Mac Questions Thread. I killed my Mac today....

[Trickymac]

Happened to a WD drive on mine. Both my win-doze and SL installations had tried to do the initial formatting and the ensuing argument betweens OS's ended in the same way that many Mac vs Windows arguments do, they don't. So I reformatted, partitioned half to Fat32 and half to Mac OS and it's been good ever since. Windows can't read the MacOS partition though.

So my suggestion, reformat using disc utility.

hey ljohn, yup reformatted/erased it, and bam, reselcted it in time machine and we are good to go
thank fuck

 

[24alpha]

Bootcamp - Win7 32bit to 64bit.....what a nightmare.

Hey yo!

Any one tried this imposible task before? Bootcamp - Win7 32bit to 64bit upgrade.

There appears to be no simple way to do this. You can upgrade 32bit to 64bit in the Windows world, so a fresh install is required. That's not the big deal, the big deal is you have to remove your boot camp partition and redo it all.
What a waste of farkin time. Add to my issues, I had to run disk utilies from the Installer disc as there was a problem with the HDD after deleting the Bootcamp partition.

/rant.

Rant's not over. I can install Win7 64bit Enterprise, but now I can't see it when it boots into Windows. Black screen like it's not powered on. My guess is that the display drivers arn't installed, anyone got any ideas?

 

[3viltoast3r]

Do you have rEFIt installed? I think that might help you case - I had to reinstall windows and all I did was format & install onto the windows partition and then rEFIt allowed me to boot into it - I then installed bootcamp drivers..

 

[jayjay3032]

What hw are you on? There we some iMacs that had this issue and you had to have the graphics drivers on a USB plugged in during the install.

You didn't need to wipe the bootcamp partition, you could have just booted of the window install disc and gone over the top.

 

[24alpha]

What hw are you on? There we some iMacs that had this issue and you had to have the graphics drivers on a USB plugged in during the install.

You didn't need to wipe the bootcamp partition, you could have just booted of the window install disc and gone over the top.

Jayjay is right, needed the graphics drivers on a usb stick. Fun and joy. I found no info stating you could boot from the windows disk. wish I had of posted in here first! lol
It was all for naught. I have chucked more RAM in, so installed 64bit to address it. Was hoping it would fix my issues with BF3. BF3 fails to load now. My graphics crad is not 64bit supported. very frustrating. Now my wife hates me because I want to spend mony on PC parts! lol

At leaset 16GB of RAM will help my video editing! lol

 

[Kizzmtbr]

Ok I have to questions.

Is it possible to boot into bootcamp or a virtual OS from an External Hard Drive(I am using a Macbook Air and don't want to clog it up with windows...)

Is there a way to reinstall Lion for a fresh Install?

 

[3viltoast3r]

Ok I have to questions.

Is it possible to boot into bootcamp or a virtual OS from an External Hard Drive(I am using a Macbook Air and don't want to clog it up with windows...)
Actually booting may be a bit harder, You might be able to get a firewire drive to do it :shrugs: . As for a virtual machine i'm fairly sure VMware can do it pretty easy..
Is there a way to reinstall Lion for a fresh Install?
Yes, Easy. Just back up all your files, And insert the install disc and restart the computer

Has anybody else used macports + wine succesfully? I have had some pretty sweet success with it - Got a really narky electronics program to work (For uni) without any hassle! Infact it runs better in WINE than XP/7 (It was designed for 95 and I set wine to use 95..)

 

[jayjay3032]

You can boot an OS off a FireWire drive. MacBook airs don't have FW.

There is no such thing as a lion install disc. Apple say that to install lion you need a SL install first. You could also buy one of the USB installers that they are meant to be selling. Not sure if they're available yet.

If you have the lion updater on your machine you can make a bootable lion install disc out of it. Just google how to make a lion install disc for instructions.

 

[24alpha]

This "Must buy everything from the App Store" thing is a total wank! As a system admin at work, the amount of hassle this causes us when needing to upgrade a Mac is unbelievable.

 

[jayjay3032]

What issues are you having?

 

[Tristan23]

Alrighty, instead of making a new thread I thought i'd throw the question out here. Hopefully someone can give me some advice...

