I love my PowerMac G4! ...but it's in pain :(

[AnyKey]

Hello all of my MacRumors friends!
I've been a member here for about...hmm, maybe a month or so now. Perhaps less, but I've started posting recently. It's funny how a website can be a "home," but let's just say that I'm a college student and there are some days where I surf the forums here more than I should with the amount of HW that I have to do. Hehe.

But anyway...now to the meat of the problem.

I've had my G4 Quicksilver for about ...hmmm...Id guess four years? I got it brand new from apple in 2001 or 2002.

Dual 1.0 GHz G4 "Quicksilver" (And oh man it's fast!! Always has been)
1 GB of PC133 SDRAM (512 is apple ram and the other 512 is Centon)
133 MHz FSB
80 GB HD (Ultra ATA I think, I'l double check later, but I'm pretty sure that's right. I'm drawing a blank for some reason)
CD-RW/DVD-R SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX (AGP 4X) video card with 64 MB of DDR SDRAM
Currently Running OS 10.4.8 (but when the problems started to happen I was running 10.3.5 (It was the latest version of 10.3 at the time)

It's a great computer. Like I said, really fast. Starts up in 30 seconds too, haha. I don't know how that happened because it used to take 46, but anyway, it's fast.

About a year ago, in September I was having some problems where I kept getting Kernel Errors and crashes. (the kind where the shaded curtain comes down the screen and you get the "you must shut down" message in a few different languages and other times, I would get the white text down the left side of the screen with the black shading behind it saying stuf like "error 0x55CSxSGSHDSIKxHFGFK CPU 1") At this time, I had OS 10.3 on the comp, and I hadn't experienced any problems with the computer at all up until this point, so this all came as a big surprise. Also, it was the main family computer AND I was doing a video editing job at the time, so this was a really bad problem.

So, my Dad and I went to the Apple Store to see what I could do to fix it. It was no longer covered under AppleCare, so we paid the $75-90 or so fee to get it looked at by the Apple Techs.

After running the diagnostic software and testing it a bit (it took about 2 or 3 weeks to figure out what was going on) the guys at the store thought that there was either a hard drive or logic board problem. They said that it would cost $600 to replace either one. So we figured...hey...it's a good comp and it would be worth the $600. We wanted to wait a bit longer before upgrading to a G5. So we paid the $600 and they replaced the logic board. Then they tested it and it still crashed, so they moved onto replacing each of the 1GHz processors (and we didn't have to pay more than the $600+ "look at it" fee because they had misdiagnosed it). So they replaced the procesors and we still got kernel errors. They also reinstalled the OS a few times after this to see if it was software related, but it hadn't been. We wiped the hard drive and even DURING the install, it still crashed.
Then the guys at the apple store tried replacing the hard drive itself. Still crashed. Then they tried the video card. Still crashed.

There were very few things left to replace in the computer, haha.

So they eventually gave us back the computer and put our $600+ dollars that we already paid toward a new G5. So in the end, we just bought a G5.

But...I'm still trying to get the G4 to work because it really is a good computer. I can edit video very effectively on it when it doesn't crash. Also, I took the G4 to college so I wouldn't have to buy a new comp until Summer of 2007, so I was hoping that it would last me until then.

Oh, and also, I've found that it crashed roughly 1 out of 2 times when I run it on both processors, but when I switch to only one processor, it usually only crashes 1 our of every 10 times.

The biggest problem, though...is that applications quit constantly. This is the problem that affects me most. It must be related to the kernel erros and this quitting problem has only happened sinc I first got the kernel errors.

Also, just to add a bit more info: Ive tried running the G4 with the CD/DVD drive disconnected and without the zip drive that we originally had in it.

So basically, the only thing that hasn't been replaced is the power supply, I guess.

Oh, also, we replaed the battery inside and tried resetting the pram more than once.

I've also tried running the comp off of an external HD and it still crashes, so it's definitely not the HD.

I do wonder if it's a heat dissipation problem because it seems to run longer (without crashing) when I leave the CPU open, but it still crashes and programs still quit.
Could be the power supply too, but I think they might have tested it at the apple store that day. I'm not 100% sure, though.

