Graphics freeze/CPU spike on 10.8.4 (GA-H77M-D3H/650Ti)

[bunnirabbit]

Hello all,

I recently did a clean reinstall with 10.8.4, and now I'm getting an intermittent graphics freeze. I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this?

The symptoms are:

• Updates to all windows freeze for up to 5 seconds (the apps are still running and updating, but the window stops drawing)
• Mouse remains responsive - is not a full system freeze!
• Activity monitor shows 100% usage by a system process on one or more cores (I believe the process to be WindowServer, but sometimes I see a spike in kernel_task as well).

It usually happens when doing something graphically-intensive, such as:

• Moving around or panning the camera in Second Life
• Opening Launchpad
• Opening Mission Control

But it also sometimes happens at random.

This happens with both a 650Ti and a 640.

I never had this problem in 10.8.3. Sadly, I'm not able to go back (overwrote my 10.8.3 unibeast thumbdrive with 10.8.4).

I've done several clean installs over the past couple days, but always have this issue.

Has anyone seen anything like this?

 

[ghorwith]

I assume you're using the MB Atheros network and VIA audio kexts? Anything non-standard devices installed or attached to usb / external ports?

 

[bunnirabbit]

Yep, everything is vanilla. MultiBeast options are just:

• DSDT-Free
• VoodooHDA 0.2.7.2 for 2021
• Aetheros ethernet
• GraphicsEnabler=no

Only attached devices are a USB keyboard and USB wireless trackball (no 3rd-party drivers).

 

[ghorwith]

Ouch. Thought you'd identify something relatively easy. Clearly not the display card as you get this with 2 different cards, and no weird stuff such as usb port drivers. First thing that comes to mind is an extra kext that's occasionally chewing up cpu time making it appear as if the computer is frozen (although as you point out an interrupt from keyboard or mouse still works). Have you tried removing Voodoo to see if this might be causing an intermittent problem? Are there other kexts you know you don't use or can remove while troubleshooting? For instance use Fakesmc without hardware sensors? Other things to look at are reset bios to default and then only change what's needed (like AHCI for the SATA).

Have you run the activity monitor (for all users) to see if you can catch a process hogging cpu cycles?

 

[Adrian B]

Bunnirabbit,

If your problems are happening when your doing graphics intensive stuff, then it sounds like it might be a problem with your power supply struggling to give the graphics card the power it is asking for. Do you have another suitable PSU to test.


Adrian B

 

[bunnirabbit]

ActivityMonitor and top indicate that the process pegging the CPU is WindowServer. This is in line with the observed behavior (windows stop refreshing, but desktop keeps responding).

I just remembered that I'm using PCKeyboadHack to remap Capslock to Backspace, and that includes a kext. So removing PCKeyboardHack will be the first line of investigation tonight when I get home.

I do have another power supply, so swapping the PSU will be the next test. (I was already thinking what Adrian said - but I figured the lower-power 640 would rule that out...)

After that, I'll try one more clean install without audio and see about that.

If all this fails, I'll see about getting another motherboard.

I actually suspect that the motherboard or PSU might be failing. Immediately prior to this whole 10.8.4 excursion, I'd was seeing some random USB problems (keyboard dropping keystrokes, mouse not responding) - which could be evidence of MB problems or poor voltage.

More updates tonight. Thanks for the input!

 

[bunnirabbit]

I made a series of changes tonight, but I'm still seeing glitches.
It turns out that the CPU spike is not necessarily in WindowsServer - its in whatever process is demanding graphics resources at the time. WindowServer seems to be the host process for Launchpad and Mission Control; I also reproduced freezes by launching Facetime, and randomly within the Firestorm Second Life viewer.

Changes made:

• Swapped PSU
• Swapped RAM
• Switch SSD from SATA3 to SATA2 port.
• Reset BIOS
• Reinstalled 10.8.4, this time partitioning the disk as a single, case-sensitive file system (previously had 2 partitions with the system drive being case-insensitive).
• Ruled out VoodooHDA drivers
• Ruled out PCKeyboardHack

Thanks again for your input so far. At this point the only things it could be are my motherboard, or simply glitchy NVidia drivers.

 

[bunnirabbit]

Graphics freeze/CPU spike on 10.8.4 (GA-H77M-D3H/650Ti) - Fixed?

At the risk of jinxing it, I think I fixed it!

I installed the NVidia web drivers from:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-313.01.02f01-driver.html
And haven't seen a glitch since.

I actually tried this a couple of days ago, but the drivers didn't take effect. Turns out I failed to set the nvda_drv=1 kernel flag! Now that they are in place (Second Life reports "OpenGL Version: 2.1 NVIDIA-8.14.11 313.01.02f01"), everything seems to be running smoothly.

 

[Adrian B]

Good to see that it has been running stable for a couple of days now. You certainly did a good deal of testing to get to the bottom of the problem. I hope that is the problem resolved. Thanks for providing your feedback


Adrian B

 

[ghorwith]

Congrats. Doesn't it feel great to beat the gremlins?