Computer Crashes constantly!

Question

My G5 (dual 2.5ghz, 8GB of RAM) has been working perfectly until recently. It now crashes whenever I do something memory intensive in photoshop CS2. (change a big file from LAB to RGB, moving things around, printing to my fire wire printer) I work on 2GB files, but even my G3 laptop can process these files without crashing, even if it takes an hour.
I recently moved, and it started crashing after that. But around the same time I also installed CS2. However, I now crash in Photoshop CS1 as well. Did installing CS2 corrupt something that would mess up CS1 as well? The problem has gotten worse and worse to the point where I crash every 10 minutes. When I crash, my dual monitors go black. Sometimes if I unplug the monitors and plug them in again, they turn on, only to display a frozen screen.
G5 dual 2.5ghz   Mac OS X (10.3.9)   dual display

Answer 1

Hi there,
have you tried any sort of software/hardware tests on the machine? As there are many things to do to diagnose such a fault. Have you tried booting in Safe Mode (Hold Shift key at startup)? Have you tried creating & using another user account to test if you have a conflict or corrupt file in your Home > Library?
You could try running Disk Utility's 1st Aid Repair Permission function on your HD to see if that helps. If not, boot from your Install CD (Hold C key at startup) then when the installer opens go the the menu bar & click Open Disk Utility & click the Repair Disk button in 1st Aid - this will repair your system & if it says repaired or modified run it again until clear. Then reboot.
If that doesn't work try reseating your RAM incase your recent move disturbed them. If that still doesn't help any, run your Apple Hardware test CD to eliminate any hardware errors. You could also download an app called Memtest (or equivalent) to thoroughly test your RAM - as bad RAM can be the commonest reason for crashes. Plus you could try iStat Nano Widget to monitor your CPU temps - another common reason for crashes.
You could always reset your PRAM, NVRAM & SMU if you wanted.
Oh... & make sure you have a good backup! Try Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your HD if you need to - or just copy important data off. Also try Onyx (make sure its the version for your OS) for system maintenance.
Hope you can sort it.
Rory