Sorry this is so long - it's a weird problem. I can't find anything on these forums in regard to this problem, but if there's something that I'm missing, please redirect me!
Back in the spring, my trusty 800 Mhz iMac G4 (running OS 10.2.8) started randomly losing power to USB ports. I was usually able to change the port and resume work/play, but holy annoying. Sometimes it would flash a "Individual USB Overcurrent" warning, but not always. The affected USB port would not work again until the computer was restarted and, once one port went, they'd all start going in fairly rapid succession. At around the same time, I was getting the odd time when the screen would dim and a grey box would pop up, telling me that I needed to restart my computer. It would take anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes to restart after that occurred.
Needless to say, I took the computer to my local Apple service centre and, after a couple days, went back to pick it up only to be told that they didn't find any problems and could see no evidence of the problems I'd experienced. So, I took it home, set it back up and was pleased to discover that the problem seemed to have disappeared.
About a month later, it started up again and has been consistently irritating ever since. A new development is that now the USB ports are still intermittently going out on me (along with the error message about overcurrent), but after I switch ports for a while, the original port works again without a restart. Which is some sort of progress I guess. The screen dimming and the grey message box telling me to restart still occurs every few days, and still requires a fairly lengthy restart time.
Originally I thought it would end up being a power supply issue, but now I'm not so sure. I've got nothing overly-power-pulling hooked up via USB - a regular Mac keyboard and mouse(which I switched out when I originally started having the problem), the same HP printer I've had for the life of the computer and that's it. I also tried using a separately powered USB hub and it didn't help the problem at all.
Oh! And the mouse is rather laggy and I'm seeing a lot more of the spinning beach ball than I used to!
Has anyone experienced this or have some advice to lend? I'm planning on taking it back to the service centre, but am trying to feel the situation out before I do so. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Back in the spring, my trusty 800 Mhz iMac G4 (running OS 10.2.8) started randomly losing power to USB ports. I was usually able to change the port and resume work/play, but holy annoying. Sometimes it would flash a "Individual USB Overcurrent" warning, but not always. The affected USB port would not work again until the computer was restarted and, once one port went, they'd all start going in fairly rapid succession. At around the same time, I was getting the odd time when the screen would dim and a grey box would pop up, telling me that I needed to restart my computer. It would take anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes to restart after that occurred.
Needless to say, I took the computer to my local Apple service centre and, after a couple days, went back to pick it up only to be told that they didn't find any problems and could see no evidence of the problems I'd experienced. So, I took it home, set it back up and was pleased to discover that the problem seemed to have disappeared.
About a month later, it started up again and has been consistently irritating ever since. A new development is that now the USB ports are still intermittently going out on me (along with the error message about overcurrent), but after I switch ports for a while, the original port works again without a restart. Which is some sort of progress I guess. The screen dimming and the grey message box telling me to restart still occurs every few days, and still requires a fairly lengthy restart time.
Originally I thought it would end up being a power supply issue, but now I'm not so sure. I've got nothing overly-power-pulling hooked up via USB - a regular Mac keyboard and mouse(which I switched out when I originally started having the problem), the same HP printer I've had for the life of the computer and that's it. I also tried using a separately powered USB hub and it didn't help the problem at all.
Oh! And the mouse is rather laggy and I'm seeing a lot more of the spinning beach ball than I used to!
Has anyone experienced this or have some advice to lend? I'm planning on taking it back to the service centre, but am trying to feel the situation out before I do so. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
