"Mac OS X unexpectedly quit" and empty RAM !!EMERGENCY!!

[cyprus mac man]

Hey all, This is a long post, but for the sake of a fellow mac user, I beg that you stay with it. PLEASE!

Recently I have had numerous problems (4 actually) with my mac. They all occurred after installing the new OS 10.4.6.

First, after having to restart the computer after the system installed the new OS, the screen came up with the usual apple and gray spinning wheel. After maybe 5 minutes of just the wheel spinning, the screen went black and then turned back on to show the same situation, except this time it loaded.

The next time the system froze. I was running a few applications, and nothing would work. I could only move the mouse. After a manual reboot, and after logging in, I got the message "Mac OS X has unexpectedly quit" etc.

A few days later, the same thing happened with my father and he got the same message.

Today know 2 bad things have happened in less than 6 hours.

1: While using the internet the entire computer (even the mouse) froze. After a manual reboot, I got the same "unexpectedly quit" sign.

Now what do I do. Has anyone else been having problems?

I am scared now. While opening the tab "About this Mac" to find the exact OS I am running (as stated above), it says I have only 256 MB RAM. System Profiler says that my lower RAM is empty and it failed a diagnostic.

Power On Self-Test:

Last Run: 26/6/06 7:52 PM
Result: Failed
Failure type: Memory
Memory slot: SODIMM0/J25LOWER

That is what it says and is my number 2 thing. This worries me because the last time this happened (yes the EXACT same thing happened before), I had a Fatal Hard Drive Error, and lost many many things. When having it repaired, I was told that I had a bad Hard Drive AND a bad Logic Board. Now what are the odds that my Logic Board once again is bad? I do not understand. Please help me, anyone.

Thank you all so so much.

 

[Mikuro]

Have you tried booting from the Apple Hardware Test CD and running the full diagnostic? It should be able to tell you if the problem lies with the RAM, the logic board or the hard disk. It sounds to me like it's a RAM problem, but it could just as easily be a logic board failure. It doesn't sound at all like a hard disk problem to me. I think your last HD problem was mostly coincidental, and the symptoms came more from the bad logic board.

The first thing I'd do is back up essential data. If you can keep your machine running long enough to burn a couple CDs, do so. Backups are always good to have.

Then run the Apple Hardware Test.

The slow double-startup after installing a new OS is more or less normal. I wouldn't worry about that.

 

[DeltaMac]

Your symptoms sound familiar. Is it possible that you have a 15-inch PowerBook G4, similar to this article? http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303173
If so, then you should remember that the symptoms MAY be intermittent, so your PowerBook may seem to be OK most of the time. The missing memory may be the main problem.