Tiger install screwed a Powermac G5

groovy_stu

Registered
OK guys, I have a PM G5 1.8 dual with 4.5 GB Ram.

Under OSX panther, it worked fine no probs. So decided to give Tiger a go. Thinking only 30 minutes and everything will be wonderful and my G5 will have a new spring in its step!

As ever, a clean install was the case with everything backed up and safe, so I haven't lost anything. The only trouble is, when Tiger eventually got on my G5 as the installer kept crashing (this took 4 hours to eventually work); Tiger ended up being so unstable I could only use it for about 5 minutes, the G5 would then simply freeze.

I have done loads, called Apple who when through everything from taking out the ram, and other bits, to resetting the PMU and so on. Still no joy. It was then taken to an Apple Centre who really didn't do a great deal. They ran hardware test's and said it was fine, and re-installed tiger. They said that it was running fine for hours without a hitch, what they actually failed to do was actually use the G5 with Tiger and see how stable it is.

Now, I decided to leave tiger alone and erase and zero the drive and go back to Panther. However, the panther installer now does the same as the the Tiger installer did. Now I am dead in the water. All the G5 does is crash and I have to hard reset.

Ideally I'd love to have Tiger working properly, but then I can't get the CD out of the drive as the installer wont let me. But then Tiger causes the same crashing problem. Panther or any OS would be nice at the moment, but all that happens is the system will crash during instal.

Any ideas anyone?

Stu
 
Definitely sounds like a hardware issue to me. I haven't seen crashes during OS install on any Mac for some time now. Actually, I've never seen one crash during OS install.

If you try again installing Tiger (btw., you can force the mac to eject the disk at startup by just holding down the mouse button), keep the log window open at all times and look for any errors... I guess there's always _some_ messages in there, but maybe you catch something interesting...?
 
Hi Fryke

I've had my suspitions that it maybe hardware related. However, the apple centre did say that they did full diagnostics and everything came up trumps!

Will try what you said, however, how do I get the log window up and open when installing? So, perhaps I can isolate the issue!

Cheers, appreciated.

Stu
 
It should be in some of the menus... Just find and select it, it opens below the installer's window.
 
Well, I just fresh installed an iBook 1.2 ghz w/ 768mb of ram with Tiger. 512 of the Ram is NOT apple ram, its corsair memory.

Its not a big deal for me...but I would think that if you tried to install without all but apple ram, that might work.

BTW...Tiger is definately cool.. Not noticing any bugs for me yet. I'll call em as I sees em.

joneSi
 
groovy_stu said:
OK guys, I have a PM G5 1.8 dual with 4.5 GB Ram.

Under OSX panther, it worked fine no probs. So decided to give Tiger a go. Thinking only 30 minutes and everything will be wonderful and my G5 will have a new spring in its step!

As ever, a clean install was the case with everything backed up and safe, so I haven't lost anything. The only trouble is, when Tiger eventually got on my G5 as the installer kept crashing (this took 4 hours to eventually work); Tiger ended up being so unstable I could only use it for about 5 minutes, the G5 would then simply freeze.

I have done loads, called Apple who when through everything from taking out the ram, and other bits, to resetting the PMU and so on. Still no joy. It was then taken to an Apple Centre who really didn't do a great deal. They ran hardware test's and said it was fine, and re-installed tiger. They said that it was running fine for hours without a hitch, what they actually failed to do was actually use the G5 with Tiger and see how stable it is.

Now, I decided to leave tiger alone and erase and zero the drive and go back to Panther. However, the panther installer now does the same as the the Tiger installer did. Now I am dead in the water. All the G5 does is crash and I have to hard reset.

Ideally I'd love to have Tiger working properly, but then I can't get the CD out of the drive as the installer wont let me. But then Tiger causes the same crashing problem. Panther or any OS would be nice at the moment, but all that happens is the system will crash during instal.

Any ideas anyone?

