SuperDrive crashing Pro Tools?

[CraigLearmont]

Hello everyone.

I purchased a Rev. A Dual 1.8 G5 tower with the Pioneer 106 Superdrive last fall.

I have had many random freezes, with no logic or rhyme or reason to any of them. (frozen screen saver in the morning with
fans cranked, click on a menu and get a Kernel Panic, DVD Player running through Core Audio just stops, and the audio keeps skipping, or the infamous digital grainy loop during playback in Pro Tools and there's nothing you can do except hard restart)

Not to mention, I wasn't able to burn CDs reliably. I would put in a disc, and iTunes or Toast wouldn't recognize the disc. Sometimes rebooting allowed me to burn, or just inserting a ejecting like 15-20 times, and then it would burn.

I recently got the SuperDrive replaced under warranty, and I have a feeling that the problem may have been solved.
It's a Sony one that's in there now, and I think it burns CDs quicker than the older Pioneer. 24X instead of 16X?

I have 3 Gb of Ram, and I'm pretty sure it's all fine. I've tested it with several different test (Rember, TTP, AHT, and they report that it's fine)

Does it make sense to anybody that a faulty SuperDrive would cause Pro Tools to freeze like that?

I was also messing with the Quartz Debug software to turn off Quartz Extreme, but like I said, I think the problem may be gone.

Before I got the SuperDrive replaced, I also moved the Ram around to see if that would help.

What do you guys think?

Dual 1.8 G5 10.3.5 PT 6.2.3 TDM 3 Gb

Thanks!

Craig Learmont

[CraigLearmont]

Well, I came in this morning, and the fans were cranked again. I also had about 900 Mb of DrumKit From Hell samples loaded via Rewire in a session last night, and I figured that if I left it overnight it might crash. Sure enough, it did.

Any suggestions? Should I try to test the ram in pairs only using Techtool Pro or something?

I'm really frustrated. Would reseating the video card do any good perhaps? or maybe disabling quartz extreme?

Thanks!

Craig

[Cliffy_Boy]

You may have a Thermal Runaway problem. Check the log for Thermal Runaway. I know it sounds weird. I had my processors replaced - high fans then boom. Thermal Runaway. Search the Apple forums. Its well known.

[CraigLearmont]

I've looked at my logs, but I've read on the internet that Thermal Runaway problems only occur when you have your G5 set to Automatic in Energy Saver mode.

Are you suggesting that some Pro Tools users don't have their Energy Saver setting set to Highest?

I've set my machine to Automatic, and I'm listening to iTunes through the Core Audio Driver right now.

I'll load that same session with the Drum Sounds, and see if it does the same thing, but I'll check the logs afterward.

Craig

[Cliffy_Boy]

G5 set to highest and I had the dreaded Thermal runaway. Next time it flops, check the log and read what happened at that time.