks" and see if anything comes up? I really hope we can at least find a common ground with that message if nothing else. That's my last hope of finding any explanation, though I don't even know what the "ticks" message means in terms of what's actually causing it other than system overload.

EDIT: I was thinking of building an Intel also, once I get some more cash. Thinking about using a GA-P35-DS3L for the board. What about you?

Similar but I was thinking of going for a cheaper version GA-31-S3G
its a lot cheaper but also uses the ICH7 controller I think that it will probably be more compatible with vanilla, but I could be wrong. Its only downside that I can see is max 4 gig ram. But hell I aint gonna buy more than that anyway probably wont use more than 2. On top of that I've been thinking about processors and quite frankly I think Im gonna use a e2160 on 1333 bus that would give me 3 gig processor for £44. Im not sure I can justify spending a hundred quid for 3 mb of cache.

As for console 32 clearing cs_valid messages but nothing else

[agrafuese]

Just a quickie: 28 hours uptime, still good. Only ran one tiny torrent and then I closed Transmission immediately. Didn't seed. I thought I was doomed when I saw a couple of "tick" messages, but they stopped happening all together, and my mouse is still fine. No crashes, except for one Safari crash that probably happened because of the site I was on. It started right back up, though. So no 10810s, nothing else to speak of. Either I got some stability from Netkas' AppleSMBIOS or the security update, or this is just one loooonnnggg 28-hour stream of good luck. Whatever it is, it's nice, and I won't complain. I'll also avoid torrents like the plague :)

[Snow]

Do you want me to push the RED button now Agra? It lasted long enough don't you think?

;) good news though bro, I'm happy for you cause I know you were about to change pets.

Take care

[agrafuese]

"change pets" ... i like that one, it's almost better than "change girlfriends" ... almost ;)

please, no red button. i'm on 33 hours! this might be a record for me.

[Ianxxx]

Glad to see your up and running agrafuese 33 hours cool.
I seem to have found a solution for myself too.
I now have my processor overclocked, the timings on my memory are a lot faster than they should be, seem to be able to alter anything and system remains stable. Been uploading downloading torrents & encoding videos, running as many apps as I can watching two movies at the same time. Every thing is still smooth as it should be.
The answer for me was my memory is now running at 398 mhz as apposed to 400mhz.
Weird but it seems to work 100% so far.

[WinLinMac01]

Red bull anyone? Go to you local store and pick up a few energy drinks to consume, lol. =)

agrafuese:"change pets" ... i like that one, it's almost better than "change girlfriends" ... almost ;)

please, no red button. i'm on 33 hours! this might be a record for me.

[agrafuese]

Haha...more like we need to buy red bull for our computers :) No more slowdown issues right? Or maybe it would be too fast then ;)

Well I've been up for days now...I THINK. I am faced with a very strange issue now. I left my computer on since Saturday morning, left for the weekend and came back now (it is now Monday afternoon where I am). Before I left, I had nothing running except for Transmission downloading 4 large torrents. When I woke my display up just now, I was presented with the Login window. So I thought my computer had restarted itself. I logged in and went to Console to see if I had any error messages. The odd thing is, there was no report of any kind of rebooting! So at first, I thought that Leopard had some kind of built-in auto-logout security feature if there was no user activity for two days. But then, I opened up Transmission and found that my torrents had stopped. So why would Leopard log me out if torrents were still running?? Does anyone know anything about this? When I look at my Console messages over the past couple of days, there are only two messages worth noting:

3/22/08 4:34:16 PM bootlog[53] BOOT_TIME: 1206228844 0
3/23/08 4:34:10 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch[222]) Exited with exit code: 1

Another strange thing is, I cleared my console before I left on Saturday, and there is nothing before those two lines of code. Also, even if I were logged out by Leopard, wouldn't Transmission still be sitting there when I log back in? Am I wrong about that? I am so confused right now :\

[WinLinMac01]

That is very strange, but is this mouse-related? Looks like an entirely different issue.

agrafuese:Haha...more like we need to buy red bull for our computers :) No more slowdown issues right? Or maybe it would be too fast then ;)

