Crashes Galore With Tiger...
I had been running Tiger for about 2 months perfectly fine when all of a sudden, it gave me that screen saying that "You need to restart your computer." I proceeded to restart my computer and from then on, I could never boot into the Finder. At the beginning screen with the dark gray apple icon, I would continually get the message "You need to restart your computer." On rare occasion, I would make it all the way to the Finder where about 15 seconds later, I'd get the screen "You need to restart your computer." I then proceeded to do a CLEAN install erasing my entire startup hard drive and reinstalling from the install DVD. I got a crash while I was registering and setting up my account, so once again I restarted and was able to set up my account fine. After being up for about 2 days, I "had to restart" my computer once again. I restarted and it was up for about 7 hours or so. I did a software update and upgraded from 10.4 to 10.4.2. I restarted again willingly and the computer remained up for about 8 minutes. I clicked on System Preferences and then Software Update and it crashed again saying "You have to restart your computer." At this point I really don't know what too do. I have two other hard drives on my desktop with ALL of my information. Can anyone help me. My system is a Quicksilver G4. I upgraded the processor from a 867 Mhz Single G4 to Dual 1.2 Ghz Gigadesigns G4 Processors. The memory is maxed out at 1.5 GB and the video card is a Nvidia GeForce Fx I believe with 128 MB of VRAM. I added a Sonnet Serial ATA PCI Card Adapter and a Sonnet ATA/133 Card adapter. Also I upgraded the Superdrive. I've been told it may be all the upgrades but this is completely new. The machine has performed beautifully in the past with all the upgrades and this type of performance is completely new. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Comments
Originally posted by tspencer83
I upgraded the processor from a 867 Mhz Single G4 to Dual 1.2 Ghz Gigadesigns G4 Processors. The memory is maxed out at 1.5 GB and the video card is a Nvidia GeForce Fx I believe with 128 MB of VRAM. I added a Sonnet Serial ATA PCI Card Adapter and a Sonnet ATA/133 Card adapter. Also I upgraded the Superdrive. I've been told it may be all the upgrades but this is completely new. The machine has performed beautifully in the past with all the upgrades and this type of performance is completely new. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I hate to tell you this, but my money's on the upgrades. The Sonnet cards are probably okay. The SuperDrive, ditto.
I'd look at the RAM with a diagnostics tool. You may also have a loose CPU daughtercard, PCI card or RAM module - when the machine heats up, it works loose, shorts, and *fzzt* kernel panic. When it cools down again, it works... until it warms up.
First off, since it's easy, try reseating everything you added - that includes the drive cables. Just give each a firm wiggle inward to make sure it's a good fit. (Wear a static strap, of course.) See if that fixes it. If not, run the RAM tests. 'rember' is a good tool. Google for it. (Running the RAM tests before checking the reseating isn't going to help, since if it's poorly seated, a perfectly good RAM module may come up as bad.)
After that, I'd be looking at the CPU upgrade as the culprit.
Originally posted by Kickaha
I hate to tell you this, but my money's on the upgrades. The Sonnet cards are probably okay. The SuperDrive, ditto.
I'd look at the RAM with a diagnostics tool. You may also have a loose CPU daughtercard, PCI card or RAM module - when the machine heats up, it works loose, shorts, and *fzzt* kernel panic. When it cools down again, it works... until it warms up.
First off, since it's easy, try reseating everything you added - that includes the drive cables. Just give each a firm wiggle inward to make sure it's a good fit. (Wear a static strap, of course.) See if that fixes it. If not, run the RAM tests. 'rember' is a good tool. Google for it. (Running the RAM tests before checking the reseating isn't going to help, since if it's poorly seated, a perfectly good RAM module may come up as bad.)
After that, I'd be looking at the CPU upgrade as the culprit.
When you say the CPU upgrade as the culprit, what exactly do you mean. Is Gigadesigns a bad manufacturer? Is it something that can be fixed or rectified? Thanks so much for the reply.
If your system had been running fine with all those upgrades for a month or two then it might be a corrupt file or disk error causing the crash.
Dobby.
It is a bit annoying, but most programs don't lose your work any more and I find it a nice reminder of our System 7 days.
Originally posted by tspencer83
When you say the CPU upgrade as the culprit, what exactly do you mean. Is Gigadesigns a bad manufacturer? Is it something that can be fixed or rectified? Thanks so much for the reply.
No, nothing against the manufacturer, just that I've seen a non-insignificant number of such upgrades cause problems. The tolerances are designed to be such that if the shipped CPU is a bit 'off', it's okay, but once you start cranking things up and asking more of the mobo, a controller that previously worked fine will start to exhibit issues at the higher clockrates. Etc.
Most times the upgrades work just spiffy, but they're not 100%.
Originally posted by dobby
If you have a spare disk I'd install Tiger fresh and see how that works. Tiger should crap out during the install if hardware or ram is suspect.
If your system had been running fine with all those upgrades for a month or two then it might be a corrupt file or disk error causing the crash.
Dobby.
I had actually did that somewhat. I have two other hard drives inside my G4 and I installed Tiger on another one. I didn't do a clean install however. What happened was that it ran nicely for about 2 days before reverting to the same old behavior. When you say corrupt file or disk error, do you mean with the install DVD or with one of my hard drives. If so, how would I go about finding out whether that is the problem and how would I rectify it. Any ideas? Thanks alot, this is really helping me at least understand whats been going on with my machine. Normally, I'd swear by a Mac in terms of performance and stability. Thanks.
2) Pull your CPU and RAM upgrades. Run it. Does it crash? If not, replace one. Does it crash? If not, replace the other. Does it crash? If so, ditch the one that makes it crash, or learn to live with it.
I hate trouble-shooting FrankenMacs. Too many possible problems. I know, I have one upstairs.
It doesn't sound like a dodgy disk block as the same error has happened on a different disk.
I would put back the original 'apple' ram if you have it and try running like that for a while to see if the error disappears. If it doesn't then try putting the old cpu back etc until you nail the source of the problem.
Pain in the ass but I'm pretty sure you're looking at a hardware error and elmination is the only way to find the problem.
Dobbby.
Originally posted by dobby
Your DVD will be fine. The verify during the install phase checks the DVD's integrity.
It doesn't sound like a dodgy disk block as the same error has happened on a different disk.
I would put back the original 'apple' ram if you have it and try running like that for a while to see if the error disappears. If it doesn't then try putting the old cpu back etc until you nail the source of the problem.
Pain in the ass but I'm pretty sure you're looking at a hardware error and elmination is the only way to find the problem.
Dobbby.
Sounds like a plan. I'll try and do that but just wanted to ask, are there any other hardware pieces which could cause this error? e.g., Video Card, PCI Cards, DVD Drive, etc? Thanks
Dobby.