Quicksilver startup issues - crashes except in safe mode

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I am trying to understand where the issue is with my G4 Quicksilver. I have a 1.47GhZ Fastmac processor and machine runs 10.4 (latest updates etc). If I boot up normally I get maybe 3-5 seconds of Apple logo then a short black square then crash. If I boot up in safe mode it starts ok, but then the system profiler sees 512mb of RAM in one slot, even when other slots have RAM in them. I suppose it's possible I have 4 bad sticks of other RAM but I'm a little confused by it all. If I run Applejack it crashes before I can get to run it, and memtest didn't respond to "x" when I typed that (without the quotes). Help ! Thank you.
 
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Did you use any thermal paste when you installed the heat sink? Sometimes a touch of Artic Silver is required.

If problem still persists, have you got the original CPU to pop back in and see if all is well with that? If it is okay dodgy upgrade.
 

dtravis7


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Is this a recent upgrade you did or has the system been working with that CPU and RAM before this?
 
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The original 800mhz CPU was damaged, this cpu has worked on my other Mac in the past with no issues. I can't access it in order to apply thermal paste - honestly it looks secure enough, more secure in fact, compared to other cpu's i have seen or had. I don't know enough to pinpoint the issue but to have to work in safe mode and the Mac seeing only 512mb of RAM no matter what is put in it seem very odd.
 

dtravis7


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Do you have other RAM you could substitute and see if that might be the issue. Seen bad ram do that more times than I can count.
 
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Yeah, I plan to swap some more out today - thank you all for your guidance on this.
 
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Worked on your other Mac - could it be the system bus speed needs changing? Not familiar with Fastmac CPU upgrades, however did have a Mercury Extreme which required different settings for 100MHz and 133MHz system bus speeds?
 

dtravis7


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Worked on your other Mac - could it be the system bus speed needs changing? Not familiar with Fastmac CPU upgrades, however did have a Mercury Extreme which required different settings for 100MHz and 133MHz system bus speeds?

Good point Harry!

My Giga Design is the same way and has settings for 100, 133Mhz Bus, Voltage and even overclocking. I have noticed that Sonnet's seem to not have any jumpers which bugs me.
 
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How do I change the system bus speed ? The jumpers are correctly set for the cpu itself, to 133mhz, same as the Quicksilver. Do I need to do something else ? And if so, why would it start ok in safe mode ? Thanks again.
 

dtravis7


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If the jumpers are set to 133Mhz then it's right for a Quicksilver. We were just trying to be sure you had it set right, and now we know you do.

Did you try different RAM?
 
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I have a feeling it might be a preference issue in hard drive - reason being I found my old old 20gb drive, did a clean install of 10.3 on it, then disabled the sata I had and plugged in the 20gb drive. It booted without an issue ! The profiler still says the 512 stick of SDram is in slot 3 and it sees SDram in slot 2 but doesn't give a number/size to it, that has me very confused !

I guess I had better find my discs to do repair permissions. Then again I would have to plug the sata back in to do that - what a loop this is !
 
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I have a feeling it might be a preference issue in hard drive - reason being I found my old old 20gb drive, did a clean install of 10.3 on it, then disabled the sata I had and plugged in the 20gb drive. It booted without an issue ! The profiler still says the 512 stick of SDram is in slot 3 and it sees SDram in slot 2 but doesn't give a number/size to it, that has me very confused !

I guess I had better find my discs to do repair permissions. Then again I would have to plug the sata back in to do that - what a loop this is !
Some info on repairing permissions, you'll want to do that from the startup volume, and not the install disk. (Safe mode, if you still can't startup normally)

And if Safe mode works, consider what it's not using, to isolate the problem. Is a little odd the other drive would boot normally...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564?viewlocale=en_US
 
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I'm probably doing this the wrong way - previously I had ran disk utility from startup disk and it corrected some permissions. I have also ran Applejack (it just finished running it). I thought memtest was also installed but when i type x at the prompt the command isn't found. I just reinstalled Applejack and x still doesn't work.
 
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I'm running memtest 4.22 version now, hopefully it will inform me of RAM issues.
 
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One question about the hard drive. Is it possible to remove all preferences in Hard Drive> Library> Preferences folder ?

IF I were able to do that, upon reboot would they all reset themselves ?
 
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At this point the only "issue" I have is the RAM - the profiler still sees one stick, of 512mb. Nothing in 2nd slot, even after running memtest 4.22
 
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This is becoming quite embarrassing and infuriating. I do believe I have 3+ sticks of bad RAM - I apologize for causing wasted time to some of you and thank you for sparing it.
 

dtravis7


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Do you have any other ram you can try?
 
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Hey you have not wasted our time - that is what friendly forums are for helping one another.

Where did the RAM come from? Was it low density RAM as most PC compatible modules will not work in Macs as they are high density.
 

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