Help! Power Mac G4 MDD 1.25 GHz freezing

[Bobbybees]

I'm finally getting around to resuscitating some of my collection of Macs, ranging from a Macintosh Plus to this G4 MDD, which I have owned since new. My problem is that it keeps freezing, with the spinning beachball.

Power Mac G4 MDD 1.25 GHz (PowerMac3,6), 2 Gbytes RAM, acbel 360 watt PSU, PowerPC 74558 v3.3. It's all as it came from Apple, except that I've added an Airport card, cleaned out the dust, replaced the CPU thermal paste, and put a few HDDs in and out. I have the Apple Studio Display that came with it, too, and the 2 original Power Mac G4 Software Install and Restore disks.

I have different partitions on one HDD for different OSs: 10.2, 10.3 from general install disks, 10.3.2 and 9.2.2 from the G4 disks, and 10.4.

When I start up with 9.2.2 or 10.2 everything seems to be fine.

When I start up with 10.3, 10.3.2, or 10.4, and when I erase a partition and try to install an OS afresh, I have numerous different problems, which are not always exactly repeatable, but infuriatingly frequent:

After startup I can login, but then I get the Dock, a spinning beachball, and menu bar icons for WiFi, Eject, Sound volume, Date & Time, and Username, but no white menu bar. The beachball switches to a pointer on these icons, which show a response, but don't work completely. Dock icons bounce but don't launch.

Finder operations run OK, but when I click on a Dock item, System Preferences for example, the icon bounces for a while, but doesn't launch, and then everything freezes.

Force Quit launch doesn't do anything, or, if it does load, I can't relaunch Finder.

OS installation freezes at "Creating your account...", or at other points. An installation may, for example, not complete fully, but leaves an OS which is recognised; but when I start a setup from that OS I can only select a country (UK), but the next choice, Keyboard, freezes when I select British.

TechTool Pro (supplied on the installation disks) doesn't find anything to comment about. I've replaced PRAM battery, reset PRAM, and reset PMU. The voltages from the PSU all seem to be as they should be.

I'd be delighted and grateful if anyone can help. I want to use this machine, and I want to get TenFourFox going, perhaps even 10.5.

TIA.

 

[z970]

Both my eMac and MDD will sometimes freeze after waking from sleep, most commonly just before the screensaver is able to go away before the desktop reappears. This problem did not continue when I changed out their RAM sticks.

My theory is that certain models of these later G4s are not compatible with certain types of PC modules and are prone to freezing when installed. (Curiously, I have also noticed that the G5s do not have this problem, and will happily chug away no matter the RAM type.)

I would suggest to you to remove all the RAM sticks, and then try / reinstall each stick one at a time until the freezing goes away.

 

[SnakeCoils]

I fully agree about memory stick failure and/or incompatibilities but also overheating can lead to freezes expecially if CPUs are running for a long time doing intensive tasks like compiling a binary from large source files.
If your MDD is fitted with 4x512 Mb DIMMs consider to replace them with 2x1 Gb (better if connected to J21 and J23 leaving J22 and J20 empty), you will have much more air flow (and better cooling) on both side of every module.
This is also recommended expecially if you have high performance (CL2 speed) DIMMs with heatspreaders that makes the total lateral thickness much larger further reducing the space between adiacent modules.
It took me some time before to reach an (almost) absolute stability but now I can leave my MDD turned on for several days without discovering it freezed sometimes in between.

 

[eyoungren]

I'm finally getting around to resuscitating some of my collection of Macs, ranging from a Macintosh Plus to this G4 MDD, which I have owned since new. My problem is that it keeps freezing, with the spinning beachball.

Power Mac G4 MDD 1.25 GHz (PowerMac3,6), 2 Gbytes RAM, acbel 360 watt PSU, PowerPC 74558 v3.3. It's all as it came from Apple, except that I've added an Airport card, cleaned out the dust, replaced the CPU thermal paste, and put a few HDDs in and out. I have the Apple Studio Display that came with it, too, and the 2 original Power Mac G4 Software Install and Restore disks.

I have different partitions on one HDD for different OSs: 10.2, 10.3 from general install disks, 10.3.2 and 9.2.2 from the G4 disks, and 10.4.

When I start up with 9.2.2 or 10.2 everything seems to be fine.

When I start up with 10.3, 10.3.2, or 10.4, and when I erase a partition and try to install an OS afresh, I have numerous different problems, which are not always exactly repeatable, but infuriatingly frequent:

After startup I can login, but then I get the Dock, a spinning beachball, and menu bar icons for WiFi, Eject, Sound volume, Date & Time, and Username, but no white menu bar. The beachball switches to a pointer on these icons, which show a response, but don't work completely. Dock icons bounce but don't launch.

Finder operations run OK, but when I click on a Dock item, System Preferences for example, the icon bounces for a while, but doesn't launch, and then everything freezes.

Force Quit launch doesn't do anything, or, if it does load, I can't relaunch Finder.

OS installation freezes at "Creating your account...", or at other points. An installation may, for example, not complete fully, but leaves an OS which is recognised; but when I start a setup from that OS I can only select a country (UK), but the next choice, Keyboard, freezes when I select British.

TechTool Pro (supplied on the installation disks) doesn't find anything to comment about. I've replaced PRAM battery, reset PRAM, and reset PMU. The voltages from the PSU all seem to be as they should be.

I'd be delighted and grateful if anyone can help. I want to use this machine, and I want to get TenFourFox going, perhaps even 10.5.

TIA.

What happens if you try any of this without the Airport card installed?