Well I've been up for days now...I THINK. I am faced with a very strange issue now. I left my computer on since Saturday morning, left for the weekend and came back now (it is now Monday afternoon where I am). Before I left, I had nothing running except for Transmission downloading 4 large torrents. When I woke my display up just now, I was presented with the Login window. So I thought my computer had restarted itself. I logged in and went to Console to see if I had any error messages. The odd thing is, there was no report of any kind of rebooting! So at first, I thought that Leopard had some kind of built-in auto-logout security feature if there was no user activity for two days. But then, I opened up Transmission and found that my torrents had stopped. So why would Leopard log me out if torrents were still running?? Does anyone know anything about this? When I look at my Console messages over the past couple of days, there is are only two messages worth noting:

3/22/08 4:34:16 PM bootlog[53] BOOT_TIME: 1206228844 0
3/23/08 4:34:10 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dashboard.advisory.fetch[222]) Exited with exit code: 1

Another strange thing is, I cleared my console before I left on Saturday, and there is nothing before those two lines of code. Also, even if I were logged out by Leopard, wouldn't Transmission still be sitting there when I log back in? Am I wrong about that? I am so confused right now :\

[agrafuese]

Yeah, you're right, sorry. I kind of went off on a tangent there. I should post this in another thread. I've grown too comfortable blabbing on in this one, hehe.

[onAir]

hey
didnt read all 9 sites of this thread - weird i dontknow if the mouse problem is still active...
anyway i had the same prob and i enter following kernel flag to my boot.plist:

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>idlehalt=0</string>

thats all
never had any bad mouse issue again

______________________________________________


is it possible that only amd dual cores have this problem?
would be an explanation for that, coz win xp needs the amd dual core optimitzer for running fine.
and coz there is certainly no mac verison of the optimizer the second core should or should not interact in idle.
hmm sounds logically, anyway the kernel flag works for me ;)


cheers

[WinLinMac01]

This can work, definitely. I can't believe it works, lol. =) - Cheers indeed.

onAir:hey
didnt read all 9 sites of this thread - weird i dontknow if the mouse problem is still active...
anyway i had the same prob and i enter following kernel flag to my boot.plist:

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>idlehalt=0</string>

thats all
never had any bad mouse issue again

cheers

[agrafuese]

what exactly is that string meant to do (aside from it fixing your mouse) ?

[onAir]

im think its preventing the second core for stopping in idle mode

[agrafuese]

hmmm. sounds promising :)

[onAir]

hehe sorry im not sure about the exact function, but it works for me and i thought i have to let u all know about that
if u find more infos about that i would really appreciate sharing them with us ;)
although im not as interested in it as i would google around for it hrhr

[agrafuese]

Hmm interesting, this is what the osx86 wiki says:

"[use it]..."if you experience stutter like (shutter) syndrome; usualy on dual core processors"

Who knows...worth a try, I guess...

A general site that talked about unix kernels said that this flag is also found in other kernels, and is used to disable energy saving features...?

[Ianxxx]

Gonna give this a go too, i had 24hrs problem free rebooted and then it came back again :-(

[agrafuese]

Unrelated, but a follow-up to that strange issue that I posted an hour ago here. I found out that my log wasn't showing anything before because it had "turned over". Anyway, I looked into my archived system logs and guess what I found as the culprit for the mystery:

Mar 22 16:30:38 AMD-Mak com.apple.launchd[1]: We crashed at instruction: 0xffff0315 (sent by PID 0)

In case you don't know, I've been trying to link this error message with the jerky mouse movement and the -10810 errors. So just to re-iterate, I was running torrents when this happened. This is also what I am doing when I get the mouse problems. I'm a little unsure about the 10810s though, however, I haven't seen them since the time I was experimenting with my memory timings. So I guess I'm not 100% cool with Leopard anymore. I thought running it for over 33 hours meant I was in the clear, but apparently not. There's also nothing I can do to prevent this except stop running torrents, and well, why should I have to do that? Bullshit.

[Ianxxx]

agrafuese:Unrelated, but a follow-up to that strange issue that I posted an hour ago here. I found out that my log wasn't showing anything before because it had "turned over". Anyway, I looked into my archived system logs and guess what I found as the culprit for the mystery:

Mar 22 16:30:38 AMD-Mak com.apple.launchd[1]: We crashed at instruction: 0xffff0315 (sent by PID 0)

In case you don't know, I've been trying to link this error message with the jerky mouse movement and the -10810 errors. So just to re-iterate, I was running torrents when this happened. This is also what I am doing when I get the mouse problems. I'm a little unsure about the 10810s though, however, I haven't seen them since the time I was experimenting with my memory timings. So I guess I'm not 100% cool with Leopard anymore. I thought running it for over 33 hours meant I was in the clear, but apparently not. There's also nothing I can do to prevent this except stop running torrents, and well, why should I have to do that? Bullshit.


