Apple Hardware Test Freezes (14” new iBook)

[akm]

Hi there,

As always, I have tried to search before posting, but I did not see anything that seemed to be related to my query. I do apologize if this has been answered before.

First the good news, I am a recent switcher and after some delay, my stock 14” iBook finally made it to me on Thursday

Now, due to work etc., I haven’t had much chance to play with it, but on the advice of a friend, I ran the Apple Hardware Test on the new iBook (by booting from the OS X DVD) and after about 10 minutes…it froze, no error messages or anything, just a freeze (into the extended test). To be safe, I did wait a good hour before deciding to do a cold-reboot (i.e. in case it just looked as if it froze).

Ran Hardware Test (extended tests) 4 more times; no problems this time, all the tests pass and there was no freeze (each pass took about 15 mins). I had received a gift of more RAM from someone and installed this at this point (from Crucial, and it was ordered for the 14” iBook, so should be okay). After installation, I ran hardware test again. It froze up again (22 minutes in and again, I did wait a good hour and a half this time).

I ran it four more times after this, and again, this time no problems (each pass taking around 30 mins).

Hmm, is this normal? I know in PC-land, ‘Hardware’ testing can sometimes lock-up a machine, but I am new to Macs and was wondering whether this is a harbinger of lock-ups to come?

As I said, I have yet to use the iBook extensively, so maybe this is something only peculiar to Apple Hardware Test and won’t manifest itself in daily use, but it did make me worry, so thought I’d post here in case anyone has experienced this.

Any help appreciated by a Mac Newbie [who really hopes his new iBook won't freeze on him during class, where he needs it to take notes]

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Well I'd make sure the RAM you got is for the iBook 1.42GHz model.
Because now the new iBooks use PC2700 RAM, and the other ones used PC2100. If they ordered it for the iBook G4 1.33GHz, you might have bad RAM
So... I just checked if there were any differences, and to be sure, the old ones used PC2100, and the new ones: PC2700.

Make sure you have PC2700 RAM.

If you'd like to see the differences go here for the new iBook:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...R&model=iBook+(G4+1.42GHz,+14-inch)&submit=Go

If you'd like to see the other iBook differences, go here:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listpa...e&tabid=CR&model=iBook+(G4+1.33GHz)&submit=Go

Hope that helps!!

 

[akm]

Well I'd make sure the RAM you got is for the iBook 1.42GHz model.
Because now the new iBooks use PC2700 RAM, and the other ones used PC2100. If they ordered it for the iBook G4 1.33GHz, you might have bad RAM
So... I just checked if there were any differences, and to be sure, the old ones used PC2100, and the new ones: PC2700.

Make sure you have PC2700 RAM.

Thanks lilstewart92;

I just checked this and yes, the RAM is the PC2700 for the 1.42GHz 14" iBook. I am away from my iBook all this weekend, but *knocks on wood* hope I won't run into problems during actual use.

 

[mklos]

I would take any added RAM out and then run the test and see if the lock ups go away. Also, you can do the reverse and take out the standard RAM and only put in the added RAM. Maybe the Apple RAM may have gone bad on you.

Also, the amount of RAM you have installed has a major effect on how long the hardware test takes. I had a 1.8 GHz iMac G5 with 1.25GB of RAM and it took well over an hour to run the test for the RAM alone.

If it still locks up, that usually indicates are hardware problem. The hardware test should never lockup. There's really nothing running that should lock up the computer, no OS, or anything like that. If this is the case, I'd take it down to an Apple Retail Store and see if a Mac Genius can run further tests on it to see if it needs to be either replaced or repaired. Sometimes with completely brand new Macs with problems, Apple will just replaced the problematic Mac with a totally brand new one, but thats not always the case. Its really up to the store manager of the Apple Retail Store.

Also, see how it works during normal usage. See if you get kernel panics, app lockups, etc. If thats the case, then I would definitely take it an Apple Retail Store.

 

[California]

I don't think you can take out the oem Apple ram on an iBook. I think they are soldered onto the logic board. If someone knows how they can be taken off, let me know! I'd like to add another gig to my iBook!

 

[mklos]

I don't think you can take out the oem Apple ram on an iBook. I think they are soldered onto the logic board. If someone knows how they can be taken off, let me know! I'd like to add another gig to my iBook!

Now that you mention it, you're absolutely correct! I forgot that Apple does a terrible thing in doing that. I was thinking about a PowerBook for some reason. Well in that case, lets just hope that it isn't fault RAM onboard.

 

[akm]

Also, see how it works during normal usage. See if you get kernel panics, app lockups, etc. If thats the case, then I would definitely take it an Apple Retail Store.

*nodnods*

I hope it won't lock, but yeah, that's my plan atm (to take it in if it does lock during normal use, but to first pull my 3P RAM and see if that fixes things).

Just to 'test' it, I plan to run distributed.net on it for a couple of days (I often do this on my PCs as it is a processor intensive application, but has itself never caused any instability, so can often help me to track down problems. I presume the app itself is also stable on Mac OS X, so if I get a lock-up on the iBook, I’ll know something is wrong).

I'll post to this thread if anything (or hopefully, nothing) happens, thanks all!