Oh, also, Star Wars Jedi Knight II has become unplayable on it because of the crashing. It crashes whenever I even try to conect to a server to play the game. That's just one illustration of the state of the comp.
Also, Microsoft word 2004 quits A LOT too.

And as one last bit of info, I'm currently Running the latest version of Mac OS: 10.4.8 (I think that's the latest)

I'm currently writing this post from a PC here at my college, so I don't have the mac right next to me.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I love my G4 and I hope to keep it alive for as long as possible!

Thank you!

 

[Nermal]

You don't mention replacing the RAM. Bad RAM is the biggest cause of hardware-related kernel panics.

 

[pianoman]

if you had non-Apple RAM in there, i presume Apple would have removed it. however, the tech might have overlooked that and all your problems might be attributed to bad RAM. try removing the third party RAM and see if that helps. if not, remove the Apple RAM and try just the third party RAM.

this computer sounds like it's been through a lot. i don't have much experience with the early PBs but i know kernel panics are often blamed on malfunctioning RAM.

hopefully someone else in the forums has some insight.

 

[AnyKey]

Ah, sorry. I forgot to say that.

I tried running the G4 on each of the individual 512 dimms alone and it still crashed. Also, while I was at the apple store, they replaced the ram during their tests with tested apple ram, and it still crashed.

Thank you for the good idea though.

Edit: Just to repeat, I have 512 MB of Apple Ram and 512 of Centon. Using either one alone didn't help, and when I was in the Apple store, upon testing the comp, they removed the centon and tried a different stick of Apple ram than my own.

 

[AnyKey]

this computer sounds like it's been through a lot.

Oh yeah, definitely.
But...in some ways, I guess it's kind of a new-ish computer now, after all of the replacement stuff.

Aside from the nor working part, heh.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Why did you buy a G5 and not a MacPro? They are newer, cheaper and WAY faster.

 

[NJuul]

Why did you buy a G5 and not a MacPro? They are newer, cheaper and WAY faster.

Probably because of...

About a year ago

Anyway, I think your idea about heat dissipation is interesting, since you say pretty much everything else have been replaced. Have you tried monitoring the CPU temp with one of those temperature-reader-programs?
Otherwise... Maybe if two different parts are causing kernel panicks, like one memory stick and the logic board, you wouldn't find out unless you replaced both at the same time. Purely speculative though.

 

[Bobdude161]

What about your power supply? That's what's causing me to have panics right now. Too much flashy stuff plugged in.

 

[AnyKey]

Anyway, I think your idea about heat dissipation is interesting, since you say pretty much everything else have been replaced. Have you tried monitoring the CPU temp with one of those temperature-reader-programs?

Hmm...not a bad idea. Thank you. Do you have any recommendations of temp reading programs and would this involve me installing any kind of thermometer/temp reader in the CPU itself? Can PowerMac G4 Quicksilvers monitor their own temps without modification?

Otherwise... Maybe if two different parts are causing kernel panicks, like one memory stick and the logic board, you wouldn't find out unless you replaced both at the same time. Purely speculative though.

The only thing about the two parts being the problem is that when the Apple Store guys tested the new board, I believe they even tried swapping out my ram for their own as a test.

 

[AnyKey]

What about your power supply? That's what's causing me to have panics right now. Too much flashy stuff plugged in.

Surprisingly, I've been able to run a CD/DVD drive and three internal Hard Drives for moderate periods of time without crashes. Other times, the combination does crash the comp.

The crashes seem to be a bit sporadic, I'm afraid.

Although I do wonder if it is a bad power supply. If that's the case, I'd assume that any fluctuations of power levels could cause a crash whether there were a lot or very few items connected.

Do you have any idea of about how much a new power supply would be for a 1GHz G4 Quicksilver?

I'm not really sure myself. I'll see if I can find out online.

Thanks!