I've found with transmission the higher the download speed the quicker this problem will come on.
also i have that error

[agrafuese]

Ugh. That makes sense since I was downloading 4 torrents at once. It's gotta be partially torrent related too because I've downloaded many many large files via web browser (FF and Saf) and it never happens when my speed goes high. For example, I've downloaded Ubuntu at my max ISP speed (700kB/s) as a test, and it was fine. Did this numerous times actually. This is really discouraging. I don't think it's limited to Transmission either because I had weird issues with BitRocket and TomatoTorrent in the past. I find it hard to believe that thousands of real mac users and/or the hundreds of Intel hackintosh users out there have problems with torrents like we do. What else could this be???

[Ianxxx]

I did a google search and did see that a couple of real mac users seem to be having the problem but wether it was a different problem with same symptoms who knows.
For the moment I'm trying this

<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>idlehalt=0</string>

and as the memory thing seems to make some difference this makes sense.
Anyway let you know more tomorrow keeping my fingers crossed.

[agrafuese]

I'll give it a try too right now. I'll re-start the torrents after I reboot. That'll be the ultimate test for me to see if the system stays up despite torrents downloading.

[onAir]

disabling energy saving features of the cpu sounds pretty clear...
i bet if i try without that but disable the second core the mouse problem will be gone...
but i wont try coz i dont have the time to test that, more have another problem

btw...anyone knows how to fix the boot with inserted dvd only problem?
since i copied around my boot partitions (leo only for main and for tests) its occuring all the time
think the mbr or efi is damaged in any way... actually messing up with that at the moment,
would be cool if someone knows an open thread here for that

[agrafuese]

yeah, look around. i don't know your exact situation, but there are many many many threads about booting issues. i'll be happy to join in on another thread that's more on topic :)

[Ianxxx]

Well so far after three and a half hours "downloading torrents" this is looking very promising, except my cpu temp is about the same as running prime95. Oh well suppose you can't have everything.

[agrafuese]

Ian, how are you monitoring CPU temp in Leo? I couldn't find a good app back when I was looking for one. Any suggestions?

I have been running with idlehalt=0 and torrents for 5.5 hours now and it's looking good for me too! i wonder if we have any decline in performance though? i don't notice anything, but i haven't run any benchmarks yet...let's keep updating here and hopefully we've (finally) found our fix!

[Snow]

Hi guys,

Seems a lot has been discussed since yesterday. I will also try this idlehalt setting. I've heard of it before but didn't think it would do any good anymore with the new kernels etc...

I need a new install too but I don't know which of the releases to try, Zeph's latest or Leo4all latest, hmmm.

[Ianxxx]

Okay system on overnight no crashes no funny mouse so this is looking really good, final test system overclocked -> that also is looking very good.
agrafuese my temperature monitor is hardware I have a thermometer wired to the underside of my thermalright xp120 heatsink, and believe me when I say this is running hotter than it has ever reached even running benchmarking software, so I would be careful anyone who doesn't have a temperature monitor.
I would say also definately no decrease in performance, possibly a slight increase.
So the only downside is temperature which I can live with I live in a cold house lol.

[subsonic]

Hey there,

i*ve tried the same and for me it's getting even more worse than before. Mouse starts to jump around after an hour uptime +/- a few moments.

While typing this text Firefox crashed at least 2 times =(

I don't know about the temperature since i don't have a thermometer for my CPU, nontheless i'm pretty sure it can't be high since my CPU-fan runs slow (speed of my fan is controlled by CPU-temp).

Apps running right now:
NetnewsWire
Firefox
Thunderbird

Transmission crashed while i was sleeping so i had to restart my machine around an hour ago.

Update:
My machine crashed completely this time. The loading circle appeared and that's it .... another restart.

I really hope someone is able to find a solution.

Cheers,
Tom

[Ianxxx]

Just to update the temperature thing my processor usually runs around 35degrees maxing out at around 50 under full load.
With this in place its nearer 60degrees

So I'm guessing this is the final straw for me I'm going to invest in an Intel processor something I haven't done for nearly ten years

[Snow]

Was just about to aks you on the temp numbers. From 50 to 60 under load. What's idle like? If idle also ups by 10 then it's not worth it but if it's only on load I can live with it.

