New Mac Pros freezing, may be bluetooth related.
The new Mac Pros have been out for a while now, and a few user reports of hardware quirks are trickling in with one report stating that some machines appear to randomly freeze or restart.
Apple Discussion poster "Milen Dzhumerov":
"I just got the new Mac Pro and it worked fine for a couple of hours. Now it just started freezing every 20-30 seconds. The whole thing freezes; the mouse doesn't move, nothing happens (doesn't accept any input). The weird thing is that music keeps playing fine."
This problem may be some sort of input device freeze, since several people who have reported it have found that songs and other items will still be running in the background, even though they cannot provide any input to the machine. It may be that iTunes songs are just playing through some buffered data, but it still indicates the system is functioning to a degree and not completely frozen. As such, it is uncertain whether or not this problem causes the whole operating system to freeze, but you can test this out using several methods including the following:
Try a wired keyboard and mouse.
If you are using a wireless keyboard and mouse, try connecting a USB keyboard and mouse to see if the problem is related to the Bluetooth or RF connection.
Use VNC/Screen Sharing.
If you have screen sharing enabled, try connecting to your computer through another Mac or a PC with a properly configured VNC client. If this works, you should be able to see your desktop on the remote computer and be able to control it from there. At this point, use the Apple menu to restart the system.
Use remote login.
If you have remote login enabled, try using a SSH client to log into the system. This may work in some cases where VNC wont. For people who are unfamiliar with the terminal, the following procedure should log you in:
- Ensure "Remote Login" is enabled on the problematic computer (in the "Sharing" system preferences).
- On another computer, open an SSH client (ie: the Terminal in OS X).
- In the Terminal, enter the following command:
ssh username@hostname
NOTE: In this command, "username" is your account name, and "hostname" is either the local network name of the computer (which can be seen under the computer name in the "Sharing" system preferences) or the computer's IP address.
- Press enter and supply your password when prompted (the password will not display).
- You should be dropped to the command line if everything works. If not, an error will display.
- Provided everything works, case enter the following command to remotely shut down your system:
- Supply your password again and the computer should restart.
Shutting down the computer using these commands and methods is recommended if possible, since it will be easier on the system than holding the power button to hard-reset it. The best method is to use the Apple menu, however, the terminal command will also work but may force processes to quit (which can lose unsaved data) instead of stopping them properly.
Beyond options for how to restart the computer in the event of a freeze, you might disable unneeded services if they're not being used. For Bluetooth mice and keyboards, as mentioned above, try temporarily using a wired device and disabling Bluetooth, which as per this Apple Discussion thread has been suspected to be the root of this problem in the new machines. In addition to Bluetooth, you might try using wired Ethernet and disabling wireless, as well as unplugging any peripheral devices (USB, FireWire) to troubleshoot them.
Lastly, and while this has only worked for a few people, it may be that this issue would benefit from a PRAM/SMC reset. Please read our recent article on resetting the PRAM and SMC, and give the resets a try.
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