Stu

It is the extra RAM. First, start the Mac up with the mouse button held down. This will get the Mac to spit the DVD out. Them remove all the extra RAM you put into the Mac. Then use the Tiger DVD by holding down the "c" button during startup. Nuke and pave the Drive before the install. Then do the install. Hopefully this will work.
 
groovy_stu said:
Any ideas anyone?
I would not give up on Tiger. Give it another go after checking here. If your RAM worked on Panther, then it should work on Tiger. But, OK, you could try uninstalling it.

To eject the DVD, given that a basic restart does not help, shut down, wait 30 seconds to a minute, then restart holding down the trackpad/mouse clicker. Hopefully, the disk will eject after the start up is completed. Another possibility is if you have another firewire-equipped Mac available, start your up in firewire target-disk mode, and drag the icon of the stuck disk to the trash on the second Mac. Finally, you could use the firmware approach:

1. Restart the computer.
2. Immediately after the system startup tone, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F key combination. The computer starts up to a text-only screen, indicating that you are in Open Firmware.
3. At the prompt, type: eject cd
4. Press Return.
5. Type: mac-boot
6. Press Return
 
Thanks to everyone.

However, the first thing we tried when calling Apple was to remove the third party Ram and using just the basic original build Ram. We also removed every other device and third party peripheral. All that was attached was the orignal keyboard and mouse.
The apple centre have had it as I mentioned and they originally got Tiger on it. But after about 20 minutes of use it crashed, and kept crashing. Furthermore, they testing the complete system and found no hardware faults.

I feel that I have tried everything. From resetting the PMU. To disk permission on start up pressing the C key. To testing with the apple care CD (from my new G5) and it just keeps going bandy.

It worked fine on Panther! Just seems like an odd one.

Any thoughts?



Stu
 
groovy_stu said:
Thanks to everyone.
Any thoughts?
You are very welcome. If you can keep your Mac running long enough, then you could try all sorts of maintenance trouble shooting.

1. Try starting up in safe mode to see if you can resolve extension conflicts.
2. Repair disk and permissions of course.
3. Run the 3 periodic maintenance (cron) scripts.
4. Use a program, such as Cocktail, to clear the system- and user-cache files.
5. Use a program, such as Font Finagler, to purge font-cache files.
6. Use Preferential Treatment to find corrupt preference files.

If anything gets your DVD/CD drive working, then I'd reinstall Tiger. If not, then I think you need to take/send your Mac to Apple.
 
The drive is fine - just couldn't remember how to open the drive from startup. Issue is that Tiger wont instal or hangs when it is installing. Furthermore, when it is loaded it is incredibly unreliable.

Stu
 
Hi Ghost,

How do I do the following - seems very technical to me?

1. Try starting up in safe mode to see if you can resolve extension conflicts.
2. Repair disk and permissions of course.
3. Run the 3 periodic maintenance (cron) scripts.
4. Use a program, such as Cocktail, to clear the system- and user-cache files.
5. Use a program, such as Font Finagler, to purge font-cache files.
6. Use Preferential Treatment to find corrupt preference files.

Any help in the above would be really appreciated.

Cheers

Stu
 
Ghost said:
1. Try starting up in safe mode to see if you can resolve extension conflicts.
Safe Mode is used primarily for two things.
First to force fsck (check and repair the filesystem) to run during startup.
Second, disable certain pieces of software to help fix issues (by uninstalling
software or running diagnostic tools).
It's not meant for any kind of regular use.
(see also: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode? )

To start up into Safe Mode (to Safe Boot), do this:

1. Be sure the computer is shut down.
2. Press the power button.
3. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, press and hold the Shift key.
Note: The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone but not before.
4. Release the Shift key when you see the screen the gray Apple and progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear)


During the startup, you will see "Safe Boot" on the Mac OS X startup screen. To leave Safe Mode, restart the computer normally, without holding any keys during startup.


2. Repair disk and permissions of course.
3. Run the 3 periodic maintenance (cron) scripts.
4. Use a program, such as Cocktail, to clear the system- and user-cache files.
Download "Onyx 1.5.2 " (Freeware) or "Cocktail"

5. Use a program, such as Font Finagler, to purge font-cache files.
Download the program here

6. Use Preferential Treatment to find corrupt preference files
Download the program here

Find programs here:
Versiontracker
Macupdate

Good Luck!
 
groovy_stu said:
Hi Ghost,

How do I do the following - seems very technical to me?

