Hard drive failure? Logic Board failure?... Gremlins??

bigmclargehugebigmclargehuge
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Running a Dual G4 1.25. Gig RAM. Stock video card. Stock hard drive. OS X 10.4.9



Machine has worked flawlessly for seven years. Yesterday the whole system crashed. Mouse would not move, keyboard was dead. No beachball, no nothing. Just a stuck mouse and everyone frozen.



Rebooted. Seemed to solve the problem for a few hours.



This morning, again, frozen (I never turn it off, just turn off monitor after 1 hour)



Reboot. Freeze after ten minutes. Thought it might be application related.



Rebooted. Opened Safari, Mail, iChat, Mozilla.



Freeze after ten minutes. I noticed that the USB hub was inoperative after the freeze.



Repeated this twice, though the times weren't corresponding, the machine froze within ten minutes. Both times the USB hub went out on me.



I tried rebooting with no USB stuff attached.



Just a black screen after the initial startup "bwoonnnnnng!"



Checked to make sure RAM was seated, HD cables were tightly connected. All seemed correct.



Rebooted. Ran disk utility to repair permissions.



Rebooted. from OS X DVD. Ran disk utility from OS X DVD, repaired bitmap and one other thing. Selected reboot from OS 10.4.9 HD.



10 attempted reboots later (all of them just a black screen after the initial startup "bwooonggggg!".



Got "welcome to Open Firmware" screen. Message at the top was "No volume found. unknown word".



Rechecked RAM and connections to HD. Rebooted.



OS X loaded, finally, but I don't know how long it will last.



Any idea if this can be narrowed down to either HD or Logic Board or hell, even Software?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    bigmclargehugebigmclargehuge Posts: 175member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BigMcLargehuge View Post


    Running a Dual G4 1.25. Gig RAM. Stock video card. Stock hard drive. OS X 10.4.9







    Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 0): 0x300 - Data access DAR=0x0000000000000010 PC=0x000000000006644C

    Latest crash info for cpu 0:

    Exception state (sv=0x2D9EBA00)

    PC=0x0006644C; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x00000010; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x000663D8; R1=0x1752BBD0; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)

    Backtrace:

    0x0002BC34 0x0006ABD4 0x0006B730 0x00037AC8 0x0026931C 0x00269558

    0x00269438 0x002AB7F8 0x000ABB30 0x513D3D26

    Proceeding back via exception chain:

    Exception state (sv=0x2D9EBA00)

    previously dumped as "Latest" state. skipping...

    Exception state (sv=0x2D71E000)

    PC=0x900327A4; MSR=0x0000F030; DAR=0x8FE54028; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x90032798; R1=0xBFFFF410; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)



    Kernel version:

    Darwin Kernel Version 8.9.0: Thu Feb 22 20:54:07 PST 2007; root:xnu-792.17.14~1/RELEASE_PPC

    panic(cpu 0 caller 0xFFFF0003): 0x300 - Data access

    Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:

    Backtrace:

    0x000952D8 0x000957F0 0x00026898 0x000A8004 0x000AB980

    Proceeding back via exception chain:

    Exception state (sv=0x2D9EBA00)

    PC=0x0006644C; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x00000010; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x000663D8; R1=0x1752BBD0; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)

    Backtrace:

    0x0002BC34 0x0006ABD4 0x0006B730 0x00037AC8 0x0026931C 0x00269558

    0x00269438 0x002AB7F8 0x000ABB30 0x513D3D26

    Exception state (sv=0x2D71E000)

    PC=0x900327A4; MSR=0x0000F030; DAR=0x8FE54028; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x90032798; R1=0xBFFFF410; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)



    Kernel version:

    Darwin Kernel Version 8.9.0: Thu Feb 22 20:54:07 PST 2007; root:xnu-792.17.14~1/RELEASE_PPCModel: PowerMac3,6, BootROM 4.4.8f2, 2 processors, PowerPC G4 (3.2), 1.25 GHz, 1 GB

    Graphics: ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, ATY,RV250, AGP, 64 MB

    Memory Module: DIMM0/J21, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC2600U-25330

    Memory Module: DIMM1/J22, 512 MB, DDR SDRAM, PC2600U-25330

    Modem: Dash2, UCJ, V.92, 1.0F, APPLE VERSION 2.6.6

    Network Service: Built-in Ethernet, Ethernet, en0

    Parallel ATA Device: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-104

    Parallel ATA Device: LITE-ON LTR-52327S, 722.86 MB

    Parallel ATA Device: IBM-IC35L120AVVA07-0, 115.04 GB

    USB Device: iMic USB audio system, Griffin Technology, Inc, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA

    USB Device: Hub, Up to 12 Mb/sec, 500 mA

    USB Device: USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse, Logitech, Up to 1.5 Mb/sec, 500 mA

    USB Device: Kensington USB Keyboard, Innovace, Up to 1.5 Mb/sec, 500 mA
  • Reply 2 of 8
    benzenebenzene Posts: 338member
    Odd indeed. (Love the nick btw, Space Mutiny rules)



    I would take out the RAM sticks and put them back in one at a time and see if that solves anything. I have seen some bizarre stuff appear due to failing/marginal RAM.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    bigmclargehugebigmclargehuge Posts: 175member
    I took out the stick from slot 2 and so far have had 12 minutes of uptime... I can only hope this is the problem...



    Would a bad RAM stick cause this:



    Reboot computer, startup "BWOOONG!", fans start, hard drive does not spin up, screen stays black.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    bigmclargehugebigmclargehuge Posts: 175member
    Seems the second 512 stick was the culprit. I boot normally and remain operational without it, I put it in, and it won't boot. I tried it in and out three times each and got the same result each time.



    Guess I need a new stick.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    bigmclargehugebigmclargehuge Posts: 175member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by benzene View Post


    Odd indeed. (Love the nick btw, Space Mutiny rules)



    I would take out the RAM sticks and put them back in one at a time and see if that solves anything. I have seen some bizarre stuff appear due to failing/marginal RAM.



    Thank you so much for chiming in. It turns out one of my 512 sticks was in serious decline last night and went to Silicon Heaven today, and that was the source of my troubles.



    I have replaced the dead stick with a nice new one, and so far the machine has run like a champ.



    I was so focused on the Hard Drive and software I didn't even think to pull a stick at a time as you suggested, and it turns out that did the trick!



    Thanks!
  • Reply 6 of 8
    benzenebenzene Posts: 338member
    Glad to be of service. I don't know why RAM seems to go wonky before say, the other IC's on the motherboard, but when RAM does go bad, it manifests itself in all sorts of bizarre ways.



    Again though, I'm pleased you got the problem fixed.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    codemonkeyluvtabcodemonkeyluvtab Posts: 1member
    Good to know that you got this all taken care of.



    BTW, Julia_NY_ says "Hello, How have you Been?"



    This is a good place to check for some maint tips--

    http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/ma...intenance.html



    Thanks,



    -=CM=-
  • Reply 8 of 8
    diggyoudiggyou Posts: 1member
    I had that same message come up on my powerbook. It wasn't the usual darkening of the screen and the multilingual you need to restart message. It was white text on a black background over the screen. I just got my powerbook back from service and it turns out it was a logic board. Before that, I went through two hard drives. Back your stuff up, send that computer in, and run away!!!!! I also had one stick of apple ram go bad at the beginning too. It is just the beginning of the problems in my opinion. It could be how the logic board is handling the ram that caused it to go bad. After all, who kills two hard drives?
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