PowerMac Quick Silver help, please

[Redneck1089]

I have an old dual 1 Ghz PowerMac (Quick Silver) and for some time now I have been experiencing OS crashes. Lately it has been crashing 2-4 times a day. What happens is I'll be using the computer, or it will just be left on with no one using it, and a black window will pop up in the middle of the screen saying to force shut down the computer by holding the power button.

I figured this might be caused by some messed up files or something in the OS, so I wiped the hard drive and did a clean install of OS X. It still crashes.
Could it possibly be the hard drive which is failing?

Sometimes the computer also lets out a weird "beep" sound which is quite loud and then just shuts off. I thought that might be related to a high operating temperature, but I am not sure. The computer is not right up against a wall or in a room that's really hot.


I'm wondering if I should purchase a new hard drive and then just reinstall OS X yet again, or if I should just purchase an all new Mac Pro at this point.

If I purhchase a new hard drive for it and find it doesn't help, can I transfer the hard drive to the new Mac Pro, or my other G5 PowerMac?

 

[Angrist]

Sounds like RAM.

Run something like memtestosx or the apple hardware test CD to see for sure. Otherwise, pull the RAM sticks one at a time and try to isolate the problem.

 

[TheAnswer]

First off, check to make sure the case is closed correctly and not crimping any wires (loose wire from a hard drive bay, for example). The RAM issues brought up above could also be a problem.

To check your machine's temperature, download this... a Macrumors thread dedicated to temperature is here...compare yours with similar machines see if yours is normal/abnormal.

 

[Mr. MacBook]

oo that sucks

 

[Redneck1089]

Thanks everyone. I'll try all that.

 

[RGunner]

my vote is a failing CPU module

the QS 1GHz seem to have CPU card issues, mostly related to heat.

if ram checks out (and I would troubleshoot that first), then have an Apple store run overnight tests on the CPU using their 'better' AHT program.