Ibook G4 freezing up & asking for restart

[rokes]

ok so I have an Ibook G4 which has been having some issues. when i start it up, it'll run fine for a few minutes at the most then show this screen :

i've been told mac's don't " freeze " but i don't know how else to describe what's it's doing, it'll work perfectly fine then show that screen and the only things i can press that does anything at all is the caps and number lock, when i do so the green lights go on and that's about it, nothing else happens when i press any other buttons. i originally had Tiger 10.5 i think installed, then thought it might've been a software problem so i reloaded the original OS which i think is a 10.4.2 or something like that, but it's still doing it. i wanted to take it in to the mac store but with an $80hr price tag just for diagnostics, then the labor and parts, it wasn't an option as i'll probably spend more than the ibook is worth.

i've also took out the ram, cleaned the contacts, and reseated it, and although it does read more memory now( it used to only show 512mb, after doing so it now shows 1.5gb ), this problem still happens and i'm running out of ideas

 

[EndlessMac]

Have you verified the disk in Disc Utilities to see if there is anything wrong with the hard drive?

 

[rokes]

Have you verified the disk in Disc Utilities to see if there is anything wrong with the hard drive?

how do i go about doing so???? i've tried the SafeMode start, turning off and starting it back up while pressing the option or function button + S and tried running the software check and nothing came up.

 

[EndlessMac]

how do i go about doing so???? i've tried the SafeMode start, turning off and starting it back up while pressing the option or function button + S and tried running the software check and nothing came up.

If you can't use your computer for that long before getting that screen then you will have to use your Mac OS disc and then boot up from that by inserting the disc and holding the C key on startup. It sounds like you have an older version of Mac OS so it might not go exactly as I say.

Anyway once you boot from the disc, you need to go up to the menu bar and find Disk Utilities. It is also normally installed on your computer but it's also installed on the OS disc just for occasions such as this. The verify function is in the First Aid tab in Disk Utilities. You can then repair it if it needs it.

I'm not saying it's definitely a hard drive issue but I think your problem is hardware related if you are getting that message.

 

[_nelsonc]

I had a similar problem with a 1.33 GHz iBook G4 I bought from eBay. Turns out that the airport card socket on the Printed Circuit board was bad. I had to take the machine apart and remove the airport/bluetooth card to get it to boot properly. There are instructions on how to do this on ifixit.com, but I would suggest not doing this repair unless you are extremely comfortable soldering SMT connectors. I won't tell you how I know this, but you can guess for yourself.

 

[De Piet]

Hi

I had similar problems (see my other post on iBook G4 life expectancy).

I did have the helpdesk do the diagnostics and apparently both the logicboard and airport card don't work properly anymore. In my case, the need to be replaced... (which will cost me over 800 euros when I let them do it).

Greetz,

Piet

 

[De Piet]

Oh yeah, how old was your iBook when it started showing those messages?

 

[bargsbeer]

This is a Kernel Panic.

 

[rokes]

I've read that the logic board issue can be fixed with some soldering but I'm not sure yet I wanna go in and tear apart the ibook to do it until i can find good tutorial so i don't make it worse, and also heard about Kernel Panic but i'm trying to find more info on that cause i don't know what it is yet

 

[De Piet]

Technical Note TN2063: Understanding and Debugging Kernel Panics

 

[rokes]

craventhe

thanks, will give that a try