 

[disconap]

After running the diagnostic software and testing it a bit (it took about 2 or 3 weeks to figure out what was going on) the guys at the store thought that there was either a hard drive or logic board problem. They said that it would cost $600 to replace either one. So we figured...hey...it's a good comp and it would be worth the $600. We wanted to wait a bit longer before upgrading to a G5. So we paid the $600 and they replaced the logic board. Then they tested it and it still crashed, so they moved onto replacing each of the 1GHz processors (and we didn't have to pay more than the $600+ "look at it" fee because they had misdiagnosed it). So they replaced the procesors and we still got kernel errors. They also reinstalled the OS a few times after this to see if it was software related, but it hadn't been. We wiped the hard drive and even DURING the install, it still crashed.

Don't have any insight (other than the obvious things I'm sure you or the Apple store already tried), but it disturbs me that they wanted to charge you $600 to replace the hard drive.

 

[disconap]

Surprisingly, I've been able to run a CD/DVD drive and three internal Hard Drives for moderate periods of time without crashes. Other times, the combination does crash the comp.

The crashes seem to be a bit sporadic, I'm afraid.

I would try unplugging the two hard drives and see if you still have the problems witht he boot drive. But really, I can't imagine that being the problem. I have all sorts of gobbledy-gook upgraded and modded into my Sawtooth, which uses a smaller power supply than yours, and I have a current uptime of 11 days, 16 hours. I'm running 4 hard drives (2 as a RAID), a USB2.0 card, a flashed FX5200 (with fan), a dual processor upgrade, 2 gigs of RAM, 2 extra fans, a DVD-R/RW, and an IDE pci card. That's a lot of power consumption, but perfectly stable. *knocks wood*

So while it COULD be the power supply, I personally don't think it is. Possibly the battery, though I've never heard of that causing kernel panics, just losing ROM info. Dumb question probably, but is your firmware up to date?

 

[AnyKey]

I would try unplugging the two hard drives and see if you still have the problems witht he boot drive. But really, I can't imagine that being the problem.

Eh, actually the kernel errors happened before i even put in the 2nd or 3rd drive, so it probably isn't the problem anyway, but good idea.

is your firmware up to date?

I believe that I have the latest firmware update. I checked online and it said that there was no firmware update needed for the G4 Quicksilver. Do you think I misread something?

My current boot rom version is 4.3.3f2
Do you think that's right?

 

[AnyKey]

it disturbs me that they wanted to charge you $600 to replace the hard drive.

Yeah actually...I never really thought about that after getting the $600 off the new G5, but if we hadn't bought it, I'm pretty sure that they would have given us the money back. Most Apple Store employees seem to be good people and the ones who checked out my G4 were very nice. I mean, if they couldn't fix it in the end, there was no reason for them to keep the money anyway, of course.

 

[AnyKey]

Does anyone know if there's a way for me to restore the Firmware for my PowerMac G4? I just thought I'd try it out. It probably won't hurt.

Unfortunately, I've only found a firmware restore CD image for the intel macs.

Thanks!

 

[AnyKey]

Oh, and just to confirm (because I wasn't 100% sure in my first post), I do have the 2002 Model of the G4 Quicksilver, not the earlier one. In command-option-o-f (when i started up), it displayed that version as "Apple PowerMac3,5 4.3.3f2 and said Boot Rom Built on 12/21/01. I don't know if that changes anything, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

Update: I do have one other thing. I tried Using this Application called Temperature Monitor (and assuming that it's working correctly seeing as it's reading my "SMART Disk" sensor) and it's telling me that my computer is now running at 95 degrees F/35 Degrees C. Based on what I've seen in the past day or so, my computer normally runs at somewhere between 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C) and 102 degrees F (38.9 degrees C).

Interesting...
I do wonder if my G4 even has a temperature sensor in it. What could Temperature Monitor be reading?
Is it too old to have a temperature sensor of any kind? (Something that came standard when it was first shipped, I mean)

 

[AlexMaximus]

Don't forget the buffer battery !!

