My rev A. 1.6ghz G5 has been giving me a lot of bogus problems over the last month, mostly unrelated stuff, but now, this is TOO MUCH! My computer is, without being able to find a better word, SKIPPING. I did not believe this could happen, but evidentally I am wrong. I've had a few experiences where my computer just completely stops working for a few seconds at a time, mostly when I'm playing music or loading a file. It's not like it's just doing it's standard beach ball/program not responding dealy, literally the entire thing freezes, including the mouse and any music playing stops until the computer starts working properly again. It's not like I even have my hard drive bogged down or anything: it's pretty much empty and I keep my computer in good shape, fixing aliases and doing general OS maintenance.
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Is my G5 dying?
- Thread starter supergod
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Sounds like you need to replace the hard drive. If you can get your hands on a SATA hard drive than see if you can install OS X on it and then boot from it and see if your problems go away.
OR
If you have an external FW HDD then install OS X on it and boot the your external FW HDD and see if your problems go away.
OR
If you have an external FW HDD then install OS X on it and boot the your external FW HDD and see if your problems go away.
It's quite obviously not a hard drive problem. The cursor would still move, music would (probably) still play. The giveaway here is the cursor freezing, which is very rare for OS X.
You've got some logic board problems there... Have Apple start replacing things until it works again.
paul
You've got some logic board problems there... Have Apple start replacing things until it works again.
paul
Yeah, I was worried that the problem was probably from the logic board but just couldn't force myself to admit it. I've been having so many problems that at first appeared to be logic board and then were fixed, like my audio was being outputted full volume to speakers even when the volume was set to minimum but I was able to fix that... guess I'll see what some of the Apple Resellers say about it.
Before you start bugging Apple, you should try doing an archive install of the OS, the problem might be in software.
Yeah, I installed the uniprocessor update and I'm now pretty sure this doesn't stem from software. I just wanted to know if there was any other kind of hardware problem that could be causing this other than the logic board or if there was something that could be contributing to the problem? I'm definitely not going to bug Apple, I hate dealing with them, especially in Canada, so I'm going to see what some local resellers think.
paulwhannel said:
Its not all that obvious....when a hard drive starts to go bad it will cause everything to skip, including the mouse. Its worth a shot to plug in an external HD and boot from it and see if the problem still exists.
Its a little thing called troubleshooting...you should try it sometime!
I don't think there's anything wrong with the power supply. Now, on top of the total freezing with cursor and HD and OS, I'm experiencing almost constant HD hickups listening to music and opening apps. This is just silly: my HD of 80 gigs max is at 16 gigs! My computer is kept in perfect condition and yet it's starting to run like a PC!
It sounds like your Processors are being used up to the max, have you checked for viruses or spyware or that. I mean yeah, its probably the logic board, but still viruses try to gobble up all the processor speed you have (I've had one before on a PC, the worst thing to ever happen, couldn't run anything, listen to music, or even travel the internet.) If all else fails, redo the whole hard drive. And make a seperate partition (5G's) for OS X. That sounds pretty good. Or should he make it bigger?
Although this could definitely be caused by a hardware problem, I and others have seen something EXACTLY like what you describe, and it's a software issue that Apple has yet to fix.supergod said:
Very specifically, there are some programs that make use of heavy networking in Java--the Azureus BitTorrent client is the best known one I'm aware of--that cause, due to some fairly low-level bug, the OS to stall for between a few seconds and a minute or more. This can also cause kernel panics or total, irrecoverable freezes.
That problem with Java networking is, so far as I've read, only present on dual processor machines, which you don't have. However, I've also read in some recent MacFixit and MacInTouch reports (you might look for them if you're a subscriber) that some other non-Java programs may expose a very similar bug, and the combination of iTunes (particularly with a big library) and heavy networking is mentioned more than once. It's worth looking into, at least:
http://www.macintouch.com/itunes22.html
If this is the issue you're having, a reinstall or the latest single-processor firmware could help, though I don't remember any particularly promising fixes; try reading through the MacInTouch report and see if it sounds familiar or if there are any useful suggestions.
supergod said:
Dang. I promised myself I was going to go into passive mode the rest of the night while I browsed from bed but I have to in this case. Do you have Apple Care? If so use it! Call up Apple. That is what their tech support is there for.
If you dont have Apple care WHY?!?!?!
This is a Mac we are talking about here. Under normal circumstances Id say you wouldnt need extended warrantee on a desktop but from what Ive read over the last year and a half on this board. I wouldnt buy a power supply cable for a desktop from Apple without Apple Care.
SiliconAddict said:Dang. I promised myself I was going to go into passive mode the rest of the night while I browsed from bed but I have to in this case. Do you have Apple Care? If so use it! Call up Apple. That is what their tech support is there for.
If you dont have Apple care WHY?!?!?!
I love you siggy btw, but also I can't believe that I was about the buy an iBook without applecare. I have yet to buy that laptop, but hey, I know now to get applecare nmw (no matter what). Thats probably the cheapest things for your problems. Hey if you bought upgrades, would they do it for you if you sent it in w/all of the stuff?