OS X v.10.4.11 incredibly sluggish, crashing often after recent upgrades.

Question

About two months ago I upgraded my +15" Powerbook G4+'s stock-RAM from the factory issue 500-something KB card by swapping it out for *2GB of Kingston DDR2 SD RAM*. It was a quick, by the book swap. And almost immediately the computer was faster, less bogged down for usable memory, and could handle multiple applications with greater ease.
BUT after a week or so I began getting this crash message (link is safe, just a screencap of error message): *http://i40.tinypic.com/sq175j.jpg*. +The computer would freeze and demand to be manually shut down and restarted+. Once it was turned back on, the computer would display a "Report Error Message" saying that OS X had unexpectedly crashed.
My computer went out of warranty back in December, so I'm trying to troubleshoot this on my own. I'm not sure if the crashing is increasing in frequency or not, it certainly doesn't follow any recognizable pattern as far as when it crashes (as far as how many programs I'm running or how many processes I'm operating with). Usually I'm only using 30% of RAM, but the computer sounds likes it's working at 85-95%, getting incredibly hot and beginning to slow - then crashing.
I've considered moving all of my files to my external HD and reinstalling OS X 4.11, I've also considered saving some $ and upgrading to 10.5.6 (Leopard). If anyone has any experience with this issue or something like it, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Northwarda, and a warm welcome to the forums!
First question, how much free space do you have on your Hard Drive?
Second, Boot off your Install Disk while holding down the *d key*, (not c key), then run the extended Apple Hardware Test. Some disks require you to use the Option key at bootup to select AHT. Some models have a separate AHT CD.
Thirdly...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Tiger 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. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then try a Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)
The usual reason why updates fail or mess things up, is if Permissions are not fixed before & after every update, with a reboot... you may get a partial update when the installer finds it doesn't have Permissions to change one obscure little part of the OS, leaving you with a mix of OS versions.
Some people get away without Repairing Permissions for years, some for only days.
If Permissions are wrong before applying an update, you could get mixed OS versions, if Directory is the slightest messed up, who knows!
If many Permission are repaired, or any Directory errors are found, you may need to re-apply some the latest/biggest updates.
May even need to do an Archive and Install if you have room on the HD, but saves all your files and gives a new OS...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
I only use Software Update to see what is needed, then get them for real via...
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
That way I can wait a week or so, check the forums for potential problems, and get Permissions & such in order before installing.
If all the above fails, then it appears to be time for a relatively painless Archive & Install, which gives you a new/old OS, but can preserve all your files, pics, music, settings, etc., as long as you have plenty of free disk space and no Disk corruption, and is relatively quick & painless...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107120
Just be sure to select Preserve Users & Settings.