The G4 you have may have been used an equivalent of 3 years of "usage-time" that means your lithium buffer battery is gone. I would replace it. It's just a couple of bucks, but it can cause big headache even if it's "half-empty".
Also a bios upgrade /bios flash could be the solution- since apple has a lot of different G4 versions, bios, flash, firmware out there.

 

[AnyKey]

The G4 you have may have been used an equivalent of 3 years of "usage-time" that means your lithium buffer battery is gone. I would replace it. It's just a couple of bucks, but it can cause big headache even if it's "half-empty".
Also a bios upgrade /bios flash could be the solution- since apple has a lot of different G4 versions, bios, flash, firmware out there.

Ah, actually, I replaced the battery too, lol. Unfortunately, nothing seems to work with this G4. It runs decently on one processor (noticeably slower, though) and it dooesn't crash as often. Still crashes often enough to be inconvenient, though. Thanks for the idea though.

 

[Mernak]

Oh, and just to confirm (because I wasn't 100% sure in my first post), I do have the 2002 Model of the G4 Quicksilver, not the earlier one. In command-option-o-f (when i started up), it displayed that version as "Apple PowerMac3,5 4.3.3f2 and said Boot Rom Built on 12/21/01. I don't know if that changes anything, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

Update: I do have one other thing. I tried Using this Application called Temperature Monitor (and assuming that it's working correctly seeing as it's reading my "SMART Disk" sensor) and it's telling me that my computer is now running at 95 degrees F/35 Degrees C. Based on what I've seen in the past day or so, my computer normally runs at somewhere between 100 degrees F (37.8 degrees C) and 102 degrees F (38.9 degrees C).

Interesting...
I do wonder if my G4 even has a temperature sensor in it. What could Temperature Monitor be reading?
Is it too old to have a temperature sensor of any kind? (Something that came standard when it was first shipped, I mean)

If I remember correctly the SMART sensor is the temp sensor on the had drive and not the CPU. On my MacBook the SMART disk is at ~90 degrees F but my CPU is 45-50 degrees hotter. Some computers seem to not have cpu sensors, like my iBook. I really don't know what it could be besides heat, unfortunately I don't know how to monitor the cpu temp. You could try adding a small fan right near the cpu and see if that helps, but other than that I'm stumped.

 

[Sawtoothdude]

Do you have access to an extra outlet to plug in a desktop fanaiming at the open case? if this helps then maybe you should try looking into PCI Slot fans. I hope this helps, It bothers me to see a G4 in pain. Good Luck with it.

 

[AnyKey]

sadly...the hard drive just died. Just my luck. I reinstalled the OS on a different computer and swapped hard drives to recover the files. Now it just crashes even more often, unfortunately. My bad luck knows no bounds. Ack!

 

[jasonbrown1977]

Quicksilver 2002

I have a very similar system to yours. My system consists of a Quicksilver 2002 logic board and case, dual 1ghz chips were removed and replaced with a high performance 1.5 ghz card with very high speed cache. I am also running 2 sata hard drives in a stripe with a firmtek seritek sata controller. My video card is an Ati Radeon 9800 128 with a large Zalman 700 series cooler on it. I replaced the rear air input fan (the one behind the processor that is mounted to rear panel) with a higher speed fan to move more air. Also running a zip drive and a 16x Apple Superdrive. I want to make a reccomendation to you. The symptoms you are describing make me think of a power supply issue. Ive been working on macs since the Macintosh XL and worked my way up through the 128, 512, Plus, SE, SE/30, II and so forth. I helped maintain a network of about 50+ Mac systems for a Desktop Publishing company. The problems you are describing point to potential bad processor cache (you have alread ruled that out) bad ram (already ruled out) bad video card (already ruled out) failing chipset on logic board (already ruled out as well) and you have also replaced the hard drive with another hard drive, which in turn could have a bit steeper power requirements than your older drive. Even just a little bit on a weak power supply can cause big results. One thing i would check is to see if your power supply fan is actually working, if it is not, then the power supply could be overheating and causing it to not power the system properly. If the fan is working properly, i would look into 1 of 3 things. If budget is a major concern, you can either A: Get an adapter to convert a standard ATX power supply to fit in your Quicksilver, B: go to groups.google.com and look up the LEM Swap List and shoot a message asking if anyone has a power supply for a Quicksilver they would be willing to sell and how much, you can get some really good deals there. or C: hunt down a new or used power supply for your system online or from a local retalier if there are any that carry apple parts. I would be willing to bank on it that you are having power supply issues. On my Quicksilver, if i hook a test module up to my power leads and dial up a load on the power supply to test its output, and i get the power supply to its peak and try to push it beyond, i get the same symptoms you are describing. The more power i try to bleed from the unit, the more sporatic the crashes become. This would be, in my best guess, the #1 cause of your issues. If you want to talk to me directly, you can email me at jason_brown@charter.net, i will do what i can to help you. In my opinion, every Apple system is a piece of history and should be taken care of as such. I will not charge for any trouble shooting that i may do. The only reason i would charge you is if you wound up shipping the computer to me, and i would only ask for the cost of shipping to you. But this would be a very last resort as you can likely get what you need locally. I wish you luck with your system, and yes, the Quicksilver is a very nice machine and it definately is fast

