Expert: Jeffrey J. Wrobel - 8/29/2004

Question
Thanks Jeffrey.
Again, excellent advice: BE persistent and SHOW THEM.
I will deal with "them" people as soon as I come back form my vacation.
I will write to you then again.
At work, I bought an HP 120nr DesignJet from HP and there was a
problem with it right away. HP did NOT think twice about it and sent
me another one, all free, new printer and parts, etc. NO big deal. What
whould anyone expect anything less form Apple? You are right, we
should not.

I hope that it is alright with you if I leave this case open and not score
you for a few weeks until I get an answer from Apple. If not, please let
me know right away.

Thanks again.

Andres
-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hello Jeffrey.

It was YOUR letter what prompted me to find the All Experts site, and
you! Thank you for that.
Thank you too for your VERY complete answer.

Let me give you an update: After I wrote to you, I followed my gut and
trashed the transplanted
OS9.2.2 (I only kept some extensions and prefs related to some
Classic-only apps I did not feel
like installing again).
The files I trashed were ONLY those in the Classic's system folder. After
that I installed OS9 from
a DVD that came with the G5 (this is an additional installs DVD, not the
main one).
After the new OS9.2.2 was installed I added my extra extensions and
prefs and run Software
update (there were no updates).

I realize now, after reading your piece of sound advice, that I took too
much of a shortcut. The
G5 is still crashing but NOT as often, for sure.

I will be abroad for a few weeks starting on Sept 1 so I'll redo the
installation and follow the steps
you suggest in early Oct.

______________

Regarding the "experts" at Apple: When I first got my G5 (from
MacZones' Dave Luxem a sales
person who has been beyond excellent) it  was pretty much DOA. The
Mac run but its fans were
going full speed all the time and a BRIGHT red led shone from inside,
next to the fans, from the
moment I started up the Mac (my room looked like a house of ill-
repute, I told Apple). Well, the
AppleCare genius on the phone, the first one I spoke with, told me that
that was "normal" I told
him that I had the same system at work (it really is) and that I had
NEVER seen this "normal"
behavior. He insisted and told me to "look again". OF course he was
wrong. It took me three
more tries, and three different geniuses to get to someone with an
independent brain to guide
me through the correct steps and determine, finally, that the
Microprocessor (?... I have tried to
erase my memory of this event) was KAPUT. 2 weeks later I had a
replacement.


______________

Since you've read this far, I'd like to ask you for another opinion:

With the G5, I got the 17" Apple monitor (probably soon to be
discontinued) and I am ALREADY
having problems with it (I have used for probably 36 hrs total by now).
These problems mostly
occur as the Mac wakes up and/or after a screen saver break: I see
checker board that goes away
after I hit the "esc" key. I also have problems in Adobe Illustrator CS
and Photoshop where I
experience dotted vertical and/or horizontal lines that go away for a
minute or two as I zoom in
or out. In Illustrator, the colors also seem patterned. As I described
above, I have the same Mac
at work -plus a 23" Apple monitor- and I have never seen anything of
this kind there.

After a suggestion I read at the Apple site, I pulled off and reinserted
the video card (GeForce FX
5200). The problem is still there. The geniuses at the Apple store
downtown Palo Alto told me to
bring the monitor AND the G5 in so they could run some "tests".

Scary.

What do you know about this?


Thank you very much!

Sincerely, Andres Cathalifaud

-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hello Jeffrey.

I am a graphic designer and I have a brand new G5 (Mac details
at the end of the message)

I use Adobe apps, Adobe Fonts (and Font Reserve) and the
dreaded MS Office 2004 suit. The Mac has 2 FireWire external
HDs and 2 USB devices attached (Wacom tablet and HP Scanner).

The only "funky" thing I have done to this Mac is to transplant
OS9.2.2 from my old G3 (that was running OSX 10.2) because it
was not part of the original OS setup and I need to run some
Classic apps from time to time.

I have almost the same system at work (2GB of RAM instead of
1.5GB) and, compared to that, my G5 crashes often, more often
that I'd like, for sure. in two weeks, Photoshop has crashed three
times on this machine and perhaps once in several months at
work. Same with Illustrator and Entourage.

I always rebuild the permissions (the "brightest" idea Apple
could have come up with, for sure) after a crash and they seem
to be ok (no permissions are fixed, most times)

My question is: Although it has never been running during a
crash, do you think that the transplanted OS9 could be the
culprit? If not what else should I look into?

I have noticed that when a crash occurs, threat "0" crashed first
(according to the on-screen log that I always send to Apple). Ex.:

Command: Adobe Photoshop CS
Path:    /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS/Adobe Photoshop
CS.app/Contents/MacOSClassic/Adobe Photoshop CS
Version: 8.0 (8.0x119) (8.0)
PID:  685
Thread:  0

Exception:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes:  KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x7e84a378

Thread 0 Crashed:
0  application  0x02088dec 0x2008000 + 0x80dec

Etc., etc...
------------------------------------------------------
Mac Details:

Machine Model: Power Mac G5 (from the 2 wave of G5s)
CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (2.2)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 2 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f2
------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for your time and expertise.

