G4 Project from heck

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Your Mac's Specs
G4 FW800 Dual1.25/1.4GBRAM/250/400/80/Combo
I have a Power Mac G4 FW800 with the following specs:

2X1.25 G4
1.5 GB RAM
(1) 250 GB drive (boot)
(1) 400 GB drive (storage)
(1) 80 GB drive (spare)
Combo disk drive

It's been giving me a myriad of problems, including random Kernel panics, freezes, application crashes, refusals to boot, failure to power on at all, etc. I'll give you a play by play of the last couple months.

It sat at the grey Apple screen endlessly, never loading the OS. (Leopard)
I let it sit for a month or so.
Yesterday, I pulled the 250 and 400 hard drives, used my spare 80 drive as the boot. It booted. I set the 80 as the startup and reinstalled the other two drives. I wiped my boot drive completely, and reinstalled Leopard. Twice. It booted.
However, no applications will run for a significant amount of time, it still freezes, and it feels unstable.
When I use Get Info in Finder for any drives, it says zero kb for capacity, space used, space remaining, etc. Wherever it doesn't say zero it says -- kb. I checked all the permissions in Disk Utility, they all appear fine. D.U. gives me the correct formatted capacity, but nothing else.
Also, when I try to copy any files, it tells me there is not enough space. I'm certain there is, seeing as I had wiped the hard drives minutes before, and no data was reinstalled yet. I can't even copy to my external drive via USB. There is some data on my storage drive, the only one that hasn't been wiped. A lot of it is my writing, which is critical priority #1 to retrieve. Can anyone help with this?

Questions:
1) Why is it still unstable and crashing, after 2 reinstalls and various permissions checks?
2) How can I get my data off without losing much of it?
3) Can this machine be saved for a reasonable amount, or should I save up and buy a new one? I'm a student and a writer, so great financial burden isn't something I can deal with, but I may be able to get a job soon and I'll have about 1000$ with which to buy a replacement.
4) Any advice on how to continue using my 23 inch Cinema Display if and when this machine dies? Is the DVI -> ADC adapter worth the money?

Thank you in advance for the help!
 

pigoo3

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Questions:
1) Why is it still unstable and crashing, after 2 reinstalls and various permissions checks?
2) How can I get my data off without losing much of it?
3) Can this machine be saved for a reasonable amount, or should I save up and buy a new one? I'm a student and a writer, so great financial burden isn't something I can deal with, but I may be able to get a job soon and I'll have about 1000$ with which to buy a replacement.
4) Any advice on how to continue using my 23 inch Cinema Display if and when this machine dies? Is the DVI -> ADC adapter worth the money?

Thank you in advance for the help!

Kernel panics MANY times are ram related. Pull all the ram...and only install 1 stick at a time. Test with one stick...if ok...then stick in another...test again. Keep doing this until you find the bad stick of ram.

As far as your questions:

1. Try the ram testing suggestion.
2. Remove your hard drive, install it into an external hard drive housing...plug it into a 2nd computer.
3. If the problem is the ram...then yes it can be saved.
4. Depends on what computer you buy in the future. If you buy an older Powermac G5...some of those have video cards with an ADC port on them. There are other adapters (most of them expensive)...so the solution really depends on what computer you buy.

HTH,

- Nick
 
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Also consider buying a PRAM battery, placing in, unplug for fifteen minutes or so, reboot zapping the PRAM by holding down Command, Option P and R keys until you hear the chimes for a third time.

An ADC/DVI adapter is simply not worth the US $99 if you can find one, they go on eBay for more usually. If the G4 comes back consider a cheap display. In my case purchased a BenQ23" LED and thrilled with it. Had used the adapter for about seven years and it was getting slower and slower booting, and as for booting from an install DVD or DiskWarrior, forget it.
 
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G4 FW800 Dual1.25/1.4GBRAM/250/400/80/Combo
I've been told on CNET forums it might be a bad logic board or dead hard drives. This would be the third hard drive to go through this machine, and I'm seriously looking at upgrading the system. I think a PRAM battery will be the last hurrah before my beloved Power Mac goes into the closet, awaiting the time when I have all the money in the world and not enough computers to spend it on.

Is OWC a good place for getting a PRAM battery? Also, if I go for an upgrade, what should I get? PowerMac G5, used Mac Pro?
 

pigoo3

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Is OWC a good place for getting a PRAM battery?

Yes...$4.99.

Also, if I go for an upgrade, what should I get? PowerMac G5, used Mac Pro?

Big difference in price there. Simple answer is...if you can afford more than a Powermac G5...then DEFINITELY get an Intel based Mac.

- Nick
 

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