Sad to hear we're going to loose another AMD user who contributed a lot to this board, hmm, can't say that for myself.

But on the other hand, I do encourage you to jump the Intel bandwagon, so good luck!

I don't have a temp monitor like you do but I'll try the idlehalt tweak anyway. Thx for the info lad.

[agrafuese]

Ahhh shit! I was worried about that. I don't have a CPU thermometer either and so I have no clue what's going on in there. I wonder if I can quickly restart my computer and look at my temps in BIOS really fast before the temp goes down? Anyone know if that works? Upside is, I too have been stable with torrents for over 18 hours now! I don't overclock anymore, so maybe my temps will be lower than yours Ian?

@subsonic: It's really strange that you have more problems with this setting than before. Are you doing any overclocking or memory tweaks in BIOS? And what are your specs?

[WinLinMac01]

Your BIOS would be a great place to start. Try that first.


agrafuese:Ahhh shit! I was worried about that. I don't have a CPU thermometer either and so I have no clue what's going on in there. I wonder if I can quickly restart my computer and look at my temps in BIOS really fast before the temp goes down? Anyone know if that works? Upside is, I too have been stable with torrents for over 18 hours now! I don't overclock anymore, so maybe my temps will be lower than yours Ian?

@subsonic: It's really strange that you have more problems with this setting than before. Are you doing any overclocking or memory tweaks in BIOS? And what are your specs?

[emaxxx]

Hi guys.
I had this issue (mouse jumping and reboots after hours of bittorrent and heavy download overnight) a while ago (10.5.1) and after reinstalling Leopard many times, replacing kext and hardware components like usb2 and network i found It could probably be related to APIC implementation in BIOS. What led me to this was the fact that my crash happens overnight or after waking up from the screensaver. So I tought about ACPI problems. All of this only happened when running both CPUS. With cpus=1 all worked well. Searching around I found that some users had issues even in windows with heavy overclock and dual core AMDs related to APIC Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller that in dual core processors could led to some stability issues. The solution for me was to select the 1.1 version in Bios and not the 1.4 (default). Also I set the IRQ manually. I have a NF4 DFI Ultra-D motherboard. Hope this helps.

[Snow]

@ agrafuesinski

Open up case and remove the heatsink from the CPU while it's running. Then read temp on the side of the heatsink that makes contact with the CPU. It's hard to explain how the process works but it really works so try it, now!

[agrafuese]

@Snow: Huh? Wha? I don't know what you mean. Don't I need a thermometer for that? I don't have one...shoot me a message over at insanely mac :)

So here's my report for now: After 22 hours straight of running torrents, I restarted my system and went into BIOS to read my temperatures. At first, CPU was 51. I let it sit in BIOS for about a half hour and it went down to 44. When I was in Leopard prior to booting into BIOS, I'd say I was only putting about a "normal" amount of load on the CPU. Just running the torrents and doing some web browsing/emailing. A few hours earlier, I was trying to watch a hi-res quicktime video online (of the Fallout 3 trailer, hehe) and it was putting A LOT of load on my system - to the point of causing spinning beachballs and short freezes, etc. I can only imagine what my temps were like at that point, but I don't know for sure. Probably in the upper 50s at least. Anyway, I'm just going to leave the idlehalt=0 flag on for the time being. It works fine, and the system is pretty damn stable. Plus, I don't usually put too much stress on the CPU on a daily basis, and I don't overclock, so I should be okay. If I can get ahold of a hardware thermometer, I'll be able to keep my eye on it a little better, but that won't be for a while. If I have anymore news for you guys, I'll be sure to post, but for now I'm gonna close this case until something new arises. Good luck everyone!

[Ianxxx]

Well been out and bought myself a cheepo Intel setup, haven't put it together yet. But no matter what can't see me leaving you lot completely, might even have to keep an AMD somewhere in the house to give me an excuse lol.
Haven't put the new gear together yet "tomorrows project".

[WinLinMac01]

Leo4All is in your hands.

Ianxxx:Well been out and bought myself a cheepo Intel setup, haven't put it together yet. But no matter what can't see me leaving you lot completely, might even have to keep an AMD somewhere in the house to give me an excuse lol.
Haven't put the new gear together yet "tomorrows project".

[Ianxxx]

WinLinMac01:Leo4All is in your hands.

