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TICKET ARCHIVE -> My Mac G4 Keeps Freezing Up

?macperson - Aug 2, 2005 - 8:38 am

I have to confess that i do not have osx installed yet and this is not my computer so i am kind of in the dark when it comes to mac but this is a g4(AGP graphics) 400 Mhz with os is 9.2.2 new 80 gig hard drive. It seems that they can not use the computer for more than 5-10min and it freezes. Tried replacing mouse no luck tried reset-nvram, set-defaults, reset-all in the option-command-o-f prompt replaced system battery and hit reset switch on the system board located behind battery all with no apparent luck. Will install osx if needed but the operator of the computer does not know osx at all and can not afford to have any down time plus all of our programs that we use are vital but old so will not run on osx we think . Sorry that it is so long winded but seem to be beating head on a wall fixing this any help would be greatly appreciated thank you for your time

philippe99 - Aug 2, 2005 - 11:13 am

David, welcome on macosx.com

(1) No, do not go to OS X before solving this issue ?
(2) You say "freeze": in any application ? In some of them ? Which ones ?
(3) When using the Internet ? D oyou have an USB modem plug into the G4 ? If yes, could you unplug it and make tests (yes, of course, not on the Web)
(4) Which RAM do you have ?

Regards
Philippe

?macperson - Aug 2, 2005 - 3:52 pm

it freezes in any application the whole computer physically locks up and has to be reset.no usb modem isdn line and it has 896 SDRAM .It actually has been running for about an hour know with no problem but still worries me the only thing we did was change the mouse back to the original mouse but seems to be a fluke because we did this three times yesterday and no effect??

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 2:09 am

Was a cordless and/optical mouse with drivers installed ?
Do you recently add Ram ?
Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 8:08 am

it is a corded mouse optical and no new ram was installed the other mouse is corded ball mouse. Talked to a guy yesterday and he said to disconnect network cable from mac because sometimes network protocols can be corrupt but file sharing is not on ? I also forgot to put in that we do have a old 10 gig hard drive but it is not doing anything but sitting there with os x on it tried to run it yesterday but still had the same problem ? but we think that is the hard drive because we ran disk doctor on it and it said it could not because of problems on disk and not enough memory.

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 8:17 am

> but sitting there with os x on it tried to run it
? do you have install os X on the Mac or not ?

> because we ran disk doctor
Well, I do not like Norton stuff. The only program that can help solving disk issue is DiskWarrior (htpp://www.alsoft.com)

If you let the Mac on but doing nothing, is it freezs at the same frequence ???

Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 8:26 am

Yes and no to the os x ? we have a 10 gig hard drive and a 80 gig hard drive in th emac the 80 the one we use all the time has os9.2.2 on it and that is the one we use, the 10 gig is a old drive and installed os x on it so the user of the mac could go to it in her free time and learn how to use os x so yes and no because she never uses that drive we only tried it yesterday to see what would happen

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 8:48 am

David,
when booting on the 9 system, could you repare the desktop followint this article
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=10182

Regards
Philippe

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 8:56 am

Otherwise, I would perform a clean reinstall of 9.1 on the 80gb
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=30691
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58176
then reapply the 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 updates

Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 9:37 am

yeah we have rebuilt the desktop the user recently has been doing it once a week and we just did a clean install of the os once when just before we put the 80 gig in the machine and once after because of some problems with data transfer so i am not sure if doing it again is worth it because every time we do it I lose the connection to our RIP and it took me a week to get the rip back because of problems with finding the drivers and getting them to work had to have mac tech come in last time and that cost a lot of money don't want to do that again if i don't have to sorry I seem to be a pain at the moment thank you again for your help

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 9:58 am

kind of off subject-I also just found out that the battery backup and surge protector went off yesterday and we have been having problems with electrical equipment in the building if we have had or are having power surges could the surge protector not be tripping in time and effecting the mac?

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 10:24 am

I don't think so: a defective surge can cut off the electrical line, so the mac will stop running..but not forcing the mac to freeze

I only face one time a repetitive freez on my old G3 9.1; I make a clean install and all goes well.

I really want to know: with doing anything and having no application running -so only the finder- does it freez ?
In your System/Startup (cannot remember the exact name of the sub-folder of System folder which contain the items which are automatically launch when booting), which elements do you have ?

Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 10:52 am

the only thing that launches is launcher alias the launcher contains acrobat 5.0, adaptec toast 4.1.2, adobe illustrator 9, adobe in design 2.0 page maker 7, photoshop 6, Internet explorer, e-mail shortcut, quark 4.1 and 5.0 simple text and script editor and yes it freezes when in finder but cross my fingers it has not yet froze today and has been running for 3 hours ?

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 10:56 am

I got another suggestion from mac repair guy that if not software could it be power supply or processor overheating ?

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 11:06 am

I guess i never did ans your ? yes it does freeze with nothing open and just finder running

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 12:44 pm

David
Download X resource Graph from here
http://www.gauchosoft.com/Software/X...ource%20Graph/
and monitors the CPY/HardDrive temps
To give you an idea of the dangerous limit:
* cpu temp cannot stay permantly over 170 F°
* hard drive temp cannot stay permantly over 150 F°
Common working range is around 135 F°

But an overhaeating in a Powermac.. ???? I doubt. I've one a t the office, running from years, never notice it is hot. Fans are loud, yes, but the machine never goes hot

Power supply ? Not sure, but perhaps a problem on the logic board
Does your powermac came with an Apple Hardware Test CD ?
if yes, could you boot on it and launch the tests ?

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 12:57 pm

No hardware test CD will try the link is there anyway to get a hardware test CD for it ?

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 1:22 pm

This AHT Cd comes with the OS X release, I was not sure they came with machine under OS 9
And you cannot download one as this CD (and tth tests scripts in it) is dedicated to a specific machine: AHT Cd for a G5 does not work on a PB.
Give me back an idea of your temps.
Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 2:33 pm

went to link and downloaded program but stuff it will not open it it seems that it will not open anything with stuff it now? nothing downloaded will open now, just new today?

philippe99 - Aug 3, 2005 - 2:44 pm

Oh, yes sorry David; XresourceGraph only works in X
Philippe

?macperson - Aug 3, 2005 - 4:40 pm

that sucks found a product called gauge pro and it said that the processor was at 50c

philippe99 - Aug 4, 2005 - 11:04 am

50 Celsius is normal.
I run out of ideas: I would say re-install 9.1. Then 9.2.1 and 9.2.2
If this not work, perhaps we face a logic board hardware failure, but your symptoms are not sufficient at my eyes
Philippe

?macperson - Aug 5, 2005 - 8:40 am

reinstall of the os did not help it is still freezing so guess next step is logic board or new mac if i get new logic board can you make any suggestions where to get a new one when i looked yesterday all i found was refurbished or used ?

philippe99 - Aug 5, 2005 - 12:09 pm

With a mini around 550 $, the refurbished/second hand vs new one is a dilemna.

About logic board, I would go to a specialized Apple dealer. However, I only face a dead logic board on a imac G3, so I extract form the machine the HD and the DVD drive and throw away the rest: a logic board is too expensive for such an out dated machine
Here in Europe, a logic board for an emac runs around 400 $... a new emac is around 750 $ !!!!! ... a mini around 550 $ (no screen)

A very difficult choice

Philippe

?macperson - Aug 5, 2005 - 1:17 pm

Thank you very much for your help, hopefully I will figure something out. Have a nice day.