PowerBook Randomly Crashes

[Coolnat2004]

So, my 1.5GHz 12" PowerBook that is just over a year old has crashed 3 times this week for no apparent reason. I will be in the middle of doing something and the screen will go black (backlight still on) and any audio playing will skip (like a skipped CD) until I hold the power button down to shut it off.

Then, When I turn it on again I get the chime and it just sits there until I force it to shut off again. Turning it on the second time works as normal.

I looked in console.log and system.log, but there is NOTHING at the time of the crash in either -- just the log from startup and stuff from hours before.

And, conveniently, it's just a few months after the warranty has expired and I didn't get Applecare. Can anyone diagnose this? Thanks.

 

[eidrunner247]

run the Applec Hardware Test to see if it can find anything. But that is strange. Maybe bring it in and see what apple has to say. get an estimate to see how much it would cost to fix it. alternatively, before doing that, reformat the computer, put tiger back on and see if that fixes your problems.

on the bright side, at least it's not your car randomly crashing

 

[mad jew]

Do you have third party RAM installed? Have you tried verifying your hard drive in Disk Utility? What exactly are you doing at the time it crashes? Hopefully we can get this fixed for you sooner rather than later.

 

[Coolnat2004]

I do have 3rd party RAM installed, but it has been installed for over a year without conflicts. This crash has happened at any time while I was using it.. I mean once it was in safari, once in transmit, once just typing something in BBEdit. There is no pattern to it.

Last night it happened again but the machine would not start up. I went through the appropriate steps on the Apple website, and it turns out that the machine booted up but the display was not on. I tried plugging in an external display, but it shut itself off seconds after plugging it in.

This leads me to believe that it is a problem with the video chipset. The same problems occur when booting off of the system restore disc.

This morning the machine booted up like normal, so I don't know what is going on. I have an appointment at the Apple store to have this looked at today. Hopefully it will be a quick fix, or they will at least know what's wrong.

 

[Coolnat2004]

So I got back from the Apple store, and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I decided to wait until it happens again, and if it does I will think about sending it in for repairs.

 

[mad jew]

RAM can go bad at anytime, not just immediately after installation. Although it could be the GPU, I'd try running without the third party RAM before starting any major repairs.