Ianxxx:Well been out and bought myself a cheepo Intel setup, haven't put it together yet. But no matter what can't see me leaving you lot completely, might even have to keep an AMD somewhere in the house to give me an excuse lol.
Haven't put the new gear together yet "tomorrows project".

Still trying to download it lol.
But to be honest not sure wether to use it or I have a brazil patched 10.5 or kalyway. I think its either gonna be Eddies or Brazil. Might end up trying both.

[onAir]

hello dudes
havent ever thought about temperature problems with my x2 4600+ running on 2,8 GHz with a big scythe mugen cooling fan on it.
by the matter of fact that my cpu temps are about 55 degrees on vista64 running crysis or prime95 and no errors on osx with idlehalt=0 (no errors since 10.5.2 rev.2!! and yea i fixed the boot problem by simply re-installing pc-efi v8 from zeph's boot-dvd) i couldnt warn u all about that risk. i didnt think so far and im sorry about that. furthermore i didnt know what idlehalt=0 does exactly do.

the thing is that i always had some weird problems with osx86 and i already decided that rev.2 is the last try for mac on my pc. now, very lucky ;) , everything is running flawlessly (crossing fingers to keep that). despite that my next system upgrade will be the change to intel e8400 cpu on an x48 board and ddr3 ram for homogeneous 1333 MHz bus speed and much upgrade and overclock potential. is a good way to monster speed for 600€ i think (if i had more i would buy a mac pro of course... i love mac)

maybe this will be the next challenge for osx86 as no more errors would occur on my amd system hehe. otherwise i still i have my girlfriend's macbook hihi

so sorry again for that risky hint and keep ur eyes on the cpu temps.
hope not to need more visits to these sites except by interest in the scene and wanting to share experience.

cheers

[Ianxxx]

just a last update on the temperature thing before I dismantle my system.
temp running around 45 degrees no overclocking but I do have a thermalright xp-120 so I'm guessing the temps would be hell of a lot higher for some people, to give you a guide I usually have my processor runnging @ just under 2800mhz and it never gets hotter than around 45. i'm thinking someone with a standard amd cooler will definatly be up in the 60's.

[subsonic]

@agrafuese

Hey =) Regarding your question, no i don't do any overclocking or better said i can't because my Bios won't let me. My Bios is pretty static, i can't alter memory timings or anything related to my CPU. That's one bad thing about preconfigured HP/Compaq-machines =(

Anyways, here are my specs:
-----------------------------------
Modellname: Mac
Modell-Identifizierung: EP164AA-ABE SR1759ES ES610
Prozessortyp: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
Prozessorgeschwindigkeit: 2.2 GHz
Gesamtzahl der Kerne: 1
L2-Cache: 512 KB
CPU-Funktionen: FPU VME DE PSE TSC MSR PAE MCE CX8 APIC SEP MTRR PGE MCA CMOV PAT PSE36 CLFSH MMX FXSR SSE SSE2 HTT SSE3
Speicher: 1 GB
Busgeschwindigkeit: 200 MHz
Boot-ROM-Version: Hack.88Z.int.0sh.061193037 (Phoenix Technologies, LTD)

My mainboard is an MSI Amethyst M, a pretty cheap piece of hardware

1GB DDR 400 Ram
---------------------------------------
Hm, when i look at the number of my cores it states "1". Weird, shouldn't it say "2"? Is it because i cloned my old HDD to a new 500GB SATA HDD with the following bootloader options (might sound stupid but i can't say it often enough that i'm a ubernoob with Leopard and the whole OSX stuff *hehe*):

dd if=./guid/boot1h of=/dev/rdiskXsY bs=512 count=1

dd if=./guid/boot0 of=/dev/diskX bs=400 count=1


Please let me know if you need anything else. Thanks and cheers,
Tom

[agrafuese]

Usually the number of cores reported in System Profiler doesn't mean anything, unless you have "cpus=1" in your boot.plist. If you run Activity Monitor and see two CPU graphs moving, then you have two cores running. Although, my System Profiler is reporting both cores and I'm running the latest Netkas version of AppleSMBIOS. Maybe that could be why you're only seeing one? Anyway, that shouldn't be any reason for your system to act up. But actually, you may want to try that "cpus=1" flag instead of the "idlehalt=0". I've heard it has the same effect, but it probably reduces performance on your machine, since you'd only be running one core. It's worth a try. Certainly wont heat your CPU up like idlehalt does.