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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Major instability on OS upgrade to 10.4

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 3:23 am

Hi,

Heres the system:

PowerPC G4 MirrorDoor Dual 1.25 GHz 2Gb Ram

I had it working fine with 10.2.8

I was finally forced to do an OS upgrade in order to
use some apps that I needed. So I swallowed hard
and installed the 10.4.6 (Black) CD.

I then installed the 10.4.11 ComboPPC download
from the apple site.

Major Instability, constant system hangs.

One of your techs advised that I re-install the 10.4.6
CD and reinstall Photoshop (my main app) which I
did.

I continued to have some occasional system hangs
while using some computationally intensive Photoshop
plugins.

The Apple site forums claim that 10.4.11 is THE
most stable version of Tiger, fixing all problems
neglected by minor revisions along the way......
So, I went to the Apple Support site and followed the
instructions to the letter. Unplugged all peripherals
except keyboard/mouse, did a file-system verification,
swung a dead chicken over my head and proceeded
to download the final 10.4 release to do an install
from my hard drive. (I also did all of this prior to
re-installing the 10.4.6 CD).

After numerous hangs, I was finally able to get the
10.4.11 Combo (PPC) downloaded and verified.

When I went to install it the system hung up twice.
After the second time, I can no longer get a complete
boot; it now hangs on the blue screen at login.

The 10.4.6 system disk is not in the drive and I
cannot get the drive open as there is no longer a
place to use the ubiquitous paper-clip.

Apple insists that 10.4.11 works on my machine
as they say that 10.5. will work on my machine.

I now have a box that will not boot and I have no
way to make it boot. If I can get that straightened
out, what do I do to get a stable version of
10.4 running??????

I will take it to an apple store (God Forbid) if that
is the only way that I can get a guaranteed install
that I don't have to hold my breath while using,
but obviously, that is a Last Resort....

Has anyone else had this kind of problem with
this hardware/OS combo???

Any help would be most appreciated.

Mark P.

Serenak - Mar 18, 2008 - 6:11 am

Hello Mark and thanks for coming to macosx.com

I will try to assist you as best I can

OK first of all is there not a "paperclip hole" behind the drive door? Flip the door open manually and take a look...

If not the normal procedure is to attempt to boot holding down the mouse button which normally forces the drive to open/eject any disk

Hopefully that will allow you to get the 10.4.6 Installer into the Mac - once you have that I would try the Hardware Test (hold D on startup and follow the instructions) and after that run Disk Utility

Also somewhat counter-intuitively you might be better off removing some RAM. Each iteration of X has got progressively more finnicky about its RAM and to be honest your symptoms sound like they may be due to "bad" RAM - try taking some out and see if the symptoms improve - keep swapping round until the suspect RAM is isolated (yeah this is a bloody tedious task)

10.4.11 is indeed the best version of Tiger and there is no reason that you should be having such difficulty - I have had Tiger running on old Sawtooth G4 400s & 450s with far far less RAM perfectly respectably.

Hope that is some assistance - come back if you need more advice or help

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 4:52 pm

Thanks for the info.
I've pulled the ram that I bought 3rd party
and got the drive open with the mouse button
(no paper-clip hole), but it is still trying to boot
from the hard drive.

How do I force it to boot from the disk?

Thanks again,

Mark

Serenak - Mar 18, 2008 - 4:59 pm

Restart the Mac and hold down the C key till it starts to boot from the Installer or alternatively boot holding the alt key and select the installer disk in the screen that appears then

If this doesn't work then you have a Firmware Password set which may disable booting from any drive but the internal (unless you set this it is unlikely)

Install the 10.4.6 and then run the updates - then just take it slowly and see if problems reoccur. Check the HDD with DU reasonably often at first, if no problems show up there then you can probably stop doing it.

Let me know how it goes

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:03 pm

NM, Did a search and found the 'c' key.

Once I get Tiger installed properly can
I put the 'bad' RAM back in or does
it have to be replaced?
(and if so, do I have to by a 'pair' of
sticks or can I just buy a single 1Gb
stick if I choose to?)
Thanks

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:16 pm

And on a related note,.. I just did some online
window shopping for RAM and beyond the
184 pin physical requirement, are there any
other specs I need to worry about for compatability
with my hardware?


e.g.:

Kingston ValueRam 2GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2)

versus:

Kingston 2GB KIT 400MHZ DDR PC3200 ( KVR400X64C3AK2/2G )

also, is there any particular spec/manufacturer that would
be considered 'Factory Approved'?
(and I will just put the old ones back in if you think it
will be okay once Tiger is installed)

Thanks again for your help with this.

Serenak - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:16 pm

If no problems occur you /could/ try putting the 3rd party RAM back in and see if panics resume - that would give you a definitive answer (but at the risk of bringing you back to "square one" as it were) - though if you pulled the 3rd party RAM at the first KP you would probably get away with it...

Aas RAM is basically dirt cheap right now I would "repurpose" the 3rd party RAM (to an older Mac or a suitable PC) and buy some more (Personally I prefer Crucial or Kingston - their "Value RAM" has never let me down yet...)

As far as I am aware the G4s did not support "interleaving" and MacTracker (which is a fantastic free resource available here... http://mactracker.dreamhosters.com/) backs me up on that so you can just shove in the biggest stick the Mac will support (MacTracker says the 125Ghz DP G4 MDD supports upto 2Gb of RAM

Hope that gets you back on the horse as it were

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:20 pm

And on a related note,.. I just did some online
window shopping for RAM and beyond the
184 pin physical requirement, are there any
other specs I need to worry about for compatability
with my hardware?


e.g.:

Kingston ValueRam 2GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2)

versus:

Kingston 2GB KIT 400MHZ DDR PC3200 ( KVR400X64C3AK2/2G )

also, is there any particular spec/manufacturer that would
be considered 'Factory Approved'?
(and I will just put the old ones back in if you think it
will be okay once Tiger is installed)

Thanks again for your help with this.

Serenak - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:23 pm

MacTracker says you should be looking for PC2700 2.5v 184pin unbuffered, 8byte Non Parity DDR SDRAM

Or use Crucial's online selector to help find compatible RAM

Crucial UK says http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...25GHz%20DDR%29

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:26 pm

And on a related note,.. I just did some online
window shopping for RAM and beyond the
184 pin physical requirement, are there any
other specs I need to worry about for compatability
with my hardware?


e.g.:

Kingston ValueRam 2GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2)

versus:

Kingston 2GB KIT 400MHZ DDR PC3200 ( KVR400X64C3AK2/2G )

also, is there any particular spec/manufacturer that would
be considered 'Factory Approved'?
(and I will just put the old ones back in if you think it
will be okay once Tiger is installed)

Thanks again for your help with this.

opticnerve - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:28 pm

Thanks for all your help Serenak!

You guys are the best.

Mark

(I'll leave this ticket open until I'm
finished with the update, if that's
alright - then I will close it)

Thanks Again!!

Serenak - Mar 18, 2008 - 5:41 pm

Never a problem Mark

After all I do this for free just because I like doing it..

By all means keep the ticket open

If you don't want it to expire just post something into it every day till you are happy it is done then just close it...

always happy to help out if I can

opticnerve - Mar 19, 2008 - 1:07 am

Rock solid now.

:-)