Blank white screen & other odd problems
My G4 has been getting wackier and wackier. I recently purchased and ran Norton Utilities which found nothing wrong other than a few small problems which I chose to fix. I also de-frag'ed the disc. On re-start I had my usual crash. But let's begin at the beginning.
I can no longer use restart. If I do I will get a clean gray-white screen. Or I get this same screen with the question mark. If this occurs I have to shut down from the power strip, completely shut off the machine for at least an hour and then I might have some success starting up.
Or I may get a happy mac, followed by several extention icons, a freeze, and an empty dialog box. Or just a freeze. Or I might start up normally.
But Photoshop no longer recognizes the Epson Scanner which is on a SCSI card (the Import choice is grayed out and unavailable). I experience multiple and various crashes and freezes on what was 6 months ago a relatively functional system. And I haven't downloaded or installed anything new, this has been just a slow degrade.
I use O/S 9.2. 10.1 is installed but I don't use it.
Oh, and the Apple Disc First Aid doesn't find any problems either.
Any ideas out there? Thanks.
T Dave
I can no longer use restart. If I do I will get a clean gray-white screen. Or I get this same screen with the question mark. If this occurs I have to shut down from the power strip, completely shut off the machine for at least an hour and then I might have some success starting up.
Or I may get a happy mac, followed by several extention icons, a freeze, and an empty dialog box. Or just a freeze. Or I might start up normally.
But Photoshop no longer recognizes the Epson Scanner which is on a SCSI card (the Import choice is grayed out and unavailable). I experience multiple and various crashes and freezes on what was 6 months ago a relatively functional system. And I haven't downloaded or installed anything new, this has been just a slow degrade.
I use O/S 9.2. 10.1 is installed but I don't use it.
Oh, and the Apple Disc First Aid doesn't find any problems either.
Any ideas out there? Thanks.
T Dave
Comments
no, seriously, I'm unable to help you, because, how should I say... I don't use OS 9 anymore... and while I used to work in OS 9, my knowledge of it is long gone. see you at panther...
Originally posted by t dave otto
My G4 has been getting wackier and wackier. I recently purchased and ran Norton Utilities which found nothing wrong other than a few small problems which I chose to fix. I also de-frag'ed the disc. On re-start I had my usual crash. But let's begin at the beginning.
I can no longer use restart. If I do I will get a clean gray-white screen. Or I get this same screen with the question mark. If this occurs I have to shut down from the power strip, completely shut off the machine for at least an hour and then I might have some success starting up.
Or I may get a happy mac, followed by several extention icons, a freeze, and an empty dialog box. Or just a freeze. Or I might start up normally.
But Photoshop no longer recognizes the Epson Scanner which is on a SCSI card (the Import choice is grayed out and unavailable). I experience multiple and various crashes and freezes on what was 6 months ago a relatively functional system. And I haven't downloaded or installed anything new, this has been just a slow degrade.
I use O/S 9.2. 10.1 is installed but I don't use it.
Oh, and the Apple Disc First Aid doesn't find any problems either.
Any ideas out there? Thanks.
T Dave
( A ) you may have downloaded a macro virus. This is the case if you are using Microsoft office or even explorer. Nortons will NOT detect it.
You need to get Diskwarrior.
( B ) Check that your ram is seated properly. it may have been dislodged. Also a friend of mine told me of similar problems to yours & he found that his G4 had some technically incompatible ram installed. Even though he was assured by a technician that thhe ram was usable, he decided to pull it out. & sure enough the problem disappeared.
While were on the subject of Norton, there appear to be some problems with their latest version of disk utilities. Version 2 is a sicko
Hope it helps
Originally posted by aquafire
Dave, This might be a long shot but I suspect one of two things.
( A ) you may have downloaded a macro virus. This is the case if you are using Microsoft office or even explorer. Nortons will NOT detect it.
You need to get Diskwarrior.
( B ) Check that your ram is seated properly. it may have been dislodged. Also a friend of mine told me of similar problems to yours & he found that his G4 had some technically incompatible ram installed. Even though he was assured by a technician that thhe ram was usable, he decided to pull it out. & sure enough the problem disappeared.
While were on the subject of Norton, there appear to be some problems with their latest version of disk utilities. Version 2 is a sicko
Hope it helps
aquafire,
Thanks for your reply. Disk Warrier is next, I quess.
The Apple Hardware test did not show any problems with the memory. do you know if this test is reliable? I'm going to take a look to see if anything is dislodged, though. This G4 is two & 1/2 years old and when I get it straight I want to upgrade the firmware (just reading about this now). Do you recommend I replace the ram with any particular ram to insure compatability with the upgrade, or is that still a problem? That is if I do need to swap any out.
