Panther problem

[gulliver]

Odd one this... help appreciated. Please and thanks.

Powerbook arrives and boots fine.

Whilst downloading 10.3.6 and other updates it freezes and needs 'hold power button down' treatment.

Then refuses to boot fully. 'Loading' rectangle appears... then thin black line extends across screen from right hand side then screen fades to purple on right whilst the rest is fine.

Same when trying to boot from DiskWarrior bootdisk.

Having tried all the usual key combos, phone call to Apple produces a few other variants. No better. Replacement organised, I ask 'can we eject the disk somehow?' Booting into 'open firmware'? produces an 'eject device not found' message (or something similar).

Successfully eject with piece of card then switch off and walk away.

Hhhmmm... wonder if? I reboot with system restore disk. The run system hardware test. Machine goes blank whilst testing. After reboot, it provides the install screen and I re-install then download some upddates and all seems fine.

Faulty graphics card perhaps?

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I'd check the RAM first. Did you add any aftermarket RAM? Also, make sure the RAM chips themselves are properly and firmly seated and locked into the proper positions in the slots -- taking them out and reseating them might help as well.

With each release of OS X, starting with 10.2, the system has gotten pickier and pickier about the quality of the RAM in the machine -- even Apple's own RAM has been known to cause problems in some isolated cases.

[gulliver]

Thanks. Machine was straight out of the box with Apple RAM - literally a half hour old. Didn't want (nor see need to on a brand new expensive machine) mess around.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Ah... it could have been a one-time problem, then. Software Updates should never, ever be interrupted, so I'm gonna say that the booting problems you experienced after the "crash" were because the update was interrupted, leaving required files incomplete, as well as the fact that the "prebinding" process never finished either. Prebinding can take a long time on a system with a lot of files, and shouldn't be interrupted, either -- it's the system's way of telling applications where to find the libraries and files they need to run.

I would recommend letting Apple take care of this one, if you find that your newly-installed system exhibits similar problems. It's uncommon, but not unheard of, to receive a new system with hardware problems, and should be covered by the warranty. If you have another bad crash like that one, don't hesitate to call Apple and request a machine swap!

Good luck...

[gulliver]

Thanks.