iBook G4 Hardware Test Error Code 2STF/1/4: ATA-100-6-MASTER

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I have an iBook G4 which started crashing with -50 error codes last week, and has giving me heartache ever since. I had an issue with my internal drive performing a dissappearing act, and naturally replaced the drive and reinstalled Tiger.

That unfortunately did not fix the problem. The new drive installed fine, but the problems continued. I have since performed many tests, including TechTool, Drive Genius, memtest, and Apple's Hardware Test it provides directly to Apple Service providers, and have not had any indication of failure. I also have NO trouble when I boot this machine off of a firewire drive.

After much testing, i found that intermittently, once the computer has gotten a bit hot, the Apple Hardware Test that ships with my Mac has given me the following error code:

2STF/1/4: ATA-100-6-MASTER

My question is this: It seems clear there is something wrong with the ATA bus or controller in my iBook. Is that part integrated into the logic board or is available seperately? Is this what is to blame? According to the Apple Test, the logic board is fine, but it fails on the Mass Storage test and gives me the above code.
 
From that error, it sounds like either the hard drive has gone bad, or the ATA controller has gone bad.

The hard drive is replaceable, but not easily unless you're experienced with disassembling and reassembling laptop computers. If you've got a spare hard drive around or can afford to acquire a new one, you can try to replace it and see if that helps, although there's no guarantee that it will.

If it's not the hard drive, then it's probably the controller, which is not replaceable at all. You must replace the logic board of the computer in the case of an ATA controller failure.
 
It definitely is not the hard drive or anything software related: I have already replaced the hard drive and reinstalled completely. I still have an intermittent problem where is the disk might be nonresponsive at startup, or cannot have files written to it after a while of being on. This seems to be related to the operating temperature of the iBook, as it doesn't happen on a cold bootup.

I neglected to mention a few things...

The problem began one night when the computer was running hot. I started getting -50 errors and was unable to save files in any application (Mail database, iTunes library file, etc.). Following this, the drive would intermittenly mount and couldn't be repaired by drive utilities (Tech Tool, Drive Genius, DiskWarrior, etc).

Now, after replacing the drive and reinstalling, I seem to have similar problems with the new drive. In the System Profiler, I will ALWAYS see two ATA Buses (one for the HD and one for the optical), but sometimes the hard drive will not show up as a device. The optical drive ALWAYS shows up and functions correctly. Aren't they on the same controller?

When I run the Apple Hardware Test, I get NO errors on the logic board test. Previously, a tech ran the Apple Service Diagnostic, and received NO errors on any test. I am intermittently getting the above error code on the Mass Storage test of the Apple Hardware Test once the computer reaches operatinge temperature. Furthermore, I am currently working off a firewire boot disk with NO problems whatsoever so that leads me to believe that my logic board is generally healthy and the problem lies in the ATA world.

Based on the above my questions are as follows:

What's the likelihood that I have a bad ATA cable connecting the drive to the logic board? Is this even possible barring any kind of physical stress by stretching or ripping? Can a hot processor do this?

If I have a bad ATA controller, would it NOT affect the optical drive as well? If not, would I still see two ATA buses at ALL times, even when the hard drive is not appearing?

If I do in fact have a bad ATA controller, wouldn't that show up as an error in the logic board in the Apple Hardware Test?

Please keep in mind, that the computer seems to become susceptible to the problems only once it reaches full operating temperature and not on a cold bootup. What's the likelihood of chips and circuits being affected by temperature over a cable?

I have a iBook G4 12" 1 GHz with 1.25 GB of RAM (fully tested by memtest, by the way). PLEASE HELP!!!
 
I have the EXACT same problem on my ibook g4 1.1 Ghz. I am tempted to sue Apple, you can join me if you like. They refused to work on my computer as my warranty has expired (I did not have applecare). My Ibook has had two logic board failures and then this hardisk controller problem after my apple arrived back from their factory. When I mentioned this problem over the phone, the technician mentioned my problem as a software one!

I cannot stand apple's support and their products. Their products are of the WORST quality possible. In about 2 years, my ibook's logic board was replaced twice and now it has this problem. Apple has REALLY BAD hardware and no-one in their right mind should EVER buy from apple. If you don't like windows, buy an x86 PC laptop (or desktop) and install linux. Apple business model is to supply people with bad computers and then make money. I have way too many friends with ibook and powerbook problems. Their customer support is just horrible.

BTW, did you fix your problem. I changed the hard disk too but have the same problem.

Regards
 
no, what you have just done is condemn an entire platform for a bad experience you have had.it turns out that apple has had problems for while with their ibooks, and have done a lot to try and combat these problems. they have just repaired my 4 year old ibook, with no warranty, for free. i'd say that's pretty good customer service.

most people who have macs would say one of the reasons they love macs so much is because they are impressively well made machines. the average mac user would say they upgrade every 4-5 years or so. compare that to the average 2 year upgrade cycle of an x86 machine. macs just last longer. don't make generalisations off one experience.

it's true that the ibooks logic boards have had troubles, but if you ask them nicely, with a well reasoned case, then they appear to help you quite well.
 
