Virus issues.

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
First post so be nice!! Just bought a G3 iBook secondhand which i love and have been using for work for a few monthes now. However, for the first time i tried to connect it to the internet and am now having problems. It connects fine and at speed, then it freezes and 'clicks' at me like its stuck. The computor has no protection that i can find but i was wondering whether there was something basic i could do at home to search for the issue/virus or what would be the best programme to buy to sought it. I've always been a PC user so really don't know how to work this. Thanks in advance guys and girls.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by grandslam

    First post so be nice!! Just bought a G3 iBook secondhand which i love and have been using for work for a few monthes now. However, for the first time i tried to connect it to the internet and am now having problems. It connects fine and at speed, then it freezes and 'clicks' at me like its stuck. The computor has no protection that i can find but i was wondering whether there was something basic i could do at home to search for the issue/virus or what would be the best programme to buy to sought it. I've always been a PC user so really don't know how to work this. Thanks in advance guys and girls.



    there aren't really any viruses for OS X, and so you can definitely rule out that being the issue. when you say it freezes, do you mean the whole computer? you can't click on anything?
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Thanks for the responce. It makes a repetitive clicking noise as soon as the internet homepage appears and nothing works for a few minutes, then the internet closes itself downs, asks me if i want to send a report to Apple and then the computor is fine again on anything that isn't online.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by grandslam

    Thanks for the responce. It makes a repetitive clicking noise as soon as the internet homepage appears and nothing works for a few minutes, then the internet closes itself downs, asks me if i want to send a report to Apple and then the computor is fine again on anything that isn't online.



    to make sure your house is in order, go into "Disk Utility" (Applications --> Utilities --> Disk Utility) and after clicking on your hard drive in the left column, click "Repair Permissions" in the right column.



    That might help. I'm a little unclear on what exactly repairing permissions does, but sometimes it helps mysterious problems.



    Also, what version of OS X are you using? Click on the Apple in the upper left and then "About this Mac" a window should pop up and somewhere in it it will say something like, "Mac OS X version 10.1" or "version 10.2.3" or something like that. What does it report?



    Finally, what browser are you using? Internet Explorer or Safari?
  • Reply 4 of 8
    Thanks Adam. I'm running the repair permissions now so i'll let you know how that goes. The iBook is running on version 10.3.7 and i'm using Safari. I'll post tommorrow after i have tried connecting again.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    I did the repair permissions thing and its not helped as yet. I tried to load up Safari this morning but the same clicking started and then it shut itself down and asked if i wanted to send a report...so nothings changed, (its only Safari thats closing, not the unit itself). Anything else that might be worth a go before i have to take it in somewhere??
  • Reply 6 of 8
    For troubleshooting purposes, you could help narrow down the source of the problem further by installing and testing an alternate browser like Opera, Firefox, or Mozilla.



    This might not only aid your web browsing in the interim, but in the cases where the same rendering engine and/or underlying webkit frameworks are being called, you might eliminate those components from suspicion.



    You'll also probably want to back up your data (but you do this regularly anyway, right?)



    You might also try Software Update under the Apple menu to see if you're 'current'.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by grandslam

    I did the repair permissions thing and its not helped as yet. I tried to load up Safari this morning but the same clicking started and then it shut itself down and asked if i wanted to send a report...so nothings changed, (its only Safari thats closing, not the unit itself). Anything else that might be worth a go before i have to take it in somewhere??



    OK, could that be that Safari is trying to load its favicons, or its prefs, or its caches?



    Two options:



    1. Go into /Users/you/Library/Safari and delete the folder "Icons". Then go into /Users/you/Library/Preferences and delete "com.apple.Safari.plist". Then go into /Users/you/Library/Caches and delete the folder "Safari". Then relaunch Safari.



    OR (this is a lot easier):



    2. Go to System Preferences=> Accounts, make a new user, log in as him and launch Safari.



    Of course, the clicking means a high chance that the disk directory is corrupted, so the VERY first thing I would do is boot from the DVD and run Disk Utility (as you did), but not to repair permissions, but to run Disk First Aid.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    Also, it just might do you good to update to 10.3.9. Click on the apple in the upper left corner, click "Software Update" and install everything that appears on that list. Especially 10.3.9.
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