Any Mac / Leopard users …

[Dr. Medulla]

In case any of you have a similar problem, now or in the future, maybe I can spare you some of my rage. For the last couple weeks, my iMac, running the latest Mac OS, was having problems stalling out, especially while streaming baseball games. The spinning beachball of death would pop up for a second or two (sometimes longer) and then everything would resume. There were also increasing display glitches—horizontal lines, fucked up icons, ghost windows. Things seemed to be getting progressively worse, more frequent, so I figured something must be corrupted in the system software (either that or a serious hardware issue, but I didn't want to think about that). So I reinstalled Leopard. Still no good. Did some more checking online and found others with a similar problem, so it seemed: the fan wasn't running fast enough to deal with increased demands put on the CPU by Leopard (and probably exasperated by summer temperatures in general). (And, in retrospect, I realized that the problem got worse during the day, that it was fine in the morning.) So I installed a free app called smcFanControl, which lets the user increase the fan speed and monitor the internal temperature. I cranked up the fan speed and the internal temp dropped from 52C to 39C in about fifteen minutes, and all the problems seemed to have vanished.

[KokaKola]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

[Dr. Medulla]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

[Flex]

I just need to take the opportunity to say I've never had that bad of a problem while running Vista.

[Wolter]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

You haven't seen a Pride Parade in Texas.

[Dr. Medulla]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

You haven't seen a Pride Parade in Texas.

Immediately after posting that, I thought about Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition marching in, oh, pick a state, say Alabama.

[Dr. Medulla]

I just need to take the opportunity to say I've never had that bad of a problem while running Vista.

Wow. Someone defending Vista. Huh.

[Wolter]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

You haven't seen a Pride Parade in Texas.

Immediately after posting that, I thought about Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition marching in, oh, pick a state, say Alabama.

I got caught in such bad Pride-related traffic trying to go to the store Sunday (I live about 6 blocks north of Boys Town) that I am now no longer gay-positive. Traffic snarling bastards.

[Flex]

I just need to take the opportunity to say I've never had that bad of a problem while running Vista.

Wow. Someone defending Vista. Huh.

My OS doesn't cause my computer to overheat.

[Dr. Medulla]

I just need to take the opportunity to say I've never had that bad of a problem while running Vista.

Wow. Someone defending Vista. Huh.

My OS doesn't cause my computer to overheat.

And all the other problems that have led so many Windows people to stick with XP?

I don't want to sound like some Apple cultist, but I have been very impressed with Leopard, and this has been the first and only problem I've had with it (annoying as this problem's been). The weird thing is that my MacBook, running the exact same version of Leopard, has been fine. You'd think a laptop would be more susceptible to overheating problems, but it's been fine.

[Dr. Medulla]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

You haven't seen a Pride Parade in Texas.

Immediately after posting that, I thought about Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition marching in, oh, pick a state, say Alabama.

I got caught in such bad Pride-related traffic trying to go to the store Sunday (I live about 6 blocks north of Boys Town) that I am now no longer gay-positive. Traffic snarling bastards.

The revolution can be inconvenient …

[JennyB]

Thanks!!
I don't have Leopard on mine, but I'm beholden to you for naming the Spinning Beachball of Death.
It thwarts me at every turn.

Never has a rainbow inspired such rage on sight …

You haven't seen a Pride Parade in Texas.

Immediately after posting that, I thought about Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition marching in, oh, pick a state, say Alabama.

I got caught in such bad Pride-related traffic trying to go to the store Sunday (I live about 6 blocks north of Boys Town) that I am now no longer gay-positive. Traffic snarling bastards.

Don't blame the geighs, blame the society which forces them to have a parade in the first place.

[Flex]

I just need to take the opportunity to say I've never had that bad of a problem while running Vista.

Wow. Someone defending Vista. Huh.

My OS doesn't cause my computer to overheat.

And all the other problems that have led so many Windows people to stick with XP?