I gotta agree with Lt Major Burns here -- if you sported that kind of attitude with the service techs that looked at your iBook, they'd probably refuse to fix your iBook even if it were under warranty. Frustration is one thing... belligerence and disrespect is another.

We're not happy that you're not happy with your iBook (and sympathize with your friends that have had problems as well), and if you'd like us to help you troubleshoot and possibly fix the problem, we'd love to in a kind and patient manner.
 
Well, I am not angry with the other members of the forum. In fact, I am glad people are reading this. My angry tone is directed against apple of course.

They did fix my logic board past the warranty after I asked nicely. But their style of fixing leaves little to be desired. The same problem came back after 2-3 months! And after it was "fixed" again, the harddisk controller problem arose immediately after and that's when tech support diagnosed it as a software problem. Honestly, I never had such terrible experiences with ANY x86 laptops. Usually, x86 laptops ran great for about 5 years and did not die 3 times within the period of a year and a half. I hope my story is an unusual one, but I fear it may not be.

Such technical support and their "gracious" desire to fix problems which actually create bigger ones, deserve an outlash. I don't trust apple support anymore and wonder if they hire people off the street to do maintenance. I don't see why apple deserves "respect" to start with given that I could have got an x86 laptop for half the cost, double the speed (due to architecture variation it may be around 1.3-1.5 times the speed), and much longer life (compared to my experience at any rate).

Anyway, I dont want to start a flame. I just wanted to share my experience and alert people before buying an ibook.

Regarding the offer for help, thanks a lot. I am open to any suggestions. I am especially interested in hearing what happened to division's ibook.
 
Well, I'm very sorry to see that you're iBook G4 1GHz is having the same problem as mine. I cannot boot reliably from the internal hard drive but have no problem booting and running from an external firewire drive. The only difference between mine and yours is that mine will sometimes boot, run for between 10 minutes and an hour, then just stop recognizing the internal disk. When I click on the disk icon I get the little spinner going around and around with no result.

Again, when I boot from an external HD there's no problem and my ibook runs for hours, no freezing, nothing.

I've spoken with Apple and they tell me that they don't actually know what's wrong though the "Genius" suspected that he logic board needed to be replaced as its probably an ATA controller issue. OK, so if that's the case, why does it recognize and reliably work the optical drive which is also controlled throught the ATA controller on the Logic Board. Does anyone actuallly have an answer? Why isn't Apple acknowledging that there's a problem and doing something about it rather than not standing behind their product? Its all so annoying..
 
Photomac said:
... OK, so if that's the case, why does it recognize and reliably work the optical drive which is also controlled throught the ATA controller on the Logic Board. Does anyone actuallly have an answer? Why isn't Apple acknowledging that there's a problem and doing something about it rather than not standing behind their product? Its all so annoying..
Click to expand...

Here's an answer - All optical drives (the CD) use an ATA-33 connection, whereas the hard drive uses the full bandwidth (ATA-100 on your iBook G4), so the ATA controller can provide the slower connection that the CD uses, but chokes on the faster hard drive (probably from heat). The controller chip is in a warmer corner (near the hard drive), the CD has very little heat-producing parts near it, so usually remains cooler.

If you have already tried replacing the hard drive, then replacing the logic board (where the ATA controller chip is located) should fix your issue. If you have AppleCare, then Apple will take care of that for you. If no AppleCare, then ask Apple about a flat-rate repair.
 
My problem is exactly identical. My internal hard disk sometimes works but becomes read-only after 10 mins to 1 hour of use. I ran the apple hardware test and after one hour or two it returned an error code to me. I called up apple at customer relations. I then explained the problem and why I was dissatisfied with my ibook. They connected me to a level 2 techician, who informed me that the error code was due to a logic board.

Apple fixed the whole thing free of charge. In my case it was even easier to persuade them, as I had a repair done on the notebook about 90 days back and they have a 90 day warranty on all repairs.

Needless to say, while I am not yet convinced on the quality of ibooks, Apple's customer relations definitely did a great job!
 
Thank you both for your help. I'm curious to know how sshivaji managed to speak with anyone at Apple. In the past they've refused to even speak with me without paying per minute...even, it seems while they have me on hold. Their once helpful customer service department has become rubbish...I think they hire their people from Dell or worse, CompUSA...

Also, Delta, if my logic board is heating up and thus stopping the ATA controller from working properly, why does the overheating problem not affect data coming in from my external firewire drive? Is this part of the logic board isolated from the processor, thus the processor receives/sends data from the firewire I/O and bypasses the ATA controller circuitry so that it keeps working? Kind of like a heart bypass?

Regardless, this seems to be a common problem and Apple should be addressing it as its their shoddy iBook logic board design that's causing the problem. Sorry folks, but you shouldn't need to replace a logic board after less than 2 years.
 
Photomac said:
... In the past they've refused to even speak with me without paying per minute...even, it seems while they have me on hold. ...

