Mac Pro (#5): Hangs with some external FireWire drives; Blu-ray drive support; Poor Aperture performance; more

Hangs with some external FireWire drives On numerous occasions we've noted that errant external FireWire and USB devices can be the cause of kernel panics, inability to startup, and most commonly system-wide freezes.

MacFixIt reader Robert Hranichny reports such an issue with his new Mac Pro, where disconnecting the problematic device(s) results in re-gain of system control.

Robert writes:

"I have purchased a Mac Pro standard 2.66 configuration. There is a bizarre external device hanging with external firewire drives where the only solution is to unplug the drive manually to exit and regain control of the finder. I have upgraded the internal drives to 4. 2 of which are set to RAID 0. I have also installed an extra 2 gig of ram giving me 3 gigs on the first bank of slots. However these problems surfaced before I performed the upgrades."

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know.

Blu-ray drive support Some users are experimenting with placing Blu-Ray drives in their Mac Pros' extra optical bays.

One reader placed a Pioneer BDR-101A unit in his system, and reports that while System Profiler accurately sees the drive, and it can recognize standard DVDs, it is unable to access or burn Blu-Ray discs which are not recognized and do not mount in the Finder.

Preliminary information indicates that the ATI X1900 (a BTO option for the Mac Pro) has support for HDCP, which is required for Blu-Ray disc playback. Whether or not Apple will add software support for this card has yet to be determined.

Poor Aperture performance A number of readers are reporting inexplicably poor performance from Aperture on the stock (1 GB of RAM) Mac Pro configuration.

In fact, users are reporting that other Macs -- including the iMac G5 -- deliver much better performance when configured with 1 GB of RAM relative to the Mac Pro, similarly configured.

Users are reporting the poor performance when running the Universal Binary edition of Aperture, and Mac OS X 10.4.7.

If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let us know.

Graphics card support We've noticed a strange snippet in Apple's Mac Pro developer note, which states:

"Note: The Mac Pro does not simultaneously support an ATI graphics card and an Nvidia graphics card."

However, we've yet to receive reports from any readers who have actually attempted placing cards from the two different manufacturers in their systems.

Also, we are still looking for any reports from readers who have successfully installed and utilized third-party-purchased graphics cards -- like the  ATI Radeon X1900XTX -- with the Mac Pro.

Currently it appears that only the nVidia GeForce 7300 GT, ATI Radeon X1900XT and the nVidia Quadro FX 4500 are supported in the Mac Pro on both a driver and hardware level.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Previous coverage:

• Mac Pro (#4): Boot Camp support; AirPort and Bluetooth must be installed by service provider; more
• Mac Pro (#3): RAM specifications and clarifications; Noise levels; RAM shipment delays; Take-apart pictures
• Mac Pro technical notes: Processors are upgradeable, model string identifier, more
• Mac Pro introduced (notes from Keynote): Ships today, Up to Dual dual-core 3 GHz, more

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