graphite IMac freezing problems

HI,
I hope someone can help me. My 2000 graphite IMac power pc specs: G3, 384 MB SD Ram, cpu speed-500MHz, cpu type- power pc 750(83.2),L2 cache 512 KB, bus speed-100MHz, boot rom version- 4.1.9f1.
We gave this to my daughter for college 2 years ago, and she has been having major problems ever since. At that time, we installed Mac OSX. Since then, the computer freezes when starting up, and when she finally starts up after many tries, it freezes a lot. It also repeatedly says it "unexpectedly quits." It says this when she is writing a paper on word and when she is on explorer, safari, Aim and other sites. She brought it into her school's computer store, and they erased everything and reloaded, but the problem continued. Needless to say, she is very frustrated and wants to defect to a pc notebook. We didn't know how bad it was until she brought it home this summer.
We are hoping it is something simple that we have overlooked.
Fixes we tried recently: Repair permissions, file system check, hardware test CD. My husband is almost certain he undated firmware. Is there a way to check if he did for sure? He also loaded 10.3.4, hoping that would fix it, but it didn't. Any suggestions on how to fix this otherwise great IMac? Thanks.

I would first make sure that the firmware is correctly updated by performing the process again. The instructions and the download are at the link below:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130

I would then use the OS X installer to completely zero the drive (not just format, but actually write the drive with all zeros). IMO, this is more of a "clean-slate" than simply formatting. Finally, go ahead and do a fresh installation of OS X.

If you continue to experience problems after all of this, then I would also suspect the RAM, as witeshark mentioned. The only reason why I'm not convinced it's the RAM is that it sounds as if it ran fine under the old OS, and that installing OS X was the only thing that changed before the problems began.

Thanks for your help. Before we zero the drive, my daughter has to get all her stuff copied off the computer. Right? Not an easy feat- she wants to save all her "music"- lots of music. Tonight being Friday night, there is no way we would be able to convince her to stay home, LOL, so we will have to wait til tomorrow. We will let you know what happens when we zero the drive. At her school, they saved her info quickly, but we think it will take a long time to copy onto disks- any suggestions as to how to quicken the process- short of erasing her songs?

There are various ways of networking it with another computer and transferring the songs. Unfortunately, I'm not very good with networking setups, though I think you may be able to use Firewire or USB. One method that I've used in the past to transfer things between otherwise unconnected machines is to use AOL Instant Messenger's file transfer feature. As long as both computers are hooked up to high-speed internet connections, you can place all of the songs into one folder, then connect to AIM on both machines (using two different screen names) and transfer the entire folder. Depending on how many songs she has, it could take a little bit of time, but it's simple to do and it works.

Thanks for your help. WE know how to format, but we are not sure how to zero the drive. Can anyone explain. Thanks.

penny1015 said:

Thanks for your help. WE know how to format, but we are not sure how to zero the drive. Can anyone explain. Thanks.

Click to expand...

When you begin running the OS X install CD, it should give you the option in the menu bar of launching Disk Utility. Once Disk Utility is running, select the main drive and then click on the "Erase" tab. There should be an Options button at the bottom next to the Erase button. Clicking on options should give you the option to select "Write drive with zeros".