Vista's scalability is horrible, but for new computers the problems don't really exist. Most people just stick with XP because whenever a new OS is released the kneejerk mantra is "stay away, stay away." In past OSes there was some legitimacy to that position, but out of the gate Vista has been a more secure operating system than XP and generally more reliable. The biggest problem was that some companies had really dropped the ball on making stable vista drivers for their products (Nvidia, particularly). While that sucks, and it underlies one of the weaknesses of the system (with interchangable parts, an OS is often only a strong as its weakest link), it's something people usually just have to take in stride if they're interested in the pros that come with the cons (which, obviously, I am and why I haven't migrated over to Mac or Linux. Bit of a hardware junkie). Now that we're this far into Vista's deployment, and especially with the release of SP1, all those problems are basically gone.

Again, I'm sure other people have had their share of frustrations but the single biggest problems I've had while on Vista were:

1) Dubious driver support from Nvidia (corrected within a month or so of Vista's release)
2) iTunes erased my iPod. this has nothing to do with Vista.

I don't want to make it sound like it's more than it is, and Microsoft always has serious problems with bloat in their operating systems, but I think the general consumer reaction to Vista has been overblown (sensationalist articles fan the flames a bit). Most actual tests on various facets of Vista demonstrate that on a new computer, Vista is better than XP.

I don't want to sound like some Apple cultist, but I have been very impressed with Leopard, and this has been the first and only problem I've had with it (annoying as this problem's been). The weird thing is that my MacBook, running the exact same version of Leopard, has been fine. You'd think a laptop would be more susceptible to overheating problems, but it's been fine.

It's weird that an overheating problem that could theoretically cause your computer to fry is relegated as an "annoyance" while whatever people complain about Windows systems is proof-positive about the superiority of the Mac OS. I don't want to make more of it than it is, but the overheating problem is a pretty serious one.

My experience working for IT has generally shown me that Windows problems tend to be more numerous but less serious while Apple problems tend to be more isolated but more serious. I think our two tales generally support that analysis.

[Dr. Medulla]

Vista's scalability is horrible, but for new computers the problems don't really exist. Most people just stick with XP because whenever a new OS is released the kneejerk mantra is "stay away, stay away." In past OSes there was some legitimacy to that position, but out of the gate Vista has been a more secure operating system than XP and generally more reliable. The biggest problem was that some companies had really dropped the ball on making stable vista drivers for their products (Nvidia, particularly).

I haven't really followed the specifics complaints about Vista but it does seem to be related to drivers, 3rd party app compatibility, and memory bloat. Which is actually what people complained about when Mac switched over to OSX. I resisted until software pressures mandated me making the conversion, and I haven't regretted it a bit.

It's weird that an overheating problem that could theoretically cause your computer to fry is relegated as an "annoyance" while whatever people complain about Windows systems is proof-positive about the superiority of the Mac OS. I don't want to make more of it than it is, but the overheating problem is a pretty serious one.

I say annoyance because it was chronic—better in the morning, worse in the evening (by then it had been on most of the day and I was streaming a ballgame, which will be CPU-intensive). Now, I don't know how hot is dangerously hot—as I said, 52C when I first installed the fan control—but it was enough to fuck with performance. I would imagine that come fall and winter, I can probably put the fan back to default specs.

My experience working for IT has generally shown me that Windows problems tend to be more numerous but less serious while Apple problems tend to be more isolated but more serious. I think our two tales generally support that analysis.

I've had Macs for about sixteen years now, and I'd agree. I haven't had many problems with them (certainly not as many as my Windows using friends seem to) but when something fucks up, it tends to be a clusterfuck of a problem.

[Wolter]

[

My experience working for IT has generally shown me that Windows problems tend to be more numerous but less serious while Apple problems tend to be more isolated but more serious. I think our two tales generally support that analysis.

I've had Macs for about sixteen years now, and I'd agree. I haven't had many problems with them (certainly not as many as my Windows using friends seem to) but when something fucks up, it tends to be a clusterfuck of a problem.

I once heard it described (I think by Kevin Murphy of MST3K fame) as the difference between driving a sleek import or an old American car. The old beater (PC) breaks down a lot, but you can usually fix it yourself. The import (Mac) hardly ever screws up, but when it does, you usually have to call in a pro to fix it.