First, a description of my overall problem, then questions about software.
Recently my iBook (1.07 GHz G4 with 1.25 gigs of ram running OS 10.3.9) has been freezing up after about 30 minutes of use. I've reinstalled OS X, ran memtest, ran the system diagnostic cd (which didn't register any problems), zapped the PRAM, ran an Ubuntu Live CD (which also crashed while web browsing) and done everything I could think of and find on the internet short of messing with the hardware. Nothing so far has helped. In OS X my system.log file it reports something like:
localhost kernel:ATIRadeon::submit_buffer:Overflowed Block waiting for FIFO. Have 5, need 6
RBBM_STATUS 0x80001040
VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x00000002
** ASIC Hang Log Start **
...
and then it prints out some hex; and then a list from 0-1023 followed by a hex number. I assume this is some sort of memory dump. It seems to do this a couple minutes after the computer freezes up. After rebooting, my iBook freezes sooner (sometimes at startup) than if I've left it alone for a while.
I suspect there's issues with the graphics card overheating, and I've read elsewhere about poor solder connections between the graphics card and the logic board. I've read about reflowing the solder and am considering it, but I've also read that it can fry the chip.
Before doing something that could completely break my semifunctioning computer, I was wondering if I might be able to squeak a little more mileage from it. I've booted into single user mode to do some editing of text files and I've noticed that my computer does not crash or freeze at all in this mode, even after leaving it on for a couple of hours.
My first question is whether there is a special graphics mode that Single User Mode runs in? I seem to remember reading that OS X uses the graphics card for hardware acceleration to achieve some special effects in OS X. Also on PC systems there is a 'Safe Graphics Mode' in which I assume only a limited part of the graphics card is used. Is there something comparable for OS X, or if the system does use hardware acceleration for special effects, is there a way to disable that?
I still do quite a bit of writing and text editing on my computer and I don't entirely mind being in Single User Mode and using pico for editing. Unfortunately, some of the files I work with are encrypted, and I still haven't figured out how to open them in Single User Mode. I tried hdiutil, but it registers an error about Cocoa. Is there a way to mount an encrypted disk (.DMG with AES-128, although other formats may work) in Single User Mode?
Thanks for any advice.
Recently my iBook (1.07 GHz G4 with 1.25 gigs of ram running OS 10.3.9) has been freezing up after about 30 minutes of use. I've reinstalled OS X, ran memtest, ran the system diagnostic cd (which didn't register any problems), zapped the PRAM, ran an Ubuntu Live CD (which also crashed while web browsing) and done everything I could think of and find on the internet short of messing with the hardware. Nothing so far has helped. In OS X my system.log file it reports something like:
localhost kernel:ATIRadeon::submit_buffer:Overflowed Block waiting for FIFO. Have 5, need 6
RBBM_STATUS 0x80001040
VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x00000002
** ASIC Hang Log Start **
...
and then it prints out some hex; and then a list from 0-1023 followed by a hex number. I assume this is some sort of memory dump. It seems to do this a couple minutes after the computer freezes up. After rebooting, my iBook freezes sooner (sometimes at startup) than if I've left it alone for a while.
I suspect there's issues with the graphics card overheating, and I've read elsewhere about poor solder connections between the graphics card and the logic board. I've read about reflowing the solder and am considering it, but I've also read that it can fry the chip.
Before doing something that could completely break my semifunctioning computer, I was wondering if I might be able to squeak a little more mileage from it. I've booted into single user mode to do some editing of text files and I've noticed that my computer does not crash or freeze at all in this mode, even after leaving it on for a couple of hours.
My first question is whether there is a special graphics mode that Single User Mode runs in? I seem to remember reading that OS X uses the graphics card for hardware acceleration to achieve some special effects in OS X. Also on PC systems there is a 'Safe Graphics Mode' in which I assume only a limited part of the graphics card is used. Is there something comparable for OS X, or if the system does use hardware acceleration for special effects, is there a way to disable that?
I still do quite a bit of writing and text editing on my computer and I don't entirely mind being in Single User Mode and using pico for editing. Unfortunately, some of the files I work with are encrypted, and I still haven't figured out how to open them in Single User Mode. I tried hdiutil, but it registers an error about Cocoa. Is there a way to mount an encrypted disk (.DMG with AES-128, although other formats may work) in Single User Mode?
Thanks for any advice.