Computer freezing except mouse moves?

[smilinggoat]

Every now and again my Hackintosh will freeze except whatever audio is currently playing will continue to play until end of file is reached (ie, the next track comes on iTunes) and the mouse cursor moves but the rest of the GUI is frozen, not allowing anything to be clicked, no keyboard interaction, and nothing else on the screen gets updated (the clock stays at whatever minute mark the computer froze at). I can SSH into the machine with Terminal on a different computer and poke around but I can't figure out where to take it from there. I've tried looking at processes with top and performing 'kill -9 pid' but I'm never able to bring the machine back without a hard reset.

I've tried quitting the Dock, Finder, any "big" programs I'm running (eg Logic Pro), but none has ever recovered my system.

Any advice on troubleshooting this or know any particular culprits?

 

[Akubichan]

Are you always using iTunes when this happens to your computer? If so, it's a really common problem that affects even real Macs.

It used to happen on my old Hackintosh for a while; the mysterious thing was that it then went away. Never figured it out and not sure what caused it to clear up, but it may have been an upgrade of either iTunes or OS.

One solution that seems to work at least in some cases is to download and reinstall iTunes from Apple's site.

 

[blueking]

It has to do with the hd 3000. We have them too.

 

[mandofever]

I have the same issue but it has only started happening in the last couple of days. I am not using hd3000, though my board is capable. It has happened with and without iTunes running.
It's especially problematic because upon reset none of my open windows are saved as they normally would be. Most applications are restored but from a fresh launch, and not in the same state they crashed in.

 

[piterpunk]

I'm experiencing the same issue using, Gigabyte, X58-usb3 and GeForce 470 gtx, Any ideas on how to fix this problem, this happens to me using Adobe Premiere and plain old fashioned Firefox.

 

[JimAvrum]

I am having that problem, too. Sometimes upon awake, the computer is frozen except for the USB mouse cursor. Sometimes the spinning rainbow wheel will appear. I have to reboot.

Two out of three times the computer awakes from sleep and works as designed. I have not been using iTunes other than to see if it functions; it does work normally. I am going through the forum looking for clues to fix this problem with computer freezing upon awake except mouse moves.

Running OS 10.8.2 w/supplement

Z77 DS3H 1155 Motherboard
i7 3770K 3.5 GHz Intel Core
8 GB RAM
GTX 550 Ti graphics card