PowerMAC G4 stops responding, can not find system disk..

[PIXELjunke]

Hey, guys and girls.

I'm convinced I bought a lemon of a Mac a couple years back.

I have a dual 1.42 GHz PowerMac G4, 1GB Ram, 30Gig system HDD, 300Gig storage HDD, and dual screens. It seems every couple months my computer does the same exact thing; it freezes constantly for no reason while sitting there doing absolutely nothing and, when I'm forced to shut it down by holding the power button, it will sometimes find the system disk. That, or if it finds the system disk, it will sometimes not find my storage drive (same thing happened when I had 120Gig storage HDD). Usually, to get it to boot up, I have to reset the PMU chip, which is something I find myself doing around 1-2 times a week now.

I've the computer in to an authorized mac repair center numerous times. Each time I bring my computer in, it sits there for around a week. I finally get a phone call to come pick up my computer and that it's fixed. The first time I did this, they said the hard drive was bad, so they installed a new hard drive. The second time, they ran Disk Warrior and said there were some bad permissions. The third time, they reset the PMU chip. I've brought it in several other times, and they do the same thing.. These are procedures that I have done...a lot. I want them to actually repair the problem and not make me wait a week for temporary solution. I've went through around four hard drives, it does the same thing with each of them. I've reinstalled the entire system, it starts having the same problem a week or so after the new installation. I've reset the PMU chip many, many, many times. I've told them there is something more wrong, but they don't listen to me.

I'm convinced there is something more wrong (possibly hardware) with my computer than a simple software bug, permission problem, or, well, whatever other minor thing it may be. My mac-guru friends agree. The 3-year extended warranty ends in March and I would really like to get it repaired for good before then so I'm not stuck paying a huge bill when I bring it in after the warranty and they magically find the root to my problem is the logic board, hdd controller, or bad memory.

Anyone?

Thanks,
Erich

[nixgeek]

Did a hardware check CD come with the system? If so, use that and see if it can determine what the problem is.

I've used that system before and it's a great machine. I was sad to see it go back to Apple (it was a loaner for where I worked). Hopefully it isn't anything to horrible that is cauing the issues you are experiencing.

[PIXELjunke]

it did come with a cd to check for hardware issues, but, alas, it cracked in the move. yarghh!