1. Try starting up in safe mode to see if you can resolve extension conflicts.
Sofad provided most of the info you need. There is no good current knowledge-base page on resolving extension conflicts via safe mode. But, this badly outdated link will give you an idea of how the process works. The idea is to startup in safe mode, turn your startup items off, and add them back one at a time, restarting each time, until a problem develops. Thus, using this process, you may be able to figure out eventually what is conflicting with what.
 
On QuickSilver G4 dp tried to install Tiger on an empty partition. Installer crashed 3 times, in a different place each time. Too busy to mess with this for a few days, but any suggestions will be appreciated. DVD does a self-check. Should I attempt to verify it by some other means?



groovy_stu said:
OK guys, I have a PM G5 1.8 dual with 4.5 GB Ram.

Under OSX panther, it worked fine no probs. So decided to give Tiger a go. Thinking only 30 minutes and everything will be wonderful and my G5 will have a new spring in its step!

As ever, a clean install was the case with everything backed up and safe, so I haven't lost anything. The only trouble is, when Tiger eventually got on my G5 as the installer kept crashing (this took 4 hours to eventually work); Tiger ended up being so unstable I could only use it for about 5 minutes, the G5 would then simply freeze.

I have done loads, called Apple who when through everything from taking out the ram, and other bits, to resetting the PMU and so on. Still no joy. It was then taken to an Apple Centre who really didn't do a great deal. They ran hardware test's and said it was fine, and re-installed tiger. They said that it was running fine for hours without a hitch, what they actually failed to do was actually use the G5 with Tiger and see how stable it is.

Now, I decided to leave tiger alone and erase and zero the drive and go back to Panther. However, the panther installer now does the same as the the Tiger installer did. Now I am dead in the water. All the G5 does is crash and I have to hard reset.

Ideally I'd love to have Tiger working properly, but then I can't get the CD out of the drive as the installer wont let me. But then Tiger causes the same crashing problem. Panther or any OS would be nice at the moment, but all that happens is the system will crash during instal.

Any ideas anyone?

Stu
 
New to the forum... but... I signed up just to add my experience.

I had a very similar problem with an iBook installing Panther. Constant crashing and freezing. Install disk locking up... etc etc.

Apple repair said.. "No hardware problems." they reinstalled Panther...in a few days.. same problem... disk locks won't come out.. freeze... can't reinstall etc etc...

I also had the same problem when I went back to the original system from the restore disk. The same symptoms.

Finally I went back to the Authorized Apple place... and.. well I got a bit huffy... I demanded they tell me what is wrong instead of just taking my money and not fixing anything.

They finally found that the problem was a bad connection wire of some kind. It was shorted out or something... anyway, on the ibook this wire connects both the CD and the hard drive.. so the crashing was related to the CD which is what caused my hard drive to die.

My iBook now works and has worked perfectly for ages. This sounds so much like what I went through I wanted to share it. I had the same problems you described and no one could find any hardware problems. Probably since the problem was "sporadic" (loose wire?).

Vern
 
I had the very same problem with my new just out of the box G5 Dual 1.8. The only thing that was done with the computer was add RAM at the place I bought the computer = 1 gb kit two chips. Once I removed the 1 gb RAM upgrade everything worked perfect!! You have to find the chip or chips that are bad and replace them... The computer acted funny like on start-up it would freeze or just not start up at all. I actually got the computer to start up once but for only about 10 minutes. What my computer was doing was simply freezing up (freezing the mouse sometimes). When this happened all I could do was force shut down (holding the power button for 5 seconds). I started up on an install 10.3 CD and performed a Clean install (erasing the HD and reinstalling). With the bad chips in the install would not complete and it would ask to restart computer. Once the bad chips were removed I then performed a Clean Install (erasing the HD and reinstalling) and everything worked perfect then installed 10.4 upgrade - Worked Perfect!!!
 
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