- Joined
- Jun 13, 2013
- Messages
- 64
- Motherboard
- 4540s
- CPU
- i5 Ivy Bridge
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
Status update:
My attempts to resume my Mavericks download after sleep failed, so I restarted the machine. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I restarted and shut down several times.
Out of 6 restarts, one led to a hang at the grey apple screen. I did not go to single user mode and run "/sbin/fsck -fy" afterwards, as the system restarted successfully several times after that, and is now working on the Mavericks download. If the main Internet holds, that will complete today (~5 hours from this), and I'll be free to build the installer and go on to other experiments.
Original post:
I'm new to OS X, so I can't give a complete status report - I don't know a lot to try now.
Machine is a 4540s with an i5 Ivy CPU, 8G RAM (from the factory, I believe) and a Silicon Power 128G SSD which I put in to to try OS X, discrete GPU, HD Webcam, finger print scanner, Super-Multi Optical drive. The machine came with Windows 7 on a 750G rotating drive, which I have not touched (not even to set up).
I do wonder if the SSD may be part of the problem. I can scavenge another drive to try, but I presume OS X will run off an SSD.
I installed Mountain Lion (purchased) using the 6.1.9 installer, using the instructions in your post to the best of my knowledge. I kept a copy open in another machine to refer to while carrying out the install, and I've reported my settings in earlier posts.
The problem I know of now is that sometimes when I start the machine, I reach the grey apple on lighter grey background screen and nothing further occurs. So far, retrying may lead to several occurrences of this in a row, and eventually the install proceeds past this. I also may encounter several sequences of proper behaviour in a row. I haven't noted any certain pattern.
i have extensive Linux experience (SLS, Debian, Red Hat, Gentoo, and the Ubuntus) and I rely on that for my understanding of OS X as it's built on BSD Unix. When the system hangs, I leave it for at least 30 seconds to see what may appear. When I do decide it's hung, I wait another 5 seconds (by habit) for the the drives to sync and journals to be written and then hold the power button to shut down.
Several times when the system has hung I have booted with "-f -x -s" and I don't always reach a prompt. When I do, I run "/sbin/fsck -fy". I exit one of these sessions with "shutdown -h now". If memory serves, I have not seen any reported errors, and there isn't any pattern to whether or not the system hangs on the next attempt.
Per your suggestion, I have also booted with "-v" and I haven't seen a pattern in that case either, although it may be a bit more likely to boot successfully.
I have installed twice so far before posting I was having problems getting a reliable set up. Since then I've been holding off trying anything else while I waited to see if there were diagnostics to report or suggested fixes to try.
Not related, but of impact is that the shared internet I have here is flaky. It has been traced to a phone company screw up, and is supposed to be repaired this coming Friday (we'll see, of course). One consequence is that I won't be able to re-download anything before then. I have small-cap access through a 3G Wireless modem, but not 5G of traffic to spare.
Also related is that the regular internet does come up some times, and I'm halfway through downloading Mavericks, as that is another possible solution to getting a reliable installation of OS X. As I'm new to OS X, I'm feeling my way about what works and what does not. I know I can sleep the machine and resume this download later. I suspect but do not know that I could reboot and resume this download. I'm quite certain I can't re-install and resume this download.
Since reporting I was having this problem several days ago, I have put the machine to sleep rather than reboot.
I can browse the web when either the regular Internet is working, or using the 3G wireless modem. I have successfully attached a 2d monitor by HDMI, and I'm using USB peripherals. I get sound and Skype can use the built-in camera.
As I'm new to this, I don't know and haven't tried much of what may be available from this Hackintosh, so I don't have much more to report, but that does not mean there isn't more that is problematic (or ok). I know now that the machine does not reliably boot up, and I'm reluctant to rely on this install. I'd rather know why and correct it.
Aside from the occasional cosmic ray a modern computer is a deterministic machine. Flaky behaviour means a bad part or a bad set up, and I can't rely on it as it is.