Sincerely,

Andrés Cathalifaud, Santa Clara, CA
Answer -
Dear Andrés,
Congrats on owning an extremely powerful machine and having the
taste to stay with Apple.  
This G5 is still in its infancy, not even having a true native 64 bit
system to run in yet, while the
hardware operates at 64, the software tries to keep up at 32 bit.  Tiger
should solve SOME of
those difficulties.  However, I don't think that your problem has
anything to do with THAT.  In
fact, you very likely are exactly right when you asked about the OS 9
install.  Mac put a ROM
block on the OS 9 system, making it incompatible with the new
machine's hardware.  Of course,
you can clone or copy the OS from one disk to the G5, but whenever it
attempts to run, a kernel
panic (crash) will ensue.  

Now, the OS 9 Classic does NOT have to be running to cause problems
because it is at odds with
the hardware.  Therefore, even in the background, it can cause a crash
because OS X sometimes
updates  classic files during normal operation.  Now, when it tries to
update classic and
encounters the System instead of just the Classic emulation
components, it does not know how
to respond, hence the "invalid address" and "bad access" messages.  

Here's what should fix it.  Remove the OS 9 files by doing a search for
anything resembling OS 9,
classic, etc.  Then, insert your OS X 10.3 install disk and go through
the initial installation
windows until you get to the window where you choose the disk you
want to install OS X on.  
Select the one that it is installed on now and click on the OPTIONS
button.  Select ARCHIVE and
INSTALL and continue.  In the next window you will see a button that
says CUSTOM.  Click on it
and DESELECT the speech voices, the FONTS, and all the print drivers
except the GIMP print
drivers and the ones that you have printers for.  Then, click on INSTALL
and go through the
install, then click on software update when you're done to update your
components, quick time,
security, etc.  You should then, after the update and restart, be at
10.3.5  This should solve your
problem.

As for AppleCare folks, look in September's Mac Addict magazine
under the LETTERS section.  
They published my letter on just that subject!  

Please, write back if you need more help or any clarification, okay?
Thanks,
Jeffrey Wrobel
Answer -
Dear Andres,
Don't you LOVE the Mac Geniuses?  I think they should have to be
accepted into Mensa to be
called a genius in ANYTHING.  I mean I score a 145 (5 points below the
current alleged "cutoff"--I
missed ONE question out of more than 80 questions in the IQ test!), so
I will start calling myself
the Mac Subgenius!

You really have been through the ringer on this purchase.  Mac is
NOTORIOUS for knowing about
a defect and saying, "What?  You have a PROBLEM?  Gee, we've never
encountered THAT.  It must
be a software problem or maybe a third party's PCI card or peripheral
did it!"  This is BUNK.  They
are well aware of 99 out of 100 MYSTERY PROBLEMS and instead of
recalling the machines, it is
more economical to deal with the complaints on a case by case basis.  
Then, at least some
customers will give up and put up with a defect, especially if a GENIUS
tells them that is is
NORMAL!

Your monitor sounds like it has an inverter or down converter problem
or MAYBE a defective
video card.  Machines with one defect, for some reason, tend to have
MORE problems with other
parts and if would follow that the video board on board the G5 has also
sh*t the bed.  

So, I would follow my original full instructions, then, if it still gives you
trouble, then try to
negotiate something with Apple.  Tell them that it is NOT an option to
be without your computer
and you have already had to deal with the first repair.  That was
enough of a hardship.  They
should give you another display to try and replicate the problem with
and/or a new video card
for the G5 to try to do the same thing.  It is not right to ask YOU to
give up your machine when
you did nothing to cause this.  Make a huge stink.  Apple has been
known to give in when the
customer is extremely persistent.  If you get shut down, ask to speak
to the person's supervisor,
and on and on until you get the answer you want.  I can't guarantee
that it will work, but the
whole reason that Mac does this stuff is because they CAN.  People let
them.

Let me know how you do, okay?

Good luck!
Jeff Wrobel

Answer
Sure, that's fine with me.  You can always score me on the work thus far and then score it again (the site does not restrict the number of times that you can score someone--which has encouraged rampant cheating for Volunteer of the Month nomination--had a girl last month who answered 6  questions all month, then she mysteriously had 265 nominations!).  All I ask of folks is that if they are going to score me lower than a 10, that they let me solve whatever it is that wasn't up to par.  I work really hard for free and am proud of my scores (I have the best average ratings in the Mac section).  It is all I have for recognition and I try to do my very best.  Like the last week, I have been without my internet because of a broadband mess up that the cable company pulled.  I signed up for a dial up so that I could continue to keep my questions from waiting too long to be answered.

Good luck, Andres!  I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey Wrobel