PowerMac G4 MDD- Freezes at random

PowerMac G4 MDD · Jul 13, 2014

So I just bought a PowerMac G4 MDD (1.25Ghz Dual Core, 2GB RAM), the earlier revision. It came with an 80GB HD and I added another one into the second slot. I had a clean installation of Leopard on it and it ran it VERY nicely... that is until those little things made it freeze. For example, I tried printing to my network printer and it froze, or I tried doing something in Mail and it randomly froze. I decided to downgrade to Tiger and see how it would do, so I installed it on my secondary HD. It's been running way better and can handle YouTube and things better than my 2005 iMac G5. However, I was using an application, YouView, and it froze when I tried to turn the volume down. I also notice that the regular mouse cursor sometimes doesn't change to the 'editing text' cursor if I go over text in, say, a Pages document. This last time it crashed in Tiger, I thought I heard one of the hard drives shut off. Could it have gone to sleep out of turn and that's why everything froze? Aside from that odd ordeal, I read somewhere that a 3rd party card in the PCI expansion slot can cause crashes, especially a card that is meant to add USB ports. I have a card just like that with two USB ports on it. Does anyone know the possible cause? I don't remember whether or not crashes happened BEFORE I added the second hard drive. Should I remove the one I added? It's a shame because Leopard was running nicely...

EDIT: I think I fixed this issue! I took out the second hard drive and put back the original Apple-branded RAM modules, along with a 1GB Crucial stick. I don't know what was crashing it before, but I was suspecting the hard drives, but changed the RAM just in case. I haven't had a crash since! I kept the 3rd party PCI hard USB hub in the machine and nothing has been acting up, however it's inactive as I have nothing plugged into it. My Mac, with iChat, this Safari window, a Pages document, and Temperature Monitor open... runs with a CPU heat of about 56.7 degrees C (or 134 degrees F), and my hard drive at 41 degrees C (or 106 degrees F) My last question is if that's an 'OK' temperature. I do know that a newer iMac can run around that temperature, but that's with more things open. My iBook G4 also runs over 50 degrees C with sluggish MS Office 2008

gavinstubbs09 · Jul 13, 2014

A USB2.0 card is the root of many problems, my B&W hated my USB2.0 card, however in a MDD it works fine so I have no clue. Remove the USB card and see if that fixes your problems, and if so I'll give you the model of mine that works and is stable!

Altemose · Jul 13, 2014

PowerMac G4 MDD said:
So I just bought a PowerMac G4 MDD (1.25Ghz Dual Core, 2GB RAM), the earlier revision. It came with an 80GB HD and I added another one into the second slot. I had a clean installation of Leopard on it and it ran it VERY nicely... that is until those little things made it freeze. For example, I tried printing to my network printer and it froze, or I tried doing something in Mail and it randomly froze. I decided to downgrade to Tiger and see how it would do, so I installed it on my secondary HD. It's been running way better and can handle YouTube and things better than my 2005 iMac G5. However, I was using an application, YouView, and it froze when I tried to turn the volume down. I also notice that the regular mouse cursor sometimes doesn't change to the 'editing text' cursor if I go over text in, say, a Pages document. This last time it crashed in Tiger, I thought I heard one of the hard drives shut off. Could it have gone to sleep out of turn and that's why everything froze? Aside from that odd ordeal, I read somewhere that a 3rd party card in the PCI expansion slot can cause crashes, especially a card that is meant to add USB ports. I have a card just like that with two USB ports on it. Does anyone know the possible cause? I don't remember whether or not crashes happened BEFORE I added the second hard drive. Should I remove the one I added? It's a shame because Leopard was running nicely...

On my MDD it was heat related due to poor CPU paste.

harrymatic · Jul 13, 2014

The PCI USB card is a good place to start. It's also possible that you have defective RAM, I've had PCs that would crash and lock up randomly due to this (served me right for using the cheapest possible memory I could find!)

jrsx · Jul 13, 2014

I would definitely check to see if you aren't overheating.. redo the thermal compound job on the CPU if you are.

PowerMac G4 MDD · Jul 13, 2014

jrsx said:
I would definitely check to see if you aren't overheating.. redo the thermal compound job on the CPU if you are.

Is there a way to check my CPU temperature from within MacOS? Because I use iStat menus, but it's an older and glitchier version because the new ones aren't compatible with Tiger. It doesn't display my CPU heat correctly, so I don't know how it's running. Is difficult to gain access to the CPU? I have thermal compoundl; I am assuming any kind is fine? I DID upgrade with 4 512MB sticks of HP-brand RAM, and added a second HD. It could be that too... or the PCI card I talked about.