Basically, i'm about to buy a new 27" iMac to be used primarily for photo and video editing, and will be slightly upgrading whichever model of computer I decide on to perform a little better.

My question is this: What do you think is worth more in terms of running speed and overall performance, especially for 2D imaging? All of these options will have 4GB of RAM initially that will be upgraded to 8GB down the track, and eventually 16GB in a years time...

1. Upgrading from a 3.1GHz i5 processor to a 3.4GHz i7 at a cost of $240 and not doing anything else. Which means having a 1TB 7200rpm ATA drive and a 1GB graphics card.

2. Upgrading the graphics card from a standard 1GB card to a 2GB card at a cost of $120 but leaving the processor as the 3.1GHz. (Also, can someone explain if there will be a substantially noticeable difference between the even lower 512MB graphics card and the 1GB?)

3. Buying the more basic model computer with a 2.7GHz i5 processor and 512MB graphics card, and then upgrading the hard-drive from a 1TB 7200-rpm ATA to a 256GB Solid State Drive at a cost of $600.

4. Buying the standard 3.1GHz i5 processor with standard 1GB graphics card and standard 1TB hard-drive and just being content that it'll shit on my 5 1/2-year-old MacBook Pro with a 256MB graphics card, 2GB of RAM and 100GB 5400rpm hard-drive.

The top three options all add up to roughly $2500, which is probably as far as i'd like to push it to be honest. Thoughts?

 

[indica]

Thoughts?

Buy a PC, whack a good graphics card in it, run linux and whatever doze crap you need under Wine.
Save at least 1k. I have an i5 PC with 8 gigs ram running Mint - came with a monitor for $600.
I loved my mac but the pricing is fucking silly and extortion.

 

[Tristan23]

Buy a PC, whack a good graphics card in it, run linux and whatever doze crap you need under Wine.
Save at least 1k. I have an i5 PC with 8 gigs ram running Mint - came with a monitor for $600.
I loved my mac but the pricing is fucking silly and extortion.

I know it seems illogical, but no matter how well-performing a PC may be for however little money, i'm still going to buy a Mac. So i'd love some thoughts on which option you'd choose from those listed.

 

[bjmtb]

Option 1: If you at any stage want to upgrade the processor at a later stage, you may as well buy a new computer, go the faster processor, you can easily upgrade the HDD or Graphics card if you feel the need to spend the extra coin later on.

 

[indica]

Go the i5, tis fine. Will pwn.....

Buying an iMac you cannot upgrade more than ram and HD yes? It will smash your old mac, was sad to leave the camp, but if you ever need to remember you can buy at least 2 for the price of a mac and have FREE SOFTWARE in the Linux community which is even more secure than apple stuff.

 

[Minlak]

Basically, i'm about to buy a new 27" iMac to be used primarily for photo and video editing.

My question is this: What do you think is worth more in terms of running speed and overall performance, especially for 2D imaging? All of these options will have 4GB of RAM initially that will be upgraded to 8GB down the track, and eventually 16GB in a years time...

1. Upgrading from a 3.1GHz i5 processor to a 3.4GHz i7 at a cost of $240 and not doing anything else. Which means having a 1TB 7200rpm ATA drive and a 1GB graphics card.

2. Upgrading the graphics card from a standard 1GB card to a 2GB card at a cost of $120 but leaving the processor as the 3.1GHz. (Also, can someone explain if there will be a substantially noticeable difference between the even lower 512MB graphics card and the 1GB?)

3. Buying the more basic model computer with a 2.7GHz i5 processor and 512MB graphics card, and then upgrading the hard-drive from a 1TB 7200-rpm ATA to a 256GB Solid State Drive at a cost of $600.

4. Buying the standard 3.1GHz i5 processor with standard 1GB graphics card and standard 1TB hard-drive and just being content that it'll shit on my 5 1/2-year-old MacBook Pro with a 256MB graphics card, 2GB of RAM and 100GB 5400rpm hard-drive.

The top three options all add up to roughly $2500, which is probably as far as i'd like to push it to be honest. Thoughts?