Cheers,
Bret
My attempts to resume my Mavericks download after sleep failed, so I restarted the machine. Taking advantage of the opportunity, I restarted and shut down several times.
Out of 6 restarts, one led to a hang at the grey apple screen. I did not go to single user mode and run "/sbin/fsck -fy" afterwards, as the system restarted successfully several times after that, and is now working on the Mavericks download. If the main Internet holds, that will complete today (~5 hours from this), and I'll be free to build the installer and go on to other experiments.
Original post:
I'm new to OS X, so I can't give a complete status report - I don't know a lot to try now.
Machine is a 4540s with an i5 Ivy CPU, 8G RAM (from the factory, I believe) and a Silicon Power 128G SSD which I put in to to try OS X, discrete GPU, HD Webcam, finger print scanner, Super-Multi Optical drive. The machine came with Windows 7 on a 750G rotating drive, which I have not touched (not even to set up).
I do wonder if the SSD may be part of the problem. I can scavenge another drive to try, but I presume OS X will run off an SSD.
I installed Mountain Lion (purchased) using the 6.1.9 installer, using the instructions in your post to the best of my knowledge. I kept a copy open in another machine to refer to while carrying out the install, and I've reported my settings in earlier posts.
The problem I know of now is that sometimes when I start the machine, I reach the grey apple on lighter grey background screen and nothing further occurs. So far, retrying may lead to several occurrences of this in a row, and eventually the install proceeds past this. I also may encounter several sequences of proper behaviour in a row. I haven't noted any certain pattern.
i have extensive Linux experience (SLS, Debian, Red Hat, Gentoo, and the Ubuntus) and I rely on that for my understanding of OS X as it's built on BSD Unix. When the system hangs, I leave it for at least 30 seconds to see what may appear. When I do decide it's hung, I wait another 5 seconds (by habit) for the the drives to sync and journals to be written and then hold the power button to shut down.
Several times when the system has hung I have booted with "-f -x -s" and I don't always reach a prompt. When I do, I run "/sbin/fsck -fy". I exit one of these sessions with "shutdown -h now". If memory serves, I have not seen any reported errors, and there isn't any pattern to whether or not the system hangs on the next attempt.
Per your suggestion, I have also booted with "-v" and I haven't seen a pattern in that case either, although it may be a bit more likely to boot successfully.
I have installed twice so far before posting I was having problems getting a reliable set up. Since then I've been holding off trying anything else while I waited to see if there were diagnostics to report or suggested fixes to try.
Not related, but of impact is that the shared internet I have here is flaky. It has been traced to a phone company screw up, and is supposed to be repaired this coming Friday (we'll see, of course). One consequence is that I won't be able to re-download anything before then. I have small-cap access through a 3G Wireless modem, but not 5G of traffic to spare.
Also related is that the regular internet does come up some times, and I'm halfway through downloading Mavericks, as that is another possible solution to getting a reliable installation of OS X. As I'm new to OS X, I'm feeling my way about what works and what does not. I know I can sleep the machine and resume this download later. I suspect but do not know that I could reboot and resume this download. I'm quite certain I can't re-install and resume this download.
Since reporting I was having this problem several days ago, I have put the machine to sleep rather than reboot.
I can browse the web when either the regular Internet is working, or using the 3G wireless modem. I have successfully attached a 2d monitor by HDMI, and I'm using USB peripherals. I get sound and Skype can use the built-in camera.
As I'm new to this, I don't know and haven't tried much of what may be available from this Hackintosh, so I don't have much more to report, but that does not mean there isn't more that is problematic (or ok). I know now that the machine does not reliably boot up, and I'm reluctant to rely on this install. I'd rather know why and correct it.
Aside from the occasional cosmic ray a modern computer is a deterministic machine. Flaky behaviour means a bad part or a bad set up, and I can't rely on it as it is.
Cheers,
Bret
