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RE: CPU Temperature |
November, 03, 2002 6:39 PM |
bralston |
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Wow....I guess I'm running pretty hot then. My G4/450 runs idle at 56C and goes up to around 64C when its busy for a while. When I'm decoding DVD, it gets up to 72C. I guess I better look into alternative means of cooling. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
November, 03, 2002 4:07 PM |
earlyd |
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Tony, I have a Powerlogix G4/450 which runs at 43C upon start-up but gets as high as 53C later on. I have 2 Atlas III 18G drives on a ATTO UL2D SCSI card. The drives sit side-by-site on the bottom of my 8600 tower. With the side cover off, these 2 drives are hot. Now, I've got the drives mounted with Proline's raid set which includes 2 fans on each drive. These are small fans. The Powerlogix card has a CPU fan. What else can I do to lower the CPU temperature? I could try unplugging the 2 Atlas drives to see the affect, but I think more cooling is order. If you agree, I could use some advise. --Dwight |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
November, 01, 2002 9:00 PM |
powderhaus |
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I have had no problems (yet) on my J700 with 128*2 owc mem with 128 of transintl(i forgot part of the companies name) and factory installed mem for a total of 408 mb ram i have been using jag nonstop scence 12am last night (its been on)(with the exception of my big mess up that took about 1 hour to fix) and in my browser for about 1 hour. I'm still hoping i also don't have the sound problem (yet) (not trying to jinx myself) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
November, 01, 2002 1:39 PM |
jeglin |
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teehee - I thought the ">" was just an artifact of some quote gone wild. Thanks, avit. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
November, 01, 2002 11:01 AM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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I was able to get the console login to work by typing ">console" in the login screen. Turning off the window manager gave me about 30M more free memory beyond that obtained from booting into safe mode. On both of my G4's with 256M of installed memory, I was then able to test 167M without paging. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
November, 01, 2002 7:05 AM |
powderhaus |
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I will check out the books thanks I just got jag installed at about 12 last night so when i get home im going o use it (trying to crash it) but even though it was not doing anything it did NOT crash last night. i will get back to you if it crashes |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 31, 2002 8:15 PM |
avit |
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What you are missing: You have to type the greater-than sign before the word console. I know it just looks like a prompt... :-) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 31, 2002 4:03 PM |
jeglin |
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In 10.2.1 (for me anyway), the console login does not work, as referred to by avit. Although I can get the user/pass fields to show up (option-select does not work; down-arrow + option-return does), it will not accept no password. I tried some variations ("Console", using my regular password), no joy. What am I missing here? |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 31, 2002 11:43 AM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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CPU temps above 45C are somewhat high. I try to adjust fans and heat sinks to keep the reported temps under 40C. Of course, who knows how accurate the software reports really are. I use a thermocouple on the heat sink right above the CPU for my measurements. There are two primary effects from running a CPU too hot: 1. Shortening of its life. Every 10C rise shortens an IC's life by about 50%. Semiconductors operate on the classic bathtub curve. Burn- in testing brings the chip into the long-life bottom of the curve and weeds out infant mortality (early chip failures). Once you're on the bottom of the curve, you want to stay there as long as possible. Higher CPU temps push you along that lifetime curve faster, resulting in an overall shortening of CPU life. 2. Chance of random crashes due to slow paths in the CPU. The hotter a chip runs, the closer you get to hitting one of the marginal timing paths in the chip. Every chip has a limiting datapath that is dependent on the chip temperature, power supply voltage, and quality of design. Raising the CPU voltage makes these marginal paths faster but raises the CPU temperature as well. Ideally, keeping the CPU as cool as possible will give you the largest margin of safety without having to resort to increasing the supply voltage. Practically speaking, the lower the CPU temperature, the less likely you'll hit a marginal timing path that causes lock-up or incorrect program execution. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 30, 2002 9:44 PM |
avit |
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regarding processor temperature, my Powerlogix G4/450 always runs at around 48-52C. Tony, are you telling me that's not normal? Maybe that's why my Jaguar is crashing too... What temps do you guys get (say, immediately after logging into an idle machine and checking CacheControl) ? Damn, this thing is so loud with my IBM hard drive, and now I have to add another fan!? |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 30, 2002 9:38 PM |
avit |
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Regarding freeing memory for the test: From the login screen, log in as: >console (no password) This turns off the window server and puts you on the command line where you log in with your regular user name. The window server eats a lot of RAM, so in theory, this will allow you to test more. (I haven't tried memtest myself yet.) Booting with the shift key in addition to this should be the optimal method. (If you have button view instead of text fields in your login screen and don't have an "Other user" button, you can option-select one of the users and it will let you change the login name. I think one of the tips I read suggests to press the down-arrow key, then option-return to accomplish this.) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 28, 2002 9:37 AM |
