Hello, a buddy of mine gave me his old iMac G4 800mhz yesterday. I wiped it and installed osx 10.4 and it ran pretty well, but as soon as I upgraded to 10.4.11 it started hardlocking after a few minutes of use. I thought maybe it was heat, so I cleaned it out and put new thermal paste on. Same thing's still happening though. It didn't happen at all in 10.1 or 10.4, only in 10.4.11. Any idea why it'd be doing this? I've never even touched a Mac before, so I'm completely lost as to how to troubleshoot this issue. Any help is appreciated, thanks!
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iMac G4 800mhz freezing in 10.4.11
- Thread starter Haohmaru
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You may have a bad hard drive. Or if it's a software issue, you could try reinstalling the 10.4.11 Combo Update available here, or if that fails a reinstall of Tiger.
Run Disk Utility and click Verify Disk under First Aid, too.
Run Disk Utility and click Verify Disk under First Aid, too.
Alright, so I swapped the hard drive out, but that caused another issue! Now the DVD drive on this thing appears to be stuck. If I boot with the left moouse button held down, it sounds like it's trying to open but can't, even though there are clearly no obstructions to the superdrive. I can't find an emergency tray eject anywhere on it, and forcing it open feels like a really bad idea. Anything I'm missing here? It's the superdrive, not just the combo drive.
If it can't open, either the drive door is obstructed by something (you put all the screws back in and fitted everything exactly as it came out, right? including the metal teeth under the drive carriage?), or your optical drive failed, possibly because of the jostling it received being pulled in and out of the iMac, which is pretty weird all things considered. If it sounds like it's trying, I'd pull everything apart and have a good look. Toss the optical drive into another computer if you have one to test it with. You don't need to connect the data cable, just the Molex power cable, then just turn on the machine and try the eject button.
Still, pretty weird. I replaced my optical drive just out of process when I installed a new hard drive in my iMac, thus giving me a SuperDrive where I originally had a Combo Drive.
I've taken apart two iMac G4's and while they were fun as all hell, they didn't go back together without a fight.
Firstly, be certain that the IDE ports on the motherboard have no bent pins. I bent one pin and it caused it to crash on startup. If you have so much as one pin that does not align, it can cause issues.
Be certain you replace the thermal gel on the processor, or this baby's gonna cry like a Giants-fan.
The drives have a small amount of play, and once the screws are tightened, can be misaligned. Be certain that you align the optical drive before tightening the screws that fasten it to the chassis.
Before you begin all of this, pry the white door open on the iMac and see if the tray is colliding with anything.
Is this the original drive?
Firstly, be certain that the IDE ports on the motherboard have no bent pins. I bent one pin and it caused it to crash on startup. If you have so much as one pin that does not align, it can cause issues.
Be certain you replace the thermal gel on the processor, or this baby's gonna cry like a Giants-fan.
The drives have a small amount of play, and once the screws are tightened, can be misaligned. Be certain that you align the optical drive before tightening the screws that fasten it to the chassis.
Before you begin all of this, pry the white door open on the iMac and see if the tray is colliding with anything.
Is this the original drive?
Alright, got the drive opening issue fixed, replaced the drive, installed 10.4 and upgraded to 10.4.11... still crashing whenever I go to do something, like using Safari or even going to update other software 
It's so frustrating! Any other ideas?
It's so frustrating! Any other ideas?
as you mentioned that the iMac runs fine before you update to 10.4.11
i doubt its a hardware problem at all ,as if it would be it would freeze on any OSX version
there had been some issues in the past with safari 3 freezing the whole Mac after the 10.4.11 update
so i suggest you reinstall tiger again 10.4.xx and do a permissions repair , then just and only click on software update and update EVERYTHING that comes up especially after the 10.4.11 so you have to click a lot of times software update , and when nothing comes up any more if you click software update (you get told too that there is nothing left to update ), then open safari again and see if its still freezing
and avoid installing any other third party software before its up to date as some can cause the freezing too (had in the past )
and DONT open anything else before your iMac is not fully updated as i had this problem when upgrading my mac mini from 10.3.9 to 10.4.4 and when i did the 10.4.11 combo safari 3 was crashing too and taking the whole mini with it , but running fine now without any hardware changes , the only thing i did was after upgrading from 10.3.9 to 10.4.4 a permissions repair and then did ALL the updates
i doubt its a hardware problem at all ,as if it would be it would freeze on any OSX version
there had been some issues in the past with safari 3 freezing the whole Mac after the 10.4.11 update
so i suggest you reinstall tiger again 10.4.xx and do a permissions repair , then just and only click on software update and update EVERYTHING that comes up especially after the 10.4.11 so you have to click a lot of times software update , and when nothing comes up any more if you click software update (you get told too that there is nothing left to update ), then open safari again and see if its still freezing
and avoid installing any other third party software before its up to date as some can cause the freezing too (had in the past )
and DONT open anything else before your iMac is not fully updated as i had this problem when upgrading my mac mini from 10.3.9 to 10.4.4 and when i did the 10.4.11 combo safari 3 was crashing too and taking the whole mini with it , but running fine now without any hardware changes , the only thing i did was after upgrading from 10.3.9 to 10.4.4 a permissions repair and then did ALL the updates