Mac crashes/restarts/freezes while loading X-Plane

[WombatBoy]

Posted this at the .org as well. Figured the help was just as good if not better over here as well. Wasn't quite sure where to put it here either, but I know we don't worry about wrong topic placement so much here anyway

Ok, so I've got quite the little issue here. And I have no idea whats going on and it's starting to get really aggravating. Basically, 5 times today, and many times here in the past while I have been loading something in X-Plane, just flying around, or loading X-Plane, my computer has frozen and then gone back to the blue screen and come back on. You know the blue screen that you get on startup after the screen with the Apple, that's the screen.

Also, other times, X-Plane and everything else will freeze and i will get this black that seems to emanate from the bottom of the screen and then flash upwards towards the top at varying heights. Like a bar graph, and the bottom of the bar is at the bottom of my screen and the bar gets taller and then shorter, but multiple times a second. I'm thinking this is some sort of video driver failure, but I'm not sure, nor do I have any clue how to fix it. Here I just shut down the computer and all is well again when I start up. It appears to be due to the computer getting too hot, but I'm not sure because it has happened at times where that would be the case as well as at time where it wouldn't be the case.

And the stuff I know you'll need:

Mac OSX 10.6.4

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M and NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT

X-Plane version 9.60rc2

Log.txt is attached. The log.txt is from the last time the computer did the blue screen thing.

Hope we can fix this, I have tried 5 times to fly today and gotten nowhere

Log.txt

[garrettm30]

Hey Derek. Man, that's really annoying. I hope it gets worked out for you, and I wish I could offer you more help than this one tidbit. If you are concerned with your Macbook's temperature, search for and download smcFanControl. This little program will allow you to set the minimum fan speed higher than default. I would use that just to test out your theory. Also, you can get iStatPro, which is a widget that tells you all sorts of system statistics, including fan speeds and temperatures according to the various sensors in your Mac. In fact, I recommend it to any of you Mac users who like to keep a handy tool ready to see how your Mac is doing. Get it here (it's free):

http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

And also I'm curious how you have two video cards in your MacBook Pro. Are we talking more than one computer?

[WombatBoy]

Hmm, well I downloaded the fan control thing and I'm up flying out of KLAS as I tried to do 5 times earlier today. Who knows...will let you know more on this as things progress, like next time I try to open up X-Plane

As for the two video cards, I'm not sure. When I open up my System Profiler and go into Graphics/Displays I get two things under the video cards option there. One is labeled as PCI and one as PCIe, I have no idea what this means, but, there are two listed there, thats why I wrote two down

[garrettm30]

I spoke with Derek via instant messaging, but others may benefit from what we found, so I will summarize here.

I did some reading and discovered that Derek's MacBook Pro does in fact have two graphic processors. I found it in this following article:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/freshdv/story/hidden_graphics_power_mbp/

It turns out the slower 9400 processor is active by default. The 9600 is 2 or 3 times faster according to some benchmarks. If you have a MacBook Pro in the last few years, you may want to read the article linked above. Derek's MacBook was set to the slower card. I am interested to know how much improvement Derek sees in X-Plane performance. Did he just get a new computer with a simple click of the mouse?

[Ben Russell]

GPU switching is automatic. Forcing it to the more powerful GPU does nothing except increase base-line power consumption.

Stick 16 SLI nvidia chips in a desktop and no one cares. Stick two slightly different chips in a laptop and it's rocket science.

[AnonymousUser68]

I've got a macbook pro too and I have been having the same problem but without blue screen. I want to get flying for ZE but this is holding me back  :-[

[AnonymousUser68]

Now I get Xmapping error  ??? :-[

[AnonymousUser68]

Should I email Laminar

[Kieran]

Indi I don't believe it is automatic, as from my experience you have to log out and then back in for it to take effect.

Cheers

Kieran

[WombatBoy]

Yeah Kieran that exactly what you have to do. You click "Higher Performance" as opposed to "Better Battery Life" and it prompts you to log out and then log back in. And I must say, I noticed an immediate change with everything. Opening times were faster, things inside Ps were faster. Best of all though, was the fact that X-Plane was faster. After the switch my frame rates doubled! Earlier I was getting between 19 and 21, now it's up in the mid 40's!

[WombatBoy]

Well, I just got the black flashy screen again. It's definitely a video driver failure as a result of heat, that I'm sure of now. The question now is, how do I fix that.

[Ben Russell]

-shrugs-

These settings have supported "auto" modes for me for years now across multiple hardware and operating systems. YMMV I suppose.

[Oliver]

I have to run case open all the time as I'm running a Lenovo Thin case... my video card didn't fit with case closed... and it heated so badly here's what I did. With case open I bought one of those hurricane fans, only like $20, I plugged it in and put it right next to my comp, now when X-Plane starts stuttering or slowing down I'll turn the fan down and it definitely works at cooling the computer down, and it adds some realism, like the wind you hear in a cockpit  ;D

[Pain and Virtue]

I am having a similar problem, i have a 21.5 Imac, 10.6.4, ATI Radeon HD4670.

X-Plane loads fine, but as soon as you start to take off, it goes into a black screen, and i need to reboot the mac.

Anyone have a solution. I spoke with Apple technical support, and they hadnt heard of the problem, asked me to run tech tool to check the video ram, which i did and it passed.....

Driving me nuts. Emailed Laminar and havent received a reply. Any help would be gratefully received.

Andrew.

[gthomas]

-shrugs-

These settings have supported "auto" modes for me for years now across multiple hardware and operating systems. YMMV I suppose.

Hi Indi,

The 2010 MBP auto-switches, the late 2008 and 2009 machines require log out / log in

[WombatBoy]

@ Pain and Virtue

Basically what I did is used two of my old iPods and propped up the back two corners of my MBP to increase ventilation, air flow etc. Haven't had the problem since. Basically what you need to do is make sure the back, middle, of your MBP is clear such that it can do it's thing correctly. I've also heard of propping it up on textbooks and putting a little fan underneath it. Whatever you do to ventilate it should be good.

Good luck with it...it's annoying eh