macman |
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Performance of my test: I ran this test over 840MB RAM on my 800MHz install - total time to completion was about 7 hours. No errors found. All my RAM is OWC EDO 128MB sticks. :-) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 28, 2002 1:34 AM |
dcoyle |
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powderhaus A friend of mine with a CS degree loaned me one of his college textbooks. It is "Peter Norton's Guide to Unix" by Peter Norton (duh) and Harley Hahn. It is highly readable and very informative. It won't turn you into a guru, but if you're like me and can barely spell Unix, it really fills in a lot of the blanks. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 5:42 PM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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I'd try looking for an O'Reilly book. But there are tons of books on Unix - you'll want one that focuses on the BSD distribution or, even better, on OpenBSD which is the heart of Darwin. The other major distribution is System V (AT&T's version) which is the heart of commercial OS's such as Solaris and HPUX. System V is also the basis of the various Linux distributions. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 1:50 PM |
powderhaus |
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Ok thanks P.S. are there any good books on Unix (BSD) thanks |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 10:57 AM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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I've posted a new download file on the web site. There's nothing new other than an updated README file. The README is also available as a direct download so you don't have to pull down the distribution again. Memtest cannot be run in single-user mode. I've tested it and it locks up the machine because the memory manager calls are not available. However, you can run it in OS X's Safe Mode (boot while holding down the Shift key). In this mode, I was able to test all but about 100M (used by the OS) of my installed memory. This is probably the best mode to run the memory tests because many extensions don't get loaded, freeing up a considerable amount of memory. Powderhaus, type "cd /wherever you installed the folder". Type slashes for each folder level until you get to the installation directory. From this point, follow the instructions in the README file. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 10:21 AM |
powderhaus |
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I an really not a UNIX person at all (i an trying to learn) so could you give exactly what i need to do in the command line? (the folder is in the "/" directory) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 9:24 AM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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I haven't tried running this in single-user mode but it's certainly worth a try. SIngle-user mode should free up the maximum amount of memory for testing. Another thing to try is holding down the shift key during bootup. I believe that this prevents some extensions from loading which would also free up more memory. The real value of this utility is that it runs under OS X. Many people here have stated that Jaguar is especially picky about DIMMs compared to OS 9. Therefore, running a Gauge Pro or Techtool Pro memory test under OS 9 might not find marginal DIMMs that could cause problems in Jaguar. I'm glad that jeglin confirmed a bad DIMM using memtest in OS X. But I'm waiting for the person who finds a bad DIMM using memtest in X that passed Gauge Pro and Techtool Pro in OS 9. As any FYI, all of my Ramjet memory passed memtest but the machine still freezes under Jaguar once or twice per day. I'm leaning away from the bad memory theory and starting to look more at the processor card and its temperature under heavy use. Memtest will raise your CPU temperature to the maximum. On my 9500, Gauge Pro generally reports a temperature in the low 30's. With memtest running, the temp peaked out at 48C! I never expected to see that large of an increase. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 9:03 AM |
carlo.noben |
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How about running the utility in single user mode? That way you should be able to test more memory because a lot of usual background processes aren't running. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 8:42 AM |
jeglin |
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>why do I get a message saying that the memtest >command has not been found? Because the memtest directory is not included in your path. cd to the memtest directory, and type "./memtest" (without the quotes). Shorthand, you can read "./" as "this directory". In contrast, "../" would be "the directory above this one". FWIW, I used memtest and it works as advertised (Thanks Tony!). Only real issue it seems to me is that Gauge Pro will test more of your memory space (if not as comprehensively) because in OS9 if you drop out everything and quit the Finder, it frees up proportionaly more than the similar tasks in OSX (for one, the Finder will not stay quitted in OSX). Out of my 336M, I can test 284M or so in OS9 with Gauge Pro (after quitting everything and the Finder), but only 170M or so in OSX with memtest (after quitting everything I feel safe quitting, and unable to keep the Finder quitted). Any chance I'm missing something? Either way, memtest confirmed what Gauge Pro was telling me: yet another defective RAM module from OWC. Do these guys ever test this stuff before it goes out the door? Historically, I've seen well over a 50% bad rate for their RAM, right out of the box! Why do I keep buying from them!?! [off to request YARMA]. |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 27, 2002 12:51 AM |
drc |
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Thank you for doing this. Now for all us *nix-idiots, why do I get a message saying that the memtest command has not been found? (I did cd to the memtest directory.) |
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RE: OS X Memory Test Utility is Available |
October, 26, 2002 11:37 PM |
acies |
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Thank you! |
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RE: OK, here's the web site :-) |
October, 26, 2002 6:45 PM |
Tony.Scaminaci |
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http://www.appleisp.com/~frisky |