G4 Freezes

A

AlexAlexAlex

Registered
Hi,

Hoping that someone out there may be able to help with a major ongoing problem.

Problem:

My G4 freezes - the cursor stops moving, no keys have any affect, any progress bars on screen or processes stop. It is a complete standstill nothing happens and nothing (unpluging cables etc) gets it moving.
Sometimes the cursor completely disappears and then reappears but still with no functionality.

The freeze can occur after a period of healthy use (say an hour or two), or straight after start-up.
I can only get out of this problem by pressing the restart button.

This problem has occured in all versions of OS X 10.3 through to 10.39.

It also occurs when I boot up from my OS 9.1 partition (on a seperate drive not usually in the computer)

And! even has occurred when booting from the OS X install disc.

Computer specs:
Dual 500mhz G4(Giga-ethernet)
1 GB ram (1 x 256MB Apple, 3 x 256MB from Crucial)
2 x 120GB Baracuda drives
1 x Pioneer 108 DVD burner
ATY, Rage 128 Pro video card
Usually use a Wacom Graphire 1 tablet
Firmware is up to date.

Things tried so far:

I have tested all the memory individually, by removing and starting up with each. And in different slots.

Tried running memtest. It go so far, all ok and then the computer froze.

I have re-installed the system on a totally different drive in case there was a mechincal fault in the drive. This also has not solved the problem...

I've verified and repaired permissions, zapped the PRAM, cleared the caches.

Checked the voltage on the battery - read 3.7V which is fine.

Tried using different keyboard and mouse. (heard about wires shorting in USB cables causing intermittent problems.

Tried these in either USB port.

I tried the Hardware diagnostics...but a box came up saying that the diagnostics wouldn't work on the machine. The OS X 10.3 disc isn't the one that came with the machine, it's from a later Mirror Door Power Mac. Is this a problem?

I've looked through all the logs and although I'm not sure I understand anything thats going on at all here are a few things which look suspect to me, for all I know they could be normal, but anything that might help understand the root of this problem is crucial!

feb 19 10:33:57 localhost syslogd: /dev/console: Input/output error

feb 19 19:27:43 localhost kernal: ROM ndrv for ATY, Rage128PD is too old (0xb6246498)
(?can't find appropriate drivers on the web if this is actually a problem?)

feb 19 19:27:48 localhost System Starter: The "HasShadow" window property is obsolete

various entries about /bn/sh could not be launched prebound

feb 19 19:40:02 localhost usr/libexec/crashreported: get_exception_ports() failed: (ipc/send_ invalid destination ports

feb 19 19:57:46 localhost System Starter: (ipc/rcv) timed out: Cannot connect to Window Server; log out or reboot needed

feb 19 19:58:14 localhost mDNSResponder [184]: mDNSPlatformSendUDP sednto failed to send packet on interface ID 01806200 lo 0/4 to 224.0.0251:5353 skt 4 error -1 errno 65 (no route to host)



I'm assuming that because the problem occurs in different operating systems and even from the cd that it's most likely a hardware issue, but without the original disc which i never had (2nd hand) the apple hardware diagnostics don't seem to want to work to help me find out.

Does anyone have any good ideas, suggestions, similar experiences?

Any help would be great!

I've been trying to deal with this for a while now and still hoping!

Thanks

Alex
 
Ok I downloaded the temperature monitor and run it. I think my machines too old to have temp sensors on the processor though (i read they started putting them in from the mirror dorr g4 onwards), so the only readings i got were from my harddrives all sitting nicely between 14 and 16 degrees C.

I remembered I had a copy of techtool pro3 on my old os 9 partition (which I haven't really been into for months) so run all the tests on that.
Everything seemed to pass ok, all memory tests apart from minor and major march (which i think takes ages to run) and all hardware.
so I'm still stumped. I did think one of the VRAM tests went funny at one point, but I think that the computer froze during the test rather than anything else - ie it didn't actually come back with a 'failed' result it just stopped doing anything.

One things I haven't done is press that CMU button, might this be worth trying?

Any others suggestions!?

Thanks

Alex
 
I had the exact same problem/symptoms on a G5. The fan on the video card had croaked. New video card solved the problem.
 
I don't think it's a good idea to run TechToolPro 3 on OS X drives. I would suggest checking with Micromat before you do so again. Apple has warned against using some or all of the old utilities on OS X drives.

Doug
 
I've read about a few other cases where a dud fan in the video card has caused similar problems. Thing is though that my video card is so old (the original AGP 1x card) that it just has a heatsink... unless of course the heat contact glue has dried up or something making it less effective?

Looking at getting a new card to try anyway, saw this one in macheaven
http://www.macheaven.co.uk/?page=proddetail&prod=616
which is a PCI card. Costs a £100 but might be worth a try.

Thanks for the comment about techtool 3. I was actually pretty cautious about that I hope and turned off all the drive/system related stuff thinking it might cause some sort of weird conflict and stuck to the other hardware tests - memory and processor. The computer definately hasn't got any worse since... In retrospect the only possibly dodge test was the PRAM one which i guess contains os X info. So I hope I haven't buggered it up further.

Cheers...the quest continues
 
Just tried the CMU button. Seemed ok for a bit, went out came back and it had frozen on the screensaver. So that didn't fix it.

Could the fact that it pretty much always freezes if it goes onto the screensaver be a clue to anything??
 
The screensaver might be clue. It could be related to the video card. Have you checked out your logs (/Applications/Utilities/Console) and see if the System logs or Crash Reporter logs report anything?
 
Good to know, actually. Is it with the built-in screensavers, or did you install a third party one? If it's a third party one, just remove it and see if things go back to normal.
 
Thanks.

Checked the system.log which showed a crash reported at library/logs/crashreporter/preview.crash.log

Looks like the application preview crashed? although I'm sure I didn't have it on at that point

not sure what the important information in the crash report is but for starters it said:

Exception:EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x34908ba0


had another look through the system.log again and the message (which i mentioned earlier in this thread) which runs during the start up procedure:

localhost kernal: ROM ndrv for ATY, Rage128PD is too old (0xb6246498)

is still sticking out as a pointer to the video card also... (like i mentioned before I can find any updated drivers for this card)

Feel like I'm still guessing about something I don't really understand though... (i can say what it says, but i can't say what it means...)

any further clues?
cheers
 
Sorry Nixgeek forgot to respond to you suggestion for the screensavers...
I only have the one's that come with os X. I set it to 'never' last nignt. The computer did run for the longest single stretch it has in about 2 months after doing that (about 5 hours...) but it still crashed in the end
 
Just had another look at the system.log after a crash.
don't know if these two might be important:

Feb 25 16:46:34 localhost /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: *** Warning: ATSUSetFontFallbacks has been deprecated. Use ATSUFontFallbacks objects instead. ***

Feb 25 17:09:22 localhost lookupd[236]: NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local

It didn't actually crash at those points...but still...
 
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