Thanks again,
T Dave
Have you checked 'apple system profiler' to see if the SCSI card still shows up (should be under the devices and volumes tab). If it does, does it show up like you'd expect it to (with a bit of intelligible info) or does it show something garbled?
Also, it might be an extension conflict (the way you describe the start-up), possibly caused by a broken SCSI card. Try this: start up with the space-key pressed, you'll be led into the extension manager panel. You could try turning off all extensions (using macos base set), or try to find that might be responsible for the conflict, e.g. an extension that has something to do with your scanner or the SCSI card.
re Ram.
How much ram have you got?
Have you added any lately ?
Following on regards extension or scsi problems.
Go to http://www.pure-mac.com
In the diagnostics section you will find several useful tools.
Download the following:
"Scsiprobe ( all in one word ) "
" Extensions overload "
&
" Speed profiler "
These should help.
I am also wondering if your epson needs updated drivers ?
Originally posted by der Kopf
From what you are saying, it seems like the SCSI card might be fried. I know from experience fact that SCSI problems can effectively destroy the data on a hard drive, so I'm guessing it'll mangle your system in the blink of an eye.
Have you checked 'apple system profiler' to see if the SCSI card still shows up (should be under the devices and volumes tab). If it does, does it show up like you'd expect it to (with a bit of intelligible info) or does it show something garbled?
Also, it might be an extension conflict (the way you describe the start-up), possibly caused by a broken SCSI card. Try this: start up with the space-key pressed, you'll be led into the extension manager panel. You could try turning off all extensions (using macos base set), or try to find that might be responsible for the conflict, e.g. an extension that has something to do with your scanner or the SCSI card.
der Kopf - thanks, I will have some time this weekend to check this out. Did look at the profiler. It does not list the scsi card specifically, but only the epson scanner which is on it. But I'm also going to try starting up without the card in place. Will let you know progress.
T Dave
Originally posted by aquafire
Dave
re Ram.
How much ram have you got?
Have you added any lately ?
Following on regards extension or scsi problems.
Go to http://www.pure-mac.com
In the diagnostics section you will find several useful tools.
Download the following:
"Scsiprobe ( all in one word ) "
" Extensions overload "
&
" Speed profiler "
These should help.
I am also wondering if your epson needs updated drivers ?
aquafire,
I bought the G4 in 8/01 from Outpost with 128MB. It was a deal with an additional 128MB and then I bought another 256MB. I haven't added or swapped any memory since that time and all functioned fine until several months ago.
I will check out puremac.com & all this weekend - thanks again.
T. Dave
Originally posted by aquafire
Dave
re Ram.
How much ram have you got?
Have you added any lately ?
Following on regards extension or scsi problems.
Go to http://www.pure-mac.com
In the diagnostics section you will find several useful tools.
Download the following:
"Scsiprobe ( all in one word ) "
" Extensions overload "
&
" Speed profiler "
These should help.
I am also wondering if your epson needs updated drivers ?
aquafire and der Kopf,
An update:
Removed SCSI card and so far most problems have resolved (!).
No crashes, freezes, and I'm restarting fine. However I am now getting a new message on startup and on restart that says, "The built-in memory test has detected a problem. Please contact a service technician for assistance." I click OK, then the normal icons appear along the bottom and it starts up fine.
I have also reset the cuda chip and reseated the ram. Do you think I need to do anything further about this message or live with it? (If there are no more problems.)
Thanks for the suggestions which lead me to pulling the SCSI card. I think this was the culpit.
T Dave Otto
another note,
I pulled out one of the Ram chips, a 256 which was installed at purchase, and the memory message is gone. So I guess I had a fried scsi board & a fried ram chip. Chicken or the egg, does it matter?
Well I can't say I haven't learned from this adventure.
Peace,
T Dave
Yep, Sounds like we ALL learned a thing or two.
By the way, I had one of my Imac's go stir crazy. Over a very hot summer, it decided to literally drop the projected image of the desktop to half way down the tube. Added to that , the screen turned green & started flickering badly. A couple of whacks on the side & it would correct itself ( for a while at least ).
I did some research & deduced that it was probably a set of loose connections ( cold solder cracks ) or I was up for seriously BIG money repair costs.
Evey Mac qualified computer technician just rolled their eyes. The cheapest quote I could get was $300.
But i figured that since the problem was mainly similar to a TV problem, I let one of my TV - HI-Fi friends at it.
Not only did he do a fantastic job, he only charged $80.
Turned out it was a whole bunch of cracked solders & some apparent "burnishing " of the tube's firing pins.
Well thats how he described it.
I'm grinning from ear to ear