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PowerMac G4 Dual 1.42GHz Freezing Up

cocacolakid

cocacolakid

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 18, 2010
1,108
20
Chicago
I bought a PowerMac G4 Dual 1.42Ghz as a Christmas gift for my brother's family, who had just lost a Windows machine to a short. They do not have the money to buy a new computer, and this looked like a nice, $100 deal that could at the least get them time until they can afford something else. (And a cheap way to introduce them to a Mac)

PM arrived here, I intended to set up accounts for each family member and move their old music/photos from the Windows HD that I was able to save. The problem is that the PM is freezing up on me, three times in two days in very limited time on.

Last night it froze twice while simply browsing the web. It just froze, wouldn't respond, I had to pull the power plug. Today I decided to use it as my regular Mac for the day and see if anything happened. After a few hours I decided to watch a Tron trailer in Quicktime that I had downloaded. It played halfway and then froze again. I can understand a problem with video on an older Mac but the first two times it was simply on normal webpages.

Temps on the CPU are running 48-55 degrees Celsius. Even before the last lockup with the movie trailer I checked the temp with iStat and it was 55 as it was playing. I closed the dashboard, went back to the video and it froze.

Another issue I'm having, not sure if it's related, is the power button takes 3-5 pushes to get the Mac to turn on.

Does this sound like the dreaded power supply problem? How about the power button - is that the power switch having problems?

I picked this up for $100, I don't have more cash to put into it, but I can't give this as a belated gift in the condition it's currently in. It's running 10.5.8, has 2GB of RAM, the main HD is 380GB, plus another 380GB HD and a 120GB HD.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on what to do? Should I look into resetting the PRAM and VRAM? I'm not familiar with those but I see that as a common answer offered up on the forum to power supply problems.

Thanks for your help.
 
do you have any PCI addon card installed? remove it first, sometimes the addon cards causes freezing especially the USB where in it is not compatible.
 
Did you check to make sure the main CPU fan under the optical drives is running? What you're describing is much like what I saw on a MDD this summer that was freezing a lot. Also reset the PMU on it. Its a great machine if you can get it running properly. Also wouldn't hurt to run Tech Tool Delux or Apple Hardware Test on it if you've got em.
 
Nameci said:
do you have any PCI addon card installed? remove it first, sometimes the addon cards causes freezing especially the USB where in it is not compatible.
Click to expand...

It does have a USB 2.0 PCI card, I can try removing that and see what happens.

Hrududu, when I get time this weekend I'll also get it running and check to see if that fan is running. That sounds like it would be a cheap, simple fix. I do not have either of the test discs you mentioned.

I can already see that this is an excellent computer, it runs Leopard surprisingly well and it's still a very fast computer for a 7 year old. Just my guess but it seems like it runs circles around an old Pentium 4 3Ghz Sony I had a few years back.
 
Hrududu said:
Did you check to make sure the main CPU fan under the optical drives is running? What you're describing is much like what I saw on a MDD this summer that was freezing a lot. Also reset the PMU on it. Its a great machine if you can get it running properly. Also wouldn't hurt to run Tech Tool Delux or Apple Hardware Test on it if you've got em.
Click to expand...

I had a chance to play with the G4 for a couple of hours today. The main CPU fan is running. I reset the PMU. Then I ran it hard for a couple of hours, streaming video, adding songs to iTunes, browsing the web, and playing a video on the hard drive. No problems. Hopefully that fixed it, but the third time it froze up the other day it had been on for 5-6 hours before it had problems.
 
cocacolakid said:
I had a chance to play with the G4 for a couple of hours today. The main CPU fan is running. I reset the PMU. Then I ran it hard for a couple of hours, streaming video, adding songs to iTunes, browsing the web, and playing a video on the hard drive. No problems. Hopefully that fixed it, but the third time it froze up the other day it had been on for 5-6 hours before it had problems.
Click to expand...

You could try running NAP mode from Chud Tools (version 3.5.2 iirc) to make sure that the processor will run cooler when not fully in use. I did it on mine which is also a dual 1.42ghz and I rarely get over 50-53 degrees Celsius under full load.
 
raysfan81 said:
You could try running NAP mode from Chud Tools (version 3.5.2 iirc) to make sure that the processor will run cooler when not fully in use. I did it on mine which is also a dual 1.42ghz and I rarely get over 50-53 degrees Celsius under full load.
Click to expand...

I was running NAP mode when it froze up.
 
raysfan81 said:
There have been some reported compatibility issues if the wrong version is used but it will run quite solid if you get the right version. Are you still running it now?
Click to expand...

No, I shut it down after the G4 froze for the 3rd time. But with the holiday weekend I have only been on the G4 for two hours in the last 3 days. It didn't freeze up that day, but I need to spend some time on it this week to see what is what.

The version was 3.5.2.
 
cocacolakid said:
No, I shut it down after the G4 froze for the 3rd time. But with the holiday weekend I have only been on the G4 for two hours in the last 3 days. It didn't freeze up that day, but I need to spend some time on it this week to see what is what.

The version was 3.5.2.
Click to expand...


That should be the correct version. I don't know why it wouldn't work for you. Have you tried re-installing Leopard to see if that would fix your freezing problems?
 
I finally got time to get back to the G4. It froze up again after only 1 hr 20 mins today. I had to unplug it and restart it.

This time it froze while I was playing a song in iTunes (on the hd, not streaming), and opening a link in Firefox to Google Maps. The other 3 times it has frozen the same way, no response. The computer did not slow down or anything, it just suddenly locked up.

Restarted and everything seems fine for now (20 mins uptime so far).

Any other ideas? I can't give this as a gift if it keeps freezing up.
 
if you decide to give up...

I'd be interested in your MDD. I'm still running my MDD 1.2 for 90% of my work, and only use Illustrator and Photoshop on it... no itunes, web, animation, nothing. It's rock solid that way, it's when I try to get it to do more modern computing that it freaks out, darn thing hates new java sites. Anyway, an option. I'd even swap you a G5 dual 2.0 (needs power supply)...
 
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