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gavinstubbs09 said:
A USB2.0 card is the root of many problems, my B&W hated my USB2.0 card, however in a MDD it works fine so I have no clue. Remove the USB card and see if that fixes your problems, and if so I'll give you the model of mine that works and is stable!

I guess I will try removing it. I'm also gonna forfeit the second hard drive. RAM could be the issue too... I wish I still had the cover for the PCI slot. Anyway, that's a really nice offer from you! I don't want it to be too much trouble though. I will see how things go and update everyone on new info. The crashes are sort of infrequent.

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harrymatic said:
The PCI USB card is a good place to start. It's also possible that you have defective RAM, I've had PCs that would crash and lock up randomly due to this (served me right for using the cheapest possible memory I could find!)

Looks like it could be a number of issues, but I did replace all of the RAM and it came from a box full of random RAM sticks. (HP-branded RAM) I will update when something else happens...

Altemose · Jul 13, 2014

PowerMac G4 MDD said:
Is there a way to check my CPU temperature from within MacOS? Because I use iStat menus, but it's an older and glitchier version because the new ones aren't compatible with Tiger. It doesn't display my CPU heat correctly, so I don't know how it's running. Is difficult to gain access to the CPU? I have thermal compoundl; I am assuming any kind is fine? I DID upgrade with 4 512MB sticks of HP-brand RAM, and added a second HD. It could be that too... or the PCI card I talked about.

----------

I guess I will try removing it. I'm also gonna forfeit the second hard drive. RAM could be the issue too... I wish I still had the cover for the PCI slot. Anyway, that's a really nice offer from you! I don't want it to be too much trouble though. I will see how things go and update everyone on new info. The crashes are sort of infrequent.

----------

Looks like it could be a number of issues, but I did replace all of the RAM and it came from a box full of random RAM sticks. (HP-branded RAM) I will update when something else happens...

When a machine freezes like this I always start by pulling any sort of unnecessary parts or peripherals. Then I check Console the next time it crashes to see if there is some sort of error code that could point to a certain piece of software or part. I also run Apple Service Diagnostics, but that must be done at a certified AASP as the disk was never public.

jrsx · Jul 13, 2014

Download Temperature Monitor from here: http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
If your CPU is running anywhere above 160* Fahrenheit I would be concerned.

abbotkinneydude · Jul 13, 2014

Heat; Bad Ram; Faulty Logic Board

I would suggest you check the following:

- Heat is a killer for the MDDs. Install Temperature Monitor and see how hot your unit gets (with Artic Silver 5, my dual 1.25 never gets past 59°C but there are now better thermal compounds like Arctic MX-4).
- Faulty ram can create lots of kernel panics. Install Rember and test your ram.
- a faulty logic board can also be an issue. Reduce your MDD to the bare minimum (boot drive, graphic card, one different stick of ram for each test) and, if you still get kernel panics, the logic board might be the issue.

PowerMac G4 MDD · Jul 17, 2014

jrsx said:
Download Temperature Monitor from here: http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
If your CPU is running anywhere above 160* Fahrenheit I would be concerned.

Thanks, I will check it out. As an update, I removed my second hard drive and I put back the 2 Apple RAM modules that were in there before and a Crucial 1GB module... So far no crashing! I come to believe it was the hard drive's fault because I am sure I heard one of them shut off a soon as my computer froze.

----------

abbotkinneydude said:
I would suggest you check the following:

- Heat is a killer for the MDDs. Install Temperature Monitor and see how hot your unit gets (with Artic Silver 5, my dual 1.25 never gets past 59°C but there are now better thermal compounds like Arctic MX-4).
- Faulty ram can create lots of kernel panics. Install Rember and test your ram.
- a faulty logic board can also be an issue. Reduce your MDD to the bare minimum (boot drive, graphic card, one different stick of ram for each test) and, if you still get kernel panics, the logic board might be the issue.

I'll make sure to get that GPU heat monitor. However, I think I may have solved this! I took out the extra HD I had put it and put back the two Apple RAM modules that were in there when I bought it. It now has those two 512MB modules and a 1GB Crucial module. So far no freezing with Safari, iTunes, etc. open....

