Mac Stability

irishguy · 28-10-2005 12:12am #1

What is the stability like on a mac does it crash often and is it easy to recover from a crash?

Gordon · 28-10-2005 12:20am

I don't think I've ever had a system wide crash on OS X. I used to get quite a few on OS 9 though. That was particularly annoying as I had to force the power button reset.

irishguy · 28-10-2005 12:31am

Do you get many program crashes? because a friend of mine has a mac and he says it crashs alot [but he is not that techy]

Gordon · 28-10-2005 12:44am

The program crashes I get are with Dreamweaver MX 2004 occasionaly (I can't be sure but I think it may be due to lack of RAM) and Flash (which I think is to do with a Unicode Greek/English problem). Other than that I rarely get them, photoshop may crash very rarely though. I don't find the proggy crashes as bad as any windows crashes I've had. Photoshop on Windows always seems to crash (multi computers but all with XP).

I feel that OS X is more stable with the software I use than XP and when a problem arises that I need to force quit from the Mac OS force quit will quit the proggy 100% on the second force quit as opposed to a 50% chance on Windows on any force quit after the first.

But I think it all depends on the software. What software are you using or wanting to use?

irishguy · 28-10-2005 12:49am

i dont have a mac just looking at them, ill probably get a 15" powerbook when i get some money together. Not sure what programs my friend is using i must ask him

edunon · 28-10-2005 9:06am

With a little bit of maintenance there is not reason to get a crash on a mac. Reparing permissions once a week or after installing a program will do it in most cases. Leaving the computer on at night makes the mac to run some task to clean the system by itself.

soph · 28-10-2005 9:31am

no crashes from me, ive had the G5 imac for over a year now and id say maybe 1 crash if even. have an ibook too and no sign of any crashing there either, !! PC's are prone to crashing from as long as ive used them.

uncle_sam_ie · 28-10-2005 10:54am

When you say your friends Mac is crashing a lot, do you mean a kernel panic where the Mac wants you to restart your computer or there are apps crashing but not the OS. If it's a kernel panic that's happening, then it's most likely a hardware issue. Bad Ram or external USB devices all are the biggest causes of kernel panics. I had a USB ISDN modem that was causing Kernel panics. Once I upgraded the drivers for the modem everything was fine. Next time he has a kernel panic get him to run System Profiler and take look at the longs to find out which device is causing the problem.
If it's the apps that are crashing then download OnyX or any good utility program.
I do get apps that crash once an a while, but they don't bring down the whole system like XP. Over all OS X Tiger is very stable.

K.O.Kiki · 28-10-2005 10:38pm

I only got my iBook a few weeks back, but I can tell you that I've had very few problems with it

The only thing that's a bugger is when I have a few intensive apps running (eg Firefox, NeoOfficeJ & Folding@Home), the crappy 4200rpm HDD slows to a crawl, and I have to wait ~15 secs for it all to load. Frustrating, but never really bad.

Newshound · 28-10-2005 10:52pm

I've used Macs and PCs equally for the last 4 years or so at work and i have to say that they're about equal on stability for me. I know there is a lot of rivalry but as someone equally familiar with both i have to give the edge to the pc in terms which i prefer using for all sorts of little reasons, but its a close call.
There is a huge divide between the guys i work with on which is better but i put this down to them using one system and preferring it rather than a fault with the other. It reminds me of the rival between the zx spectrum and commodore users of my youth

Neither will admit that the other is better just out of sheer stubborness moreso than willingness to find out about the other in detail.
I think you'll be happy with the Mac though.

babypink · 30-10-2005 6:55pm

i'm a pretty intensive mac user and only really copmlain about dreamweaver the odd time and sometimes toast. Apart from that i pretty much never have app crashes and system crashes...never in OS X

Ruaidhri · 30-10-2005 7:12pm

i've seen two or three kernel panics on OS X in the past while. one was caused by bad hardware, the other was caused by Virtual PC which had an Windows 2K install running on it ( which was searching for new hardware btw ).

Aside from that, i'd have to say that OS X and XP are about the same for System stability. Application stability, on the other hand, is a different story.

Applications crash all the time on XP, not so often on OS X. apart from the MS apps i use, i've not seen any other application crash.

darraghrogan · 31-10-2005 8:58am

[SpacemanSpiff:~] darraghr% uptime
7:57 up 15 days, 18:15, 2 users, load averages: 1.50 1.22 1.15

On a PB 12" - No need to shut it down - just close the lid...

The Os itself is very stable - sometimes VLC crashes but it never brings the computer down - some sort of *nix memory threading idea...seems to work.

Since I bought the machine 2 years ago I'd say I've had 5 kernel panics

Darragh

Sarunas · 31-10-2005 12:34pm

I have my 12" iBook for about 3 weeks now. The mac os x hasnt given me any problems...

Oriel · 31-10-2005 4:16pm

What most people are complaining about here are crashes in the software, nothing to do with OX S. The Mac I'm using in work, had it four months, only crashed once.

ZENER · 01-11-2005 11:41am

I've had OS X Server Panther running on a 450MHz G4 Power Mac for almost a year non-stop with NO problems at all.

On my main machine last year (G4 with Powerlogix 1.2GHz upgrade) it crashed at least once a day (Limewire / Java) but this was due to a faulty upgrade board and OEM RAM.

My G5 hasn't crashed yet (kernel crashes that is) except for application crashes - usually MS Word (save often is my motto !) VLC once or twice and Skype (USB headset fault) once.

iBook has never crashed in the 2 years I've had it even when it only had 256MB (640 MB now - much smoother ) except again for MS Word.

Toshiba laptop - 256MB - Win2000 - no crashes yet but it does very little and is kept up to date with AV and patches and AdAware.

AMD 1600+ - 512MB - Win XP Pro SP2 - again no serious crashes but used very little and then only for Cooledit. Like the Toshiba above it's kept clean and up to date with all patches - drivers - defrag etc.

ZEN

440Hz · 01-11-2005 11:55am

I have only ever bought macs... in fact my hse is like a mac graveyard, loads of old machines (that still work!!) and i have never had any problems (or at least there were so few over the past 12 odd years that i cant remember)...
stable, reliable and excellent, no crashes... stalled once or twice when i was running some pretty heavy duty audio progs but that was cos the spec of my machine was not up to the job... Come to the bright side, go mac!

deRanged · 01-11-2005 12:47pm

Jaguar wasn't the best but since I upgraded to Panther and Tiger
my machines are all rock steady.

I wouldn't say that they're any more stable than XP or 2k to be honest.

darraghrogan · 01-11-2005 7:31pm

When you buy a Mac you're more garunteed of the calibre of hardware that goes into it.

Take for example in work we have a Dell Poweredge thats used as a desktop machine and it's very stable on 2K but a homebuilt DVR has problems - go figure.

Darragh

Mac Stability

Comments