 

[jasonbrown1977]

Power Supply Options

If you dont want to try the LEM Swap List you can buy a power supply from this resource, there are likely other resources, i just scavanged to try to find some to help you. This is for an exchange or add 30 dollars to outright purchase, seems expensive to me though.

http://www.mac-resource.com/store.php?item=6612513.PART

------

Alternately you can search for quicksilver power supply on ebay and try to bid and win one, or try to find the adapter mentioned in my previous post online or on ebay. Or if you are adventurous, you can re-wire a standard atx power supply to work with your mac. There are sites that list the proper pinout to do this. If you are driving an ADC monitor i dont know if this is a viable solution or not. Here is a link to a Quicksilver power supply that currently has 5 days left on the auction and at the time of this post has had no bids on it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/G4-Quicksilver-...ryZ51044QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[chopper0001]

Me too!

I have the same machine you do. I had similar problems and went through many troubleshooting steps. In my case, it WAS the power supply. Even after some apple techs told me it was fine. Like you, I ran out of options, although I stopped short of replacing the logic board. One odd thing about mine was that it would rarely crash if I used only one stick of ram. I had 3 x 512 in there and it would work fine with only 2, but as soon as I stuck the 3d one in there it would start crashing. Looking back on it now, I'd say the power to the ram was probably bad (power supply). It had other odd quirks like hard drives spooling down at wierd times.... Anyway, the power supply I bought on ebay did the trick. It was my last ditch effort! Now it runs like new and I'm glad I didn't give up. I'd say it's worth a try. Just make sure you get one from a reputable source. They seem to be selling for around $200 or $150 for an exchange. Good Luck!

 

[jasonbrown1977]

I have the same machine you do. I had similar problems and went through many troubleshooting steps. In my case, it WAS the power supply. Even after some apple techs told me it was fine. Like you, I ran out of options, although I stopped short of replacing the logic board. One odd thing about mine was that it would rarely crash if I used only one stick of ram. I had 3 x 512 in there and it would work fine with only 2, but as soon as I stuck the 3d one in there it would start crashing. Looking back on it now, I'd say the power to the ram was probably bad (power supply). It had other odd quirks like hard drives spooling down at wierd times.... Anyway, the power supply I bought on ebay did the trick. It was my last ditch effort! Now it runs like new and I'm glad I didn't give up. I'd say it's worth a try. Just make sure you get one from a reputable source. They seem to be selling for around $200 or $150 for an exchange. Good Luck!

I hope the person with the bad computer gets on again, i want to help him with his computer problem, i hate to see a mac with problems and strive to fix every one i can come across. I run right at this present time a Quicksilver 2002, Sawtooth overclocked to 600 mhz, B&W g3 revision 2, final model emac 1.42 ghz and a performa series that i cant get to right at the moment that has a 603 series processor in it. And to be quite frank, i love em all, hehehe, even have an LCIII that i am about to restore and an ImageWriter II that will be next on the restore list.