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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Powerbook freezing & not waking up

jnbrandel - Jan 28, 2007 - 12:15 pm

Ever since I installed a new 1 gig of ram onto my power book G4, it's been acting a little funky. I've had the single tone (I think that's what people refer to it as) freeze in which the whole screen goes gray and it tells me I have to shut down, I've had it freeze numerous times, and it rarely wakes up when it goes to sleep. I have to force shut it down and reboot.

I took it into a mac store and they ran a bunch of diagnostic tests on the memory chips and could not find anything wrong - it worked for them every time. I told the that it tends to happen when I'm running more than one program at a time (which shouldn't be a problem) and they said they didn't know what to tell me.

A friend said something about a virus, but I never really heard of mac viruses (though I'm sure they exist). I plan on contacting Crucial (where I purchased the memory) and seeing if I can get a new card, but I wanted to see if there was perhaps another culprit behind it all. I know the chips were installed properly because I had a technician do it, so I don't know what else could be wrong. Any ideas?

Or any suggestions of things to try before I take out the chip and try another?

Thanks!

Jennifer Brandel

LovesMacs - Jan 28, 2007 - 3:05 pm

HI Jennifer,

To start with... with size PBookG4 do you have? The 12", 15", or 17"... it makes a difference. And how much RAM came factory installed with your PBook? Have you checked your System Profiler to see if it recognizes the RAM? Here's how to do that.

Click the Apple logo top left in your Menu, then click, "About This Mac" ... A pane will appear, click, "More Info". That will launch your System Profiler for you.
When that opens, under the Hardware tab, click Memory. See if the most recently added RAM is recognized or if it's just indicating the factory RAM. ????

The chances for this to be a virus oriented is practically nil. A virus would effect your entire system, not just the memory. If Apple was experiencing a known virus, it would have made national news. NOT a virus.

You said that it's freezing up when you try to run more then one program at a time. Depends on which programs... if you are running Adobe Photoshop, that is one memory hogging application and for example, if you were running another memory intensive program, it can stall your system even if you have more RAM. Adding RAM doesn't always mean your PBook will run faster but it sure should run stable and not freeze up like what you are experiencing. If you have by chance the 15" PBookG4... below is some information you might want to read.

RAM Expansion Slots

The 15-inch PowerBook G4 has two RAM expansion slots that accommodate standard SO (small outline) DIMMs using PC2-4200 DDR2 SDRAM devices. One or both slots may be occupied by factory-installed DDR2 SO-DIMMs. The slots are accessible for user installation of an additional or larger DDR2 SO-DIMM.

RAM expansion SO-DIMMs must be 200 pin, PC2-4200 DDR2 compliant.

The SO-DIMMs must use DDR2 SDRAM devices. If the user installs an SO-DIMM that uses SDR devices, the boot process will fail when the user attempts to restart the computer and the computer will not operate.

The address logic for the RAM slots supports up to 2 GB total DDR2 RAM.

When you took the PBook into the Apple Store, did you ask them how expandable your PBook is? Meaning... how much memory beyond factory installed it can handle? Considering this particular Apple tech installed the memory and then told you, "they didn't know what to tell you"... that's unacceptable. A PBookG4 (I have one) is an Apple product and regardless of whether or not it's still under warranty and I doubt yours is. An Apple tech should be able to offer you better then the excuse they gave you. One reason they might have said this is because you purchased a non-Apple memory card. If it were me, I send back the card you purchased from Crucial, go to your Apple Store, purchase the memory directly from them and have them install it. That way if you have problems, Apple is responsible.

As you can see, I've been there done that with computers. I also live where there are multiple Apple Stores and I've chatted with so many "techs", I can't remember all their names anymore. But they are on the whole a very professional group of people who are dedicated to providing the best service possible. Don't be put off by one techs words ....

Get back to me with which "size" PBookG4 you have... and thanks for choosing Macosx.com!

Carolyn :-)
Volunteer Tech

jnbrandel - Jan 29, 2007 - 6:04 pm

Hello!
Thanks so much for your reply! Sorry it's taken me a little while to get back. Yes - I do indeed have a 15 inch powerbook, and the memory is being recognized by the computer.

Here's what my computer reads:
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 1.5 GB

And this is the part I ordered from crucial:
1GB, 200-pin SODIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 memory module

I went back into the mac store today and they said something about deleting some files from my microsoft office folder and reinstalling firefox. But in terms of the memory - the technician said all of the tests they ran on it went well.

Any other ideas? It's still freezing on me and not waking up every time it goes to sleep.

Thank you so much for your detailed reply and for providing it so quickly!

Jennifer

LovesMacs - Jan 29, 2007 - 7:19 pm

Jennifer,

Regardless of the troubleshooting the Apple store did, the problem started when the new memory module was installed so that is the problem. Have you tried taking out the Crucial memory module and rebooting the PBook as it was from the factory? If you do this and it doesn't freeze up, that is your answer.

The problems you're experiencing such as freezes and not waking up from sleep are like kernel panics which are indicative of faulty memory or defective memory slots. Jennifer, how much RAM did your PBook come with originally? 512MB????

You're welcome for the help... I just wish I had an easy answer for this.

Have you tried running Disk Utility? Disk Utility is in your Applications>Utility folder. Launch DU, select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, then click, "Repair Permissions". Takes a couple minutes to run if that. Then Quit Disk Utility.

Also, get Onyx. It's an excellent disk utility is a fantastic system disk utility with excellent Maintenance and Cleaning scripts. Here's where to get it:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...ties/onyx.html
It's for the Mac OS 10.4.2 or later. To see exactly which Mac OS your PBG4 is running click the Apple icon top left of your Desktop, then click, "About This Mac". Just under where it says Mac OS, you'll see the version you are running.
Onyx is great... it can fix a myriad of bugs on Macs and help keep your PBook happy.

Carolyn :-)

- Jan 30, 2007 - 8:43 pm

Howdy

Yes - my mac came with 512MB and I purchased an extra gig chip. I ran the disk utility and downloaded the Onyx system and ran some things from it to help the problem.

I'm currently doing an experiment and just running the new memory (the one gig card) to see how it behaves, and so far so good. I don't know if it's a faulty slot of what. Very bizarre.

If it continues to behave well, I'll throw in the original apple 512 RAM as well and see what happens.

Let me know if you have any more ideas on the matter. I know it's a longshot - but I don't know if I've been having problems with the computer because it's been traveling in my workbag next to a spiral notebook that's made out of a motherboard. The front and back cover of the notebook are an 8 1/2 x 11 real recycled motherboard, and I have no idea if there's any strange magnetics in play or anything. I know it's a longshot - but I thought hey - who knows? Maybe the spiral notebook is affecting it?

I'm still baffled. But I'll let you know if things keep going wrong. Thank you so much for your assistance. You've been really helpful.


Jennifer