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G3 pismo crashed HD, ROM or what?

F

Fishtalk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 21, 2008
202
0
My old Pismo has been working fine for years the suddenly yesterday
I clicked on something on the screen and it went black Nothing responding but still a wirring sound from the HD ...Crashed it off and tried to reboot but got on of those ' hold your on:eek:ff button..ect." Did that, then it wouldn't reboot at all ( just the wirring sound) Tried to reboot on Alt because I have a ext HD back up cloned from my HD.... would'nt work either. Finally after pulling all the plugs checking that the RAM was securely inserted I finally managed to get it to boot on the EXt HD.... this worked fine for about 2 hours then the screen froze...I crashed off'd and for some reason it rebooted to my original HD..... Which froze after a 10 minutes...This again when I tried to reboot it... took about 100% luck to get the thing up and running.
Help please what could be the problem Dying HD Dying Ram or what ever.
For the moment I'm writing this on my Ext HD...just waiting for the screen to freeze
Thanks in advance
 
flopticalcube said:
Try resetting the PMU: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=en_US

Could also be a dead NVRAM battery: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/PowerBook-G3-Pismo-PRAM-Battery/21/1
Click to expand...

Thanks I dont think its the NVRAM battery because the date is still correct.
I replaced one RAM stick about a year ago... Could it be the other one ?
Apart from not being able to boot, No blue screen of death No question mark file and no text messages.... as with my last RAM crash. Just black screen with the int HD wirring. Normally when I reboot it wirr's for about a second then I hear a small clic from the HD and then it boot. These last few times no 'clic' and wont boot.
PS. its now been up and running for about 4 hours..keeping my fingers crossed.
 
Fishtalk said:
Thanks I dont think its the NVRAM battery because the date is still correct.
I replaced one RAM stick about a year ago... Could it be the other one ?
Apart from not being able to boot, No blue screen of death No question mark file and no text messages.... as with my last RAM crash. Just black screen with the int HD wirring. Normally when I reboot it wirr's for about a second then I hear a small clic from the HD and then it boot. These last few times no 'clic' and wont boot.
PS. its now been up and running for about 4 hours..keeping my fingers crossed.
Click to expand...
Does suspiciously sound like the hard drive. Try resetting the hard drive. You may have to decided whether its worth getting a new drive for. You could also play around with the RAM. Try swapping the sticks or removing one.
 
flopticalcube said:
Does suspiciously sound like the hard drive. Try resetting the hard drive. You may have to decided whether its worth getting a new drive for. You could also play around with the RAM. Try swapping the sticks or removing one.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think you could be right.... My Mac is more than 10 years old.
How do I reset the HD ? I dont have any boot discs as I received the Mac all set up fro my brother
Secondly. Now I'm running off my cloned FW Ext HD... In theory do I still need the Int HD to boot or if it crashes for good, will stop the Computer from rebooting.?
PS. still working oooof!
 
Perhaps you're using a very modern hard drive and it's giving your Pismo trouble? I believe Pismos used 4500RPM hard drives, if you're using a 7200 it could account for some of the confusion
 
flopticalcube said:
Sorry, I meant reset the hard drive. Basically remove and put back in to make sure its making a proper connection.
Click to expand...

Right I followed your suggestion and played with the RAM.... It seems? ( as its working now and boots again normaly) that my old 128Mo stick was playing up.... I slotted the (new) 512Mo in the bottom slot and removed the old one.
Question? I have an old PowerBook G3 with 2x 64 Mo sticks SDRAM DIMM. Could I use one of these to replace the I28Mo ...would another 64 Ram change much anyway....
Thanks
 
Fishtalk said:
Right I followed your suggestion and played with the RAM.... It seems? ( as its working now and boots again normaly) that my old 128Mo stick was playing up.... I slotted the (new) 512Mo in the bottom slot and removed the old one.
Question? I have an old PowerBook G3 with 2x 64 Mo sticks SDRAM DIMM. Could I use one of these to replace the I28Mo ...would another 64 Ram change much anyway....
Thanks
Click to expand...
All PowerBook G3's use the same RAM so it should work fine. Any extra RAM will help when you are that low.
 
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