Bad Memory or somthing worse

Philrand · #1 April 1st, 2007, 10:10 PM

I am having some issues with my Power mac G4 (Mirror Drive doors) 1.42 gHz dual processor Desktop.

First, I had a problem Burning DVD's. I get "Am error Occurred while burning the disc. This disc cannot be ussed" message.

I tried 4 different types of media including Apple discs to no avail, Same message.

I tried using Toast and received a buffer underrun Error message.

However I can Burn CD-r's with no problem.

I tried running The Apple Hardware test disc which gave me a "Invalid Memory access" error.

Thinking i might have bad memory I tried each chip ( I have 3 512 ddr sdram chips) and only one of them allowed me to successfully boot into the Apple hardware test. i assumed i had 2 bad RAM chips.

I purchased 2 new chips but had the same problem. The two I bought would give me an "Invalid Memory access" error when attempting to boot in the Apple hardware disc.

Now my computer boots up fine normally and even recognises the RAM under the "About this Mac". I tried "Tech Tool Pro" and "Rember" and the Memory passes fine.

So is the memory really bad, Is it something more serious? What's the deal?

-Phil
philransdell@verizon.net

supanatral · #2 April 3rd, 2007, 10:29 AM

First of all, I can't see ram causing a problem with your comptuer reading burnable CD's, however, i have seen ram cause some wierd things.

It sounds like it could be your motherboard not communicating to your ram properly. If I were to take a stab at it, i would say its your motherboard. Take it to an apple repair shop because they'll have the spare parts to start testing your computer with.

Kees Buijs · #3 April 3rd, 2007, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supanatral

First of all, I can't see ram causing a problem with your comptuer reading burnable CD's, however, i have seen ram cause some wierd things.

It sounds like it could be your motherboard not communicating to your ram properly. If I were to take a stab at it, i would say its your motherboard. Take it to an apple repair shop because they'll have the spare parts to start testing your computer with.

Also it is possible that when having BAD memory, parts of programs are damage (during harddrive access). So reinstallation is in general recommended after solving these kind of problems.

Good luck, Kees

sinclair_tm · #4 April 5th, 2007, 12:07 PM

not sure why you went to ram when the drive is making dvd costers. remember, there are 2 different lasers in a super drive, one ode cds, and one for dvds. if its burns cds, and not dvds, then i'd be looking at the superdrive. it could be that the dvd part of it has died, and you need a new drive. the sure way to find out is to try the drive in a different mac, or a different drive in the current mac.

as a side note, when you try to burn a dvd, do you have at least 10gig free space on your hard drive?