Major G4 Freezes

[marinadeking]

I have a G4 500MHz 512 that is giving me problems so serious, that it will not even boot up now. I had a tech look at it after it first started crashing and he recommended a new HD, so I bought a 120 gig and and transferred everything over to that from the original 27 gig HD. Nope, not the problem. Another tech ran diagnostics and found nothing wrong with it. The third tech (Apple authorized) ran diagnostics and found directory issues, which he fixed. He pronounced it in good health and sent me on my way. It promptly crashed when I started it up. One thing I noticed was that at night I would turn off power to the machine and in the morning it seemed to work fine for a few hours. I thought it was a discharging thing. I read in another forum that a person with a very similar issue took the battery out and replaced it and his problem completely disappeared. AHA! I replaced the battery and it ran fine for 3 days. Monday morning I turn it on after a weekend of no power, completely discharged and it freezes. I cannot boot up from the CD. Most of the time, the HDs don't engage. After sitting for awhile, they will spin and it locks up, sometimes while in the grey screen, sometimes in the blue screen, and sometimes just at the point of being open. After that, the HDs won't engage for a long time. When I replaced the battery, I zapped the PRAM according to the Apple website's directions. I'm at my wits end. Can anyone offer me any advice?

 

[marinadeking]

Also, I am running 10.3.4, upgraded from 10.1.5, where the problem all began.

 

[witeshark]

I would try booting single user terminal - restart holding Apple S. once there type /sbin/fsck -fy until **** files system**** message no longer appears

 

[marinadeking]

I tried, but the hard drives aren't engaging at this point. The green light comes on and that's it. Perhaps if I wait for a while, the HDs will start and I will try that. Thank you.

 

[jerodhusvar]

I tried, but the hard drives aren't engaging at this point. The green light comes on and that's it. Perhaps if I wait for a while, the HDs will start and I will try that. Thank you.

This is just a shot in the dark, but before you did your upgrading, did you upgrade your firmware? If not, this might be where your problem is stemming from. If you can get the machine booted up, that might be your next step. You can also try pressing the CUDA switch (a little tiny button switch on your motherboard, probably near the PRAM battery. Which looks like... well... a battery.

Let us know if this helps.

jjh

 

[marinadeking]

I upgraded the firmware before I upgraded the OS. Also, when I replaced the battery, I pushed the CUDA switch once, and only once, according to a MAC article at their web site. To push it more than once, it says, will take the battery's lifespan from around 5 years to 2 days, for some reason. I even took the battery back to Radio Shack ($15, by the way) and had them test it just in case I inadvertantly pushed it more than once. It tested fine. Thank you for your input.

 

[marinadeking]

One more thing. The Apple tech deleted 10.1.5 from the 27 gig HD, which I still have installed for storage. Just in case of conflicts between the two. The 120 gig is the master. If I remove a drive, it doesn't help, either.

 

[jerodhusvar]

One more thing. The Apple tech deleted 10.1.5 from the 27 gig HD, which I still have installed for storage. Just in case of conflicts between the two. The 120 gig is the master. If I remove a drive, it doesn't help, either.

Ok, the next thing I would try is removing all of the memory except for one stick. Try booting the machine. If it works, check the next stick. Do this for all of your memory. If it boots with any of them, then you might have a faulty DIMM. I've seen bad memory keep OS X from booting, and 10.3 is less forgiving of bad or marginal memory than 10.1.x was.

jjh

 

[marinadeking]

I tried that. I have one 512 stick. I removed it and moved it to different slots. I haven't tried different sticks. I would if I had them. By the way, the problem originated on 10.1.5. That's why I bought a new HD and upgraded to Panther, hoping that would fix the problem. Thanks.