1) A factor in this deliberation is that more and more programs are being released with multithread capability. That is they can use more than one CPU thread to execute a single command. So things happen more quickly. Some photo editors and video editing programs are multi-threaded, for example. However, the Internet browser you use to access Netbank or your email client is not, and is unlikely to be in the foreseeable future.

This is one of the many reasons why Core i7 processors are the creme de la creme. Not only are they quad cores, they also support Hyper-Threading. Thus, a total of eight threads can run on them at the same time. Combine that with 8MB of cache and Intel Turbo Boost Technology, which all of them have, and you’ll see what sets the Core i7 apart from its siblings.#

2) Some programs allow you to use the memory(ram) onboard the graphics card as well as your installed memory. Unless you are gaming you will see no difference between a 512mb card and 2gb card for 2d applications.

The ram on a gfx card preloads "Stuff" required to make a game / program do it pretty thing you wont be stressing this side of it for what you have said you want to do. However if your going to game get the bigger card.

3) SSD <---- Speed incredible boot times install times stupid fast.... Sata<----- more space and you don't notice how slow they are until you have used SSD.
* With external drives so cheap and the need to back up anyway SSD is an option however i see far more my SSD crapped it self stories than SATA crapped itself stories.

4) Stretch and buy the best you can now afford as tomorrow it will be old anyway ....

My Choice:- for the purpose you have described i7 cpu ..... 1gig gfx .... 7200 Sata hdd ..... 8 gig of ram

# Shamelessly copy pasted from PCWorld Australia(http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au) as easier than typing it myself

 

[Tristan23]

1) A factor in this deliberation is that more and more programs are being released with multithread capability. That is they can use more than one CPU thread to execute a single command. So things happen more quickly. Some photo editors and video editing programs are multi-threaded, for example. However, the Internet browser you use to access Netbank or your email client is not, and is unlikely to be in the foreseeable future.

This is one of the many reasons why Core i7 processors are the creme de la creme. Not only are they quad cores, they also support Hyper-Threading. Thus, a total of eight threads can run on them at the same time. Combine that with 8MB of cache and Intel Turbo Boost Technology, which all of them have, and you’ll see what sets the Core i7 apart from its siblings.#

2) Some programs allow you to use the memory(ram) onboard the graphics card as well as your installed memory. Unless you are gaming you will see no difference between a 512mb card and 2gb card for 2d applications.

The ram on a gfx card preloads "Stuff" required to make a game / program do it pretty thing you wont be stressing this side of it for what you have said you want to do. However if your going to game get the bigger card.

3) SSD <---- Speed incredible boot times install times stupid fast.... Sata<----- more space and you don't notice how slow they are until you have used SSD.
* With external drives so cheap and the need to back up anyway SSD is an option however i see far more my SSD crapped it self stories than SATA crapped itself stories.

4) Stretch and buy the best you can now afford as tomorrow it will be old anyway ....

My Choice:- for the purpose you have described i7 cpu ..... 1gig gfx .... 7200 Sata hdd ..... 8 gig of ram

# Shamelessly copy pasted from PCWorld Australia(http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au) as easier than typing it myself

Cheers for the info. After a little more reading I think i'll go the 3.4GHz processor with the 1TB 7200-rpm HD and 1GB graphics card. The SSD doesn't really seem like it'll make much difference after the computer is turned on and the programs opened, so i'll save the money and buy myself a 2TB RAID storage device or similar...

 

[j5ive]

SSD as scatch disc will make a big difference in photoshop. I'd put my money there and max out the ram. Little difference in Gpu and CPU for what you will be doing

 

[Matt H]

I know it seems illogical, but no matter how well-performing a PC may be for however little money, i'm still going to buy a Mac.

Hah! I'm suprised no one has sig'd that yet. :tape:

 

[Hew]

I'd put my money there and max out the ram. Little difference in Gpu and CPU for what you will be doing

Not sure if serious...

Video/photo editing is very CPU intensive. You can chuck 32GB of ram in a system if you want, but I've never seen mine use over 7GB, even using photoshop and playing BF3 at the same time on two screens.