Dashboard (Widget) turning ON/OFF automatically...Please Help!!

Question

Everything was working fine yesterday...
I don't know if these two events are related, but today when I turned ON my computer and tried logging online I saw that Comcast had turned OFF my Internet Connection because of a late payment. Moments latter, after I made the payment and got my internet re-connected again this started happening...
I logged online and for a minute or so it was fine, then all of a sudden there was a weird brief moment were I did not have any control over my computer... I thought something was being installed without my consent. So I tried logging OFF but the computer was Frozen, So I Shut down the computer manually using the ON/OFF button on my Display.... I don't remember exactly all the details of what else I did, but a few minutes latter I turned my computer back ON...
My (Widget) dashboard window and the Volume Indicator started turning ON/OFF automatically. And now it's happening every few minutes and I can't control it.
If I'm on my Desktop screen the Finder Window pops open prompting me: "you can not use the name that begins with Dot." The Keyboard keys Freeze and I have to randomly hit a bunch of keys or shut the computer down to use it again. As I was typing this email it would interrupt it and add one of these numbers (.0 or 3) to were ever the cursor was currently at. The mouse seams to work OK, but sometimes it freezes too.
And, If I'm online the browser would freeze whenever the Widget application automatically started turning ON/OFF on the screen.
Here are things I tried that I thought would fix it:
1. I trashed the widget preferences from my User/Library.
2. I trashed the widgets I thought were causing the problem.
3. After the above did not work, I trashed the Dashboard Widget Application thinking it would be Deleted out of my computer. Unfortunately that did not fix the problem... I found out that the Widget dashboard Application is still somewhere in the sub layer of the system.
I don't know what is going on and need some help here...
So, can anyone Please help me out.. any Step by Step instructions would be greatly appreciated.
-Frank
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Answer 1

Hi Frank, Welcome to Apple Discussions.
First thing I'd do is Run Repair Disk from your Tiger DVD or discs that shipped with your Mac.
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair.
If you repair errors run it until no errors found.
Next, I'd try to repair this with 10.4.9 PPC Combo Update.
This is a fuller install, as opposed to an incremental "delta" update so it should overwrite any files that are damaged or missing. It does not matter if you have applied it before. It has worked well for many.
Remember to Verify Disk before update and repair permissions after update from /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.
Good luck, let us know.
-mj
[email protected]