Dual 2.5GHz G5 Crashing for first time

[invaLPsion]

Hey, I've had this machine for a little over two years now and in that time it has never froze. But just today it locked up twice within 20min of each incident. What's going on?

Any advice/suggestions/help is welcome.

 

[gekko513]

Some more information would help. What were you doing when it froze? Have you installed some new software or hardware lately? Have you changed any settings lately? How exactly did it lock up? Did the display freeze, could you move your mouse, did you get a beachball, did you get a kernel panic?

It could be some RAM or hardware that has gone bad.

 

[iGary]

Hey, I've had this machine for a little over two years now and in that time it has never froze. But just today it locked up twice within 20min of each incident. What's going on?

Any advice/suggestions/help is welcome.

Usual recommendations:

By all means backup NOW.

Repair permissions.

Reset PRAM (Hold down CMD-OPT-P-R on startup until second bong).

Do maintenance from Terminal: sudo periodic daily weekly monthly (or downlaod and install Onyx).

Clear system cache.

You can reset the firmware by holding CMD-OPT-O-F, and then type in reset-all.

Other good recommendations will follow.

Run hardware test from install discs.

 

[invaLPsion]

Just locked up again.

First time: Had just trashed a game demo. Clicked on an iChat bubble and then it locked up.

Second time: Running WC3 and iChat and iTunes. Just locked up as I was switching windows.

Third time: Locked up as I quit iTunes

All of this occured within 30min of each other.

 

[invaLPsion]

The display just froze. I couldn't move the mouse or anything. The music that I was playing stalled and continually cut in and out.

 

[macg4]

and if that doesnt work it may be time for the g5 to take a trip to the apple store(if u have one near by)

 

[iGary]

Just locked up again.

First time: Had just trashed a game demo. Clicked on an iChat bubble and then it locked up.

Second time: Running WC3 and iChat and iTunes. Just locked up as I was switching windows.

Third time: Locked up as I quit iTunes

All of this occured within 30min of each other.

Are you getting a black screen telling you to restart, or is it just going totally non responsive?

Have you tried looking at Force Quit Applications to see if an individual program is not responding?

 

[gekko513]

Since it seems to happen randomly, chances are that it's RAM or other hardware gone bad.

I'll suggest doing all of iGary's recommendations in post 3.

 

[invaLPsion]

Are you getting a black screen telling you to restart, or is it just going totally non responsive?

Have you tried looking at Force Quit Applications to see if an individual program is not responding?

Totally non responsive.

I tried force quitting, no response.

 

[iGary]

Totally non responsive.

I tried force quitting, no response.

OK - do all the crap I mentioned and also reset the PMU (see Apple Suppport page for your specific model).

 

[invaLPsion]

The computer now only freezes whenever I quit iTunes or when I have iTunes running. It just completely locks up. This is very strange...

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

The computer now only freezes whenever I quit iTunes or when I have iTunes running. It just completely locks up. This is very strange...

Power supply going? does your machine fall within the serial numbers apple listed?

 

[macg4]

Power supply going? does your machine fall within the serial numbers apple listed?

duh totally forgot about that

 

[iGary]

The computer now only freezes whenever I quit iTunes or when I have iTunes running. It just completely locks up. This is very strange...

Did you follow the above steps?

 

[vohdoun]

This sounds like the hard drive. I've had very similar issues like that with Windows when a hard drive was just about to die.
Only difference is with the PC the hard drive LED stays on when it was locked, as you don't have that on any Mac.
After a reboot it would lock or if not soon as an app used that part of the disk, it locks.

Whats the SMART status in System Profiler... bet it says Verified still?

As with memory it would be nothing but kernel panics or blue screens for Windows.

Could always check the memory with memtest, shame it costs. (US $1.39) http://www.memtestosx.org/ as the PC version is free.

 

[invaLPsion]

Deleted iTunes and reinstalled. The freeze problem has not reoccurred yet, but we'll see.