PowerMac G4 MDD · Jul 22, 2014

jrsx said:
Download Temperature Monitor from here: http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html
If your CPU is running anywhere above 160* Fahrenheit I would be concerned.

I installed it and with it open, a Pages doc open, iChat open, and this Safari window open, it runs at 133.8F. A newer iMac would run at that temperature with TONS of stuff open, but this is a 2003 PowerMac and I am assuming that this is a satisfactory temperature? I hope so... It says the "specified upper limit" is 143.6F. My fans are running high but barely any CPU activity on my iStats. I have the feeling that this is just an OKAY temperature. Not too hot but a ways from cold?

jrsx · Jul 22, 2014

That's a fine temperature, shouldn't be the heat causing the MDD to freeze.
My PBG4 gets to 130*F all the time!

redhatcode29 · Jul 23, 2014

PowerMac G4 MDD said:
So I just bought a PowerMac G4 MDD (1.25Ghz Dual Core, 2GB RAM), the earlier revision. It came with an 80GB HD and I added another one into the second slot. I had a clean installation of Leopard on it and it ran it VERY nicely... that is until those little things made it freeze. For example, I tried printing to my network printer and it froze, or I tried doing something in Mail and it randomly froze. I decided to downgrade to Tiger and see how it would do, so I installed it on my secondary HD. It's been running way better and can handle YouTube and things better than my 2005 iMac G5. However, I was using an application, YouView, and it froze when I tried to turn the volume down. I also notice that the regular mouse cursor sometimes doesn't change to the 'editing text' cursor if I go over text in, say, a Pages document. This last time it crashed in Tiger, I thought I heard one of the hard drives shut off. Could it have gone to sleep out of turn and that's why everything froze? Aside from that odd ordeal, I read somewhere that a 3rd party card in the PCI expansion slot can cause crashes, especially a card that is meant to add USB ports. I have a card just like that with two USB ports on it. Does anyone know the possible cause? I don't remember whether or not crashes happened BEFORE I added the second hard drive. Should I remove the one I added? It's a shame because Leopard was running nicely...

EDIT: I think I fixed this issue! I took out the second hard drive and put back the original Apple-branded RAM modules, along with a 1GB Crucial stick. I don't know what was crashing it before, but I was suspecting the hard drives, but changed the RAM just in case. I haven't had a crash since! I kept the 3rd party PCI hard USB hub in the machine and nothing has been acting up, however it's inactive as I have nothing plugged into it. My Mac, with iChat, this Safari window, a Pages document, and Temperature Monitor open... runs with a CPU heat of about 56.7 degrees C (or 134 degrees F), and my hard drive at 41 degrees C (or 106 degrees F) My last question is if that's an 'OK' temperature. I do know that a newer iMac can run around that temperature, but that's with more things open. My iBook G4 also runs over 50 degrees C with sluggish MS Office 2008

I bought a MDD 1.25ghz a couple of years ago, up graded it to 10.5.8.
Was smooth, until i decided to up grade the Ram.... And it began to freeze randomly.
With guide from forums, i ran the memtest which i had no idea what it did. Still it froze

The culprit was the rams which i had added... I put back the rams which came with the MDD.. Whola... E rig never gave a problem again. Until recently i meddled with it.
In my case, the rams were the culprit.

128keaton · Jul 23, 2014

redhatcode29 said:
I bought a MDD 1.25ghz a couple of years ago, up graded it to 10.5.8.
Was smooth, until i decided to up grade the Ram.... And it began to freeze randomly.
With guide from forums, i ran the memtest which i had no idea what it did. Still it froze

The culprit was the rams which i had added... I put back the rams which came with the MDD.. Whola... E rig never gave a problem again. Until recently i meddled with it.
In my case, the rams were the culprit.

*Viola, I think is the proper spelling hehe.

PowerMac G4 MDD · Jul 28, 2014

jrsx said:
That's a fine temperature, shouldn't be the heat causing the MDD to freeze.
My PBG4 gets to 130*F all the time!

PBG4's are hot computers! xD I have one myself. Anyway, thanks for the help. This thing runs okay even though it's under my desk in a rather warm, carpeted room. I think it was the second HD, but I put in the ol' Apple modules+a good 1GB Crucial module. I haven't had any issues since! So I am guessing it was the HD after all. I don't need another anyway. Doing general tasks doesn't fill up an 80GB HD. Maybe soon I will be daring and put Leopard on again. For now, I have a snappy Tiger machine... That's loud AF!

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