Weblog of a “Switcher”

Man, this problem has been driving me crazy for quite some time. So let me explain what I have been going through before I describe how I finally found and fixed the problem.

Problem:
So for quite some time, my Mac ran really well. However, sometime down the line, I started noticing that, as I was watching videos in QuickTime, the video would just stop for about 5 seconds. This happened pretty consistently. I tried several things to fix it, but never really found the problem. I switched to my Admin account on my Mac and found that the pause wasn't happening. So, now I was really confused. However, this did tell me that it was something that I had installed that was cause this.

Troubleshooting:
Since my Admin account wasn't pausing, the first thing I tried doing was disabling as many programs that start up when I log in as I could. I pretty much disabled all of them and found the pausing was still present.

I looked at my System Preferences and disabled quite a few "Other" Preference Panes as I could. I really thought that Hazel might have been doing it the way that Preference Pane works, but alas, I still had pausing even after disabling it.

All this was done before Leopard came out. When I got my copy of Leopard, I installed a clean copy on my MacBook and tried an update on my Mac Pro. I noticed some odd problems after the upgrade and decided to wipe the Mac Pro and do a clean install.

After that, the pausing went away of course. I figured it would.

I started installing the tools and programs I usually have on my system and for quite a few months my Leopard install ran great. Then, like with Tiger, I started noticing the annoying pausing again.

So I finally got fed up with the problem and went over to Apple's support discussion forums to see if someone else was seeing this same problem. Thank all the gods that be, that someone else had the same problem. Over the course of a few posts in the topic: OSX 10.5 freezes 5 secs every 5 mins, he described the problem that I was having exactly. I was a little worried at first that the problem wasn't going to be discovered since he wasn't really seeing any responses to his query. Fortunately, he was able to figure out what was happening and posted his solution.

So Mr. Michael Q is my hero here. He found that iStat menus has an option to Monitor S.M.A.R.T. drive that was causing the system to pause. When he disabled this option, the pausing stopped. So, I went into System Preferences and disabled the feature myself, and low and behold, the pausing indeed stop!

This is one Preference Pane that I didn't really disable since I couldn't imagine how a set of tools that monitor the system would cause these pauses. Especially since I also use iStat (the application) to conserve menu bar space.

I actually thought that monitoring S.M.A.R.T drives might cause a problem. I use a program called SMARTReporter and I had disabled that program. Plus there is nothing in iStat menus "Drives" pane that mentions monitoring S.M.A.R.T drives. Oddly enough, the setting for monitoring S.M.A.R.T drives is in the "Temps" pane. S.M.A.R.T drive monitoring doesn't really involve temperatures, it monitors the Hard Disks for possible impending failures.

Solution:
So the solution is to simply disable monitoring S.M.A.R.T drives with iStat menus. If you use this Preference Pane, bring it up, switch to the "Temps" pane and uncheck "Monitor S.M.A.R.T drives".

I wanted to post this account for a couple of reasons. One, to burn the solution into my brain so that if I notice pausing again later, I can fix it quickly instead of scratching my head for weeks. I also want to post this so that there is another location on the web that describes the problem and shows how to fix it.

I really hope that this post finds a person scratching their head looking for a solution like I was.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Admin Account, Apple, Crazy Man, Discussion Forums, Freezes, Hazel, Leopard, Mac, Macbook, Odd Problems, Panes, Preference, Quite Some Time, System Preferences, Tiger, Tools

I don't usually write about new products from Apple, but the new Time Capsule just really impresses me.

The idea of having a wireless router that has up to a 1TB HDD in it for backups is just really great. I have a bunch of computers on my home network and have separate external HDD's for backing them up. Plus, noting for our notebooks. Having a wireless device that will allow me to backup devices without having to plug in an external drive is just great.

Now, I know there are other options out there, but I haven't seen one for the price points that Apple is selling Time Capsule for. $499 for 1TB's of HDD space is great. That's how much I spent for an external HDD I have connected to my Mac Pro now and that is just an external HDD
This was one of the biggest new items that came out of Steve Jobs' Keynote speech at Macworld yesterday. The other thing that really made me happy was movie rentals including HD movie rental! When the TV first came out, the idea of hooking the thing up to an HD television and not having any kind of HD content to use with it was just ridiculous! Finally, the TV has HD content that it can display from iTunes via rental. This is going to make the TV a device worth considering!

written by Dave M. \\ tags: 1tb Hdd, Apple, Backup Devices, External Hdd, Hd Television, iTunes, Macworld, New Time, Notebooks, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs Keynote Speech, Time Capsule, Wireless Router