Also, Delta, if my logic board is heating up and thus stopping the ATA controller from working properly, why does the overheating problem not affect data coming in from my external firewire drive? Is this part of the logic board isolated from the processor, thus the processor receives/sends data from the firewire I/O and bypasses the ATA controller circuitry so that it keeps working? ...
Click to expand...

I have never heard of a 'per minute' charge. Apple charges $49.95 per incident for out-of-warranty support calls.

Both the ATA controller and the FireWire controller are on the I/O chip, and work independently (more-or-less). Have you tried the (more likely) fix of replacing the hard drive?
 
I haven't rang Apple support for a couple of years, but here in the UK at the time they told me that I'd have to ring an 0900 number (the equivalent of a 1-900 number) and pay per minute. This may have changed since then to a per-incident charge. Even so, its my opinion that paying anything for phone support on a hardware issue could prove worthless.

In answer to your question re changing the HD, I have tried another HD in this machine, a 100GB 7200rpm that I had in an external enclosure and that didn't solve the problem, as a matter of fact, it seemed to make it worse.

Could that drive have run too hot and pushed the ATA controller problem over the edge?

I'm about to try another 40GB HD in the iBook. This time an IBM Travelstar that came out of a PowerBook G3. I do hope this works.
 
Photomac said:
... I have tried another HD in this machine, a 100GB 7200rpm that I had in an external enclosure and that didn't solve the problem, as a matter of fact, it seemed to make it worse.

Could that drive have run too hot and pushed the ATA controller problem over the edge?

I'm about to try another 40GB HD in the iBook. This time an IBM Travelstar that came out of a PowerBook G3. I do hope this works.
Click to expand...

An external drive will be unlikely to contribute to heat problems inside the iBook. Of course, the internal HD would still be in place, and doing whatever it does.
The 40 GB drive did not come originally with any PowerBook G3, so this would be the second new home for that drive, and it should work. You should also consider that a drive that might be more than 4 years old, and maybe questionable, installing that in a system that is also questionable - could be a wasted effort. Does that make sense?
 
I have had no outcome to the problem with the ATA bus. I have moved my internal 30 GB to a firewire, and used it flawlessly ever since. I have also developed a problem with my trackpad, where it becomes nonresponsive after a while. When this happens, I have to press my palm on the pad to "reset" it.

Its all very annoying, but since I originally bought my iBook on a Mastercard, I have warranty extension (doubling of manufacturer's warranty), and I am in the process of filing a claim. I would much rather have Apple admit there is a problem and fix the defective units rather than deal with all the hassle of this paperwork. At this point, I am just hoping to get a MacBook out of my claim, since all the parts seem to be failing.
 
Well, I swapped the internal drives, putting the one from the PowerBook G3 in the iBook and vice versa. I knew that the IBM coming out of the PowerBook worked just fine...and the results: the drive that was in the iBook worked perfectly on the PowerBook but the I could not load a system on the IBM that was now in the iBook as it froze halfway through installation. Powerbook fine, still no resoution with the iBook!

I'm going to contact Apple tomorrow and push this issue to as high a level as possible. Unfortunately I didn't buy this with Apple Care or on a credit card so I'm SOL, but the fact that there are many others with this problem should cause Apple to see that they are doing something funky with these logic boards.

In the meantime, would it matter if I remove the internal drive from the iBook and only use an external firewire drive? It seems silly to continue to have the logic board heating up so much from the internal drive if its not necessary...at least until Apple resolves this.
 
I have done exactly that; using the internal drive in a firewire, and nothing in the ATA bus. Works fine. You may not want to do it, considering the fact that it might violate the warranty (which has now expired). If you were to get it diagnosed by Apple, you would have to do put the drive back into the machine. So, I personally suggest leaving it in there while you pursue Apple.

Please do report back on your progress with Apple. I sincerely hope to see an Apple warranty extension result from our efforts.
 
Here's an interesting twist to this thread. After installing a different HD, without an OS, into my iBook, I've let the computer run for about six hours straight, and the internal drive is still being recognised. Not only that, but I copied a few files onto it and I'm able to open all of them without it freezing. I've even left a few open for awhile and can still write to and save them. This is very curious.

Could it be that having the OS onboard this drive causes it to overheat or the I/O to choke the ATA controller? I can't think of another explanation. Curioser and curioser...
 
Day 2 and the HD has not choked. I'm wondering what would happen if I do put an OS on this drive, could that cause it to work harder, run faster, and overheat. Not really logical but I cannot figure out why when I have only 9 files on the HD it works fine, no overheating, the files open every time, and newly written data can be saved. Does the drive spin more when there is more data onboard even if its not seeking the data? Am I missing some logical conclusion here?
 
There is a huge difference in drive usage between a data storage drive, and a boot volume. OS X goes to the boot volume very frequently, more so if the memory is low, when more data will be written out to the boot volume. This is easy for you to test - just install OS X, and use that for a while, booted to that internal drive. If there is a heating problem, it will show up within a few hours at most.
 
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