Is my PowerBook damaged? Programs Closing, Unstable, etc.

Well, first off, my PowerBook has been a great computer. I still love it!

Ok, to start with my problem... My powerbook always seems to get hot, but one night, I was up all night typing a paper. My desk was cluttered with books and reserch papers, and I think that my PB wasn't really getting good air flow. All of a sudden, the computer practically stopped responding. It took me about an hour to save my work and shut down, then it took it another hour and a half to start back up into a usable state. I did look at the temp mon before I turned it off and it was like 175 degrees!

That was about 6 months ago, since then, my computer has never been quite the same. It's now a little slower, and I am frequently having programs close. I am wondering if maybe I have software problems or if the heat could have gotten to my computer. (lol can't stand the heat!)

Maybe someone could advise me.

I think the computer will shut its self down if it gets to hot. I know that my PC will shut down and tell me if it got to hot. i doubt anything was damaged internally on your computer, i would insert the OSX disk that came with your computer and tell it to repair permissions and repair disk, dont do it from the utilities disk app it works best to do it off the OSX disk. After you do that restart your computer and with the same disk tell it to run a hardware test run the test that is the longest it should take about 45mins to an hour to run and it will test just about everything. What programs seem to be giving you trouble? hopefully after you do the repair permission and verify disk that should increase system stability. but it would also help to know what programs seem to be crashing for you.

Well, see the thing is that it doesn't seem to be just a few specific programs. It ranges from isync to Opera. I have no idea what is causing it.

I have tried to repair the permissions, but I did not try with the disk.

I'll see what happens and let you know.

Thanks!

Oh, I would also like to note that I have now had 2 complete system crashes. I was not running many programs or anything (Opera, itunes, couple of widgets.), however the system completely stopped responding. I had to hold down the power button to cut off the computer.

I'd recommend repairing disk permissions and, if that doesn't work, backing up your data and doing a clean wipe and reinstall to see whether it's a software problem or a hardware problem.

Ok, that's what I was afraid of, I don't want to reload the system because I really don't want to mess with it, and I don't have the Tiger install disks. When I bought the computer, the person who owned it had installed Tiger, but I did not recieve the disks.

A reinstall is not really necessary. As long as you run the Permissions Repair, that should do it if it were a software issue. You may want to run the repair a couple of times. If that doesn't do it, then try trashing .pref files for the apps that crash the most often. Then run the repair again.
If it is a software issue, a reinstall would fix it, but it is overkill. There are plenty of other options you can try before doing that. After all, this isn't Windows, :black: