Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 freezes up, Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 freezes up

Hello
I inherited a Dual 2.5 PPC Power Mac G5 from my sister. She was having problems with it suddenly freezing up. She replaced the hard drive but that didn't fix it, and sicne she had a newer Macbook Pro she gave up on it. When I got it I replaced the video card on it with an ATI Radeon, and it seemed to run fine for a while, and then the problem returned. It seemed to have returned after I did all the Apple software upgrades on it (It's running Leopard), but that might be a coincidence. I noticed under Diagnostics on the power up test that some RAM had failed. I also noticed that it was running on 1 gb of RAM even though 2 gb were installed. I removed the faulty Ram (4 256 mb dimms) and hoped that that was the problem. Unfortunately it wasn't. I also installed a temperture reading program. It showed that CPU A is running around 80 C at times and is usually about 10C hotter than CPU B. I'm not sure though if 80C is normal for a G5 or not. I noticed that when it was unplugged that it wouldn't retain the time and date, and took a look at the battery, and sure enough it was starting to leak (but hadn't leaked on to any components). I've ordered a new bttery for it.
I ran a check with Disk Utility and found the HD was ok, but permissions were a bit messed up. Disk Utility wasn't able to fix some of the permissions, but i don't think this is the underlying problem.
I've also opened it and gave everything a thourough vacuuming and cleaning and reseated any removable parts. I took the cover off the liquid cooling unit and vacuumed out the dust. There didn;t seem to be any coolant leaks I could see.
Any suggestions on where I should go from here? I unfortuantely don't have any of the disks for it, so I can't run the AHT until I find one for it (the one for my Macbook Pro wouldn't work).
Sometimes it just freezes. Other times it freezes and the computer fans go on high. It will finally get to a point where it shows the grey multi-language restart screen (where it says to hold down the button to shut it off and the restart).
It was frustrating because on my workbench it was running fine after I switched the video card, and it didn't freeze at all. When I moved it to our computer desk though, the problems returned. Tonight it was to the point where it didn't last 5 minutes.
My thoughts are:
1. Maybe All the RAM is bad
2. Maybe the dead battery is messing it up?
3. When it is heating up with use, something is expanding and not connecting any longer.
What are your thoughts?

Hi Curtis,
I'm not sure though if 80C is normal for a G5 or not. I noticed that when it was unplugged that it wouldn't retain the time
Nope, not normal, way too hot, above 70°C... If you have any temps in the 70°C/160°F range, that's likely it.
Have you blown the dust out of everything with high pressure air?\
1. Maybe All the RAM is bad
The Memory test can really only be trusted if it finds a problem, not if it doesn't find a problem.
Memtest OS X...
http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php
Rember is a freeware GUI for the memtest ...
http://tech.kateva.org/2005/10/rember-freeware-memory-test-utility.html
If you're sure the RAM is good, try the Hair Dryer trick...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13240047#13240047
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15223603#15223603
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15499912#15499912
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15613068#15613068
It can show on any G5, and even many other computers & electronic devices of the period.
http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/pmg5.html
http://lowendmac.com/ppc/power-macintosh-g5.html
2. Maybe the dead battery is messing it up?
Might be time to replace the PRAM Battery, 4 years is close to their lifespan, far less if ever without AC power, & can cause strange startup problems, thoigh not once vooted as a rule...
See which one your G5 has...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/CR2032/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/
3. When it is heating up with use, something is expanding and not connecting any longer.
Could be the lead free solder issue with the RAM slot, and/or the thermal paste between CPUs & heatsinks need replacing...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16223700#16223700

Similar Messages

Power Mac G5 Dual Core freezing

Hi,
Everything works fine with my G5 with 4GB RAM, except one thing:
Sometimes when I work for a long time, my mouse justs freeze,
The red light near the RAM slots appears and the fans start being noisy ! (LED 7—Checkstop: red—contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider)
I reboot and all just works fine until the next freeze
I ran Hardware test and apple diagnotics many times but all the tests including the ram test passed successfully.
It happens like 1 or 2 time by day. I couldn't identify the cause or the frequency of the problem (maybe Eyetv usb box, or a spécific app that causes the computer freezing ??? !)
Thanks for the help !
Power Mac G5 Dual Core 2,3 Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Curiously - we have two new Dual 2.3 G5s and they exhibit this same behavior. Suddenly freezing - and not necessarily while we have a lot of apps running. iTunes is always going in the background though. I'll start monitoring the temps on these machines and we'll see what happens. Does anyone know of a menubar app that might display CPU temp on the fly? Could be useful if we see a spike in temperature and then a crash.
One notable thing though, when it does crash, it crashes hard. Everything freezes, the audio (since iTunes is usually running) begins to skip on the last section of the track it was playing, sort of like a skipping record - only much faster. It also appears to have happened to one of the machines last night while it was asleep. I came in the morning the the fans were going crazy - and yes, the little red LED was on. What does that mean?
Dual 2.3 PM G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 4 GB RAM, etc.
iMac Intel Core Duo 20" Mac OS X (10.4.6) iBook G4, iBook G3, iPod Video 30GB, iPod Nano 2GB, iPod Mini, 2G iPod 20G

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.3 freezing from Archive Install of Leopard from Tiger

Just archived and installed Leopard from Tiger 10.4.10 and on all our Macs, but our only PPC system is having serious issues. The system boots up fine, faster than before, however the Finder and desktop freeze when booting into any of the two user accounts. Applications run from the dock, but the Menu Bar isn't loading fully (airport, bluetooth, clock, etc don't load). I have run Activity Monitor from the Dock and systemuiserver and finder both freeze. I have reset the PRAM and NVRAM, and in the one instance I was able to get into the files I deleted the systemuiserver and powermanagement plist's.
Upon many hours of research with Apple and at home, nothing seems to be the solution. If I can't resolve this I may have to install a copy of Tiger (or Leopard) on an external HDD, boot and attempt data recovery from the main HDD (if nothing is locked) as a lot of Quicken 2007 files are needed and perform a clean install. If any one is able to give any help I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
Also, the Power Mac G5 is Dual 2.3 late 2005 model (specs: http://support.apple.com/specs/powermac/PowerMac_G5_Late2005.html ), with 1 GB RAM, ViewSonic VGA monitor, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT with 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM, Airport + Bluetooth, and wired keyboard and mouse. Thanks again!

k7 wrote:
So, would you recommend to people having this same system (as I do) to wait for installing Leopard or maybe to take some precautions?
I would either:
A) Wait until 10.5.1 has been released (which may address such issues)
B) Take serious precautions. Back everything you need onto a separate HD and perform a clean install (which formats your HD), then move everything copied back into the system to ensure no data is lost and nothing corruptible is carried over into Leopard.
Performing the clean install seemed to take care of any conflicts and issues, but means more time will be spent manually backing up and reloading all personal data.
Hope this helps and good luck.

Power Mac Dual G5 (March '04) freezes after disk reformat & Tiger Reinstall

Looking for some help ... read many of the G5 related threads but not sure what to do next.
Within the last month or two the machine started just shutting itself down (at first I thought the kids were doing it!) - it would also just freeze up. But it only happend once a week or so.
Then it happend more frequently ... long story short, since I have a full back I reformated the drive and tried re-installing the O/S. On the first attempt it did not make it through the install, it hung on checking the DVD. So I let it sit and the following evening, I tried it again. And it actually installed, then I ran the software update and the first set of updates went fine - and I rebooted. I then went to run additional software updates from apple and it hung. I rebooted, and now it hangs again after a few minutes.
I did run the hardware diagnostic from the CD, which ran for a little over two hours - but everything checked out.
What could be the problem. Both CPU's are running??? All the RAM (4 Gigs) was factory installed.
Thanks for any help... I am keeping the family happy with my old iMac (the one that looks like a lamp) - running Tiger that friggin machine still rocks!
Cheers,
Tom

Hi Curtis,
I'm not sure though if 80C is normal for a G5 or not. I noticed that when it was unplugged that it wouldn't retain the time
Nope, not normal, way too hot, above 70°C... If you have any temps in the 70°C/160°F range, that's likely it.
Have you blown the dust out of everything with high pressure air?\
1. Maybe All the RAM is bad
The Memory test can really only be trusted if it finds a problem, not if it doesn't find a problem.
Memtest OS X...
http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php
Rember is a freeware GUI for the memtest ...
http://tech.kateva.org/2005/10/rember-freeware-memory-test-utility.html
If you're sure the RAM is good, try the Hair Dryer trick...
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=13240047#13240047
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15223603#15223603
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15499912#15499912
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15613068#15613068
It can show on any G5, and even many other computers & electronic devices of the period.
http://www.macintouch.com/reliability/pmg5.html
http://lowendmac.com/ppc/power-macintosh-g5.html
2. Maybe the dead battery is messing it up?
Might be time to replace the PRAM Battery, 4 years is close to their lifespan, far less if ever without AC power, & can cause strange startup problems, thoigh not once vooted as a rule...
See which one your G5 has...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/CR2032/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/BAA36VPRAM/
3. When it is heating up with use, something is expanding and not connecting any longer.
Could be the lead free solder issue with the RAM slot, and/or the thermal paste between CPUs & heatsinks need replacing...
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16223700#16223700

Please help new to macs and my recently purchased power mac keeps freezing :-(

Hi apple community!
I recently purchased a power mac g5
Specs;
G5 power mac dual core (2.0)
Power pc 970 mp
Late 2005
I don't have an apple mouse/keyboard
I just use $40 wireless mouse keyboard.
Upon purchase everything seemed to work as it should....booted up, open and closing apps without freezing.
However I never had it connected to the Internet when I navigated through system.
I got it home and installed a 1 tb harddrive (WD mainstream desktop) from future shop. When I installed it in tower I had to buy a sata 2.0 cable as there was not one available for use. Booted up fine and installation went as my research said it should. Turned it on next day....
Tried to update iTunes and this is where it started actin up. First just froze had to turn off, second time wouldn't even boot up plus fans went into overdrive. Third forth fifth sixth boots fans sometimes kick in, now whenever I try to do any kind of action it freezes. (Only when I click something)
I read about possible power suppy issue, so I plugged tower and monitor into seperAte plugs,
They may however be in same circuit because they at in the same wall...would a power conditioner fix this?
Anyway still froze on any action tried...just opened disk drive...opened then frooze...?
Anybody have any ideas??
Please help
Not sure if this is correct OS ( looked up using serial #)
Max operating system OSX 10.5.8 leaporad
Earliest supported OSX version ; 10.4.2 tiger.

Sorry for the late reply. I want to thank you for taking the time to help me.
Not sure exactally where I could get something like this your speaking of.
Update; I have removed the harddrive and will most
Likely just use an external one, if the computer will even work.
I ended up taking it in to geeksquad at best buy, they had it for 3 days and also told me after the fact that neither of the techs working on it knew much about macs :-( needless to say I requested my
Money back due to the fact that the service I paid for could not be completed and literally couldn't tell me anything more than what's below.
They told me that they could not dock it with thier diagnostic machine, kept restarting on them and the one fella said it was overheating but had no idea why. When I brought it home again I tried it once more computer boots up to desktop as usual, this time had a asterisk window saying " the computer was restarted after mac OSX quit unexpectedly" however my cursor was again locked in the top left of the screen. Would not move, so I could not view the report, shortly after fans kicked into overdrive. I'm losing hope for this machine rapidly. I'm all ears when it comes to anything I may be able to do.
Should I try an actual apple keyboard/mouse just to eliminate that possible?
If you have ideas AWSOME, If not, no worries, ill take it into the mac store and see what they say
P.s the machine is clean inside little to no dust and the tech said he was going to clean it out, hard to tell if he did because it was clean clean before I brought it to him.
Thanks again for the help you have given me so far and in the future
I look forward to hearing back
Sincerally
Al

Power Mac G5 is freezing....HD not mounting......

Okay, so for the last few days my Power Mac G5 Dual 2.0 has been a bit sluggish to say the least. When switching quickly from iTunes to Safari it will pause for a second or two and then spin that lovely little beach ball for about 5 seconds.
Last night I was playing a game (World of Warcraft) and it locked up when I switched to iTunes. At first it was just WOW then after about 15 seconds the whole computer locked up. I shut down and restarted.
That went on all night. Every hour or so. This morning the same thing would happen. The program I am on will lock up, but the mouse will still work. I can switch to another program. Then the whole thing locks up and I have to shut down.
The real problem came when upon rebooting I came to the grey apple screen and it just sat there. And sat there. And then it went to a blank blue screen. After 5-10 minutes it booted only to freeze up once I tried to close iChat that starts upon rebooting.
I tried installing any patches thinking that might fix the problem. I got an error message saying "Cannot install "/" folder".
I got on these discussion boards and tried the verify/repair disk method. I got two different error messages and whether I was verifying or repairing it would fail.
The first message is "Error: File system verify or repair failed" and somewhere in the message is says "Invalid Node Structure"
The second error message said "underlying task reported failure upon exit"
I am not sure what I need to do. I really want to get this fixed so that I can at least get my files off the Seagate 1TB that is my boot drive. Thankfully I have the boot drive I had with 10.4.9 so I can still use the computer.
If it makes a difference, I have the same problem when running programs in 10.4.9 but not as bad. I just have to be careful not to be running two RAM intense apps at the same time.
Any help that you can give me would be greatly appreciated. I would love to keep this computer working for several more years.
Incidentally, what do you guys think I should do if it comes to this: buy a new iMac or buy a G5 Quad? Just in case I have to make that choice.

Are the malfunctions because of the problem that Seagate has with the HDs?
Yes, the malfunction with DiskWarrior is due to the bad firmware of the Seagate.
My sister just got a new mac book. Will that work for what I need to do to connect it to my computer?
I think, at a minimum, you will need to remove the hard drive from the G5, and put it into an external enclosure to do the flash. I don't know if it will work or not. #6 of the following "How to" is why I think it may not work with the Macbook and external housing.
Because of this, I recommend contacting Seagate, or finding someone with the right machine.
Here is a How to from a Mac Pro user:
1. Get the firmware:
Seagate link for the 750/1TB 7200.11 drives:(if you look in Seagate forums you will find a few others for smaller drives).
http://www2.uwants.com/viewthread.php?tid=7524956&extra=page%3D1
For the ES2 much trickier as they pulled it even though it was released, possibly unrelated to this issue in December. Who knows?
I found it here though:
http://www2.uwants.com/viewthread.php?tid=7524956&extra=page%3D1
2. Download the zip to get to the ISO files.
3. Use Disk Utility to burn the ISO to CD. Takes seconds, they are really tiny.
4. Don't confuse which ISO is which. The names help but do one at a time. They both have "Moose" in the name, no idea who Moose is. The ISO for ES.2 is called ES2SN06B-3D4DMoose.ISO and for 7200.11 it is MooseDT-SD1A-3D4D-16-32MB.ISO
5. Put the CD in the IDE (native) DVD drive BEFORE shutting down. Firewire won't work (as I discovered). Nor the eject button.
*6. Remove ALL SATA drives from the Mac Pro. If you have an external array disconnect it. Firewire, USB disconnect them ALL.*
7. Use the sled from Drive 1 to put your pooched Seagate drive in Drive Slot 1. Not 2, 3, or 4, only 1.
8. Start up and press option at the bong, there will be a CD Windows disk to select as the boot disk. Select it.
9. FreeDOS starts up. Press F10 to get past the bumpf.
10. The Seagate utility starts. First select "S" to scan. Make sure the drive is matched to the ISO you burned.
11. There will be 2 or 3 firmwares listed. PICK THE RIGHT ONE and select A B C as the case may be.
12. Let it work, maybe one minute. Note the actual working differs a bit for the 7200.11 vs. ES.2 but it is clear what is going on.
13. When it says cycle the power, do that. Press the power button to power down.
14. Reboot from the CD again. Get to the updater and press "S" again, confirm the firmware. For 7200.11 it goes from SD15 to SD1A. For the ES.2 it goes from in my case SN03 to SN06.
15. Press Z to exit and power down.
16. Repeat in my case 5 times. Remember if you are doing 7200.11 and ES.2 at some point you will have to put in a bootable OSX drive, reboot, just to open the DVD drive to switch CD's to the right image. A right pain in the tuckes.
17. So far all work fine, System Profiler reports the new FW version, all the data (they were all blank but were formatted and named) is still there and the all copy files fine.
At some point the official SN06 firmware will appear, I assume. The problem with Seagate is the 7200.11 files are being hosted at the link but they want you to write for the ES.2 drives and then they do not respond, e-mail or trouble tickets. I had no problems, you may want to wait for them to post the SN06 firmware updater if they ever do.
Thanks to Ricktoronto for the How to.

Power Mac g4 freezes up when put in sleep mode

Hello. So the machine has had a lot of changes but the problem just started a couple days ago, before that I was going into sleep mode just fine with no problems. The problem is when the computer goes to sleep it freezes, the screen goes black but the fan and hard drive are still going and the light never turns to the flashing amber. What's more I'm unable to wake it up or use the keyboard restart command. The only way to restart or shutdown are the buttons on the tower. So I've turned power saver off and now have just resorted to shutting down when it's not in use but that's pretty bad in the long run.
Any ideas on what may have started causing this? Like I said it's beem working perfectly for a while now.
Here's info on the machine
I'm running a modified AGP G4 stats as follows:
Machine Name: Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics)
Machine Model: PowerMac3,1
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (3.3) (Power Logix dual 1.3)
Number Of CPUs: 2
CPU Speed: 1.3 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 256 KB
L3 Cache (per CPU): 2 MB
Memory: 1.75 GB
Bus Speed: 100 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.2.8f1
System Version: Mac OS X 10.4.9 (8P135)
Kernel Version: Darwin 8.9.0
Classic 9.2.2
ATI Radeon 9200:
Chipset Model: ATY,RV280
Type: Display
Bus: AGP
Slot: SLOT-A
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x5960
Revision ID: 0x0001
ROM Revision: 113-A27502-124
Displays:
SyncMaster:
Resolution: 1440 x 900 @ 60 Hz
Depth: 32-bit Color
Core Image: Not Supported
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display:
Status: No display connected
ATA ST3200822A:
Capacity: 186.31 GB
Manufacturer: ATA
Model: ST3200822A
Revision:
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: Yes
SCSI Target Identifier: 1
SCSI Logical Unit Identifier: 0
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
I also have a 60 gig HD installed which is currently not being used
Thanks again in advance.
Aaron

Did you install a USB 2.0 PCI card and do you leave bus-powered devices connected to it, when the computer goes into sleep mode? There have been many reported sleep issues associated with USB 2.0 cards in the G4s. What name is printed on the main controller chip (sometimes it's hidden by the card manufacturer's label)? The consensus of opinion is that USB 2.0 cards with an NEC chip tend to have fewer problems. Additionally, it's a good practice to disconnect the bus-powered devices from the card, prior to letting the computer go into sleep mode.

Power Mac Freezes

Hello All! Does anyone have any information on why the Power Mac G5 2.5, freezes so much... What sort of recommended preventive maintenance should I do? Will adding more ram help? Three months ago the original hard drive decided that it was not going to run anymore LOL. Oh what a mission it was, apple support instructed me with wrong information.... The good thing was, that I managed to save a great deal of my files with out Apples help. And now to my new deli-ma; I operate Maya on this computer, and it started to freeze up to the point that the only thing responding was the curser, and nothing else... Had to shut the computer and pray that it would start up with no problems, which it did. So now, what can I do next!
Thanks!
Pixel423

Don't discount the possibility of a bad video card. I have dual monitors running on an ATI Radeon Pro 9800. I started having random shutdowns when passing windows between montors, or sometimes even opening Firefox. Other times, the computer would be up for several days without incident.
My shutdowns produced NONE of the crash logs that people have posted here though.
The process for shutdowns usually included an appearance by the System Preferences/Monitors pane just prior to the machine shutting down.
I recently placed a spare video card (a Radeon 7000) inside the G5 and plugged my 2nd monitor there and VIOLA the shutdowns have stopped. I still get the System Pref/monitors pane... but am allowed to shut it down without the machine going POOF!
I'm planning on purchasing a new video card and hoping that it solves the issue.
I don't doubt that a failed power supply could be the issue for some people... but I've also heard from too many people that the replacement PS didn't solve the issue.

Power Mac G5 Dual Core Screen Goes Black Randomly But Seems To Still Be Running. I have to Force Quit

I totally just typed way to much info in the title.
In any event, my G5 Dual Core's(late 2005) screen will randomly go black with out notice. Its happend while designing in illistrator and also while browsing google(primarly the use of my comp is graphic design). The fans stay on and it sounds to still be fully running however the screen will not wake up and if i tap the power button it doesnt wake up either. I reset the "PRAM" while booting up, i toggled my screen saver/power saver also so its "never".
I thought the HD was faulty cause it sounds like a light saber at times... I figured the OS was crashing(im ingorant) so I bought a new one and more ram as well. I've installed the HD and am waiting for 10.3 OS to get here in hopes that the new HD and OS will not crash(again that was my educated guess as to what the issue was).
Is it a video card issue? faulty cable you think(VGA to DVI 17" Samsung)?
Thanks so much in advance for any and all feed back along with the patience of a newbie to the forum/community world.
-KRAWSH

Hello,
Have you blown the dust out of it lately, especially the Video card, Power Supply, & RAM areas?
Get Temperature Monitor to see if it's heat related...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381/temperature-monitor
iStat Menus...
http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
And/or iStat Pro...
http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/
If you have any temps in the 70°C/160°F range, that's likely it.

I downloaded the new Firefox but it constantly freezes, doing absolutely nothing, and I can't even close it from my Mac dock bar, I have to turn off my laptop using the power button as Firefox won't let me shut down. What can I do?

Hi
I recently downloaded the new Firefox (Firefox 4, I think - you can tell I'm very tech savvy!) and it constantly freezes, I can't do anything with it at all - I can't even close it from the icon in my Mac dock bar.
I have tried restarting my computer - though I have to turn it off by using the power button as as Firefox is open and totally unresponsive it won't let me shut down. About a minute after re-starting Firefox, restoring my tabs or starting afresh, it freezes again.
This is obviously very annoying and I'm not sure what I can do about it. Firefox is my preferred browser, and I'd really like to be able to use it again!

This is not a reply. I just want to elaborate on this problem.
My computer freezes occasionally when it is used after being sleep for a while. The spinning ball appears and everything is totally disabled. Nothing on the keyboard works.
The mouse moves, but does not work.
The only solution is to turn the power off and on (losing all data in open applications.)
I kept the System monitor running on the side to find out which program was running when the computer froze. The Monitor as well as all other applications froze, but the data showed:
Firefox 18.4%
Activity Monitor 0.9%
Firefox Plugin 0.2%
This is all the information I have. By the way, I am using iMac with OS 10.6.

My Power Mac G5 is freezing up. A few days ago my G5 started freezing up, the cursor is unresponsive and none of the keys have any use. I have to press the power button to shut down and then restart. Sometimes on the restart, instead of the Apple logo I g

A few days ago my G5 started to freeze up while in use. It doesn't matter if in Safari, iTunes, Pages, etc. The cursor will not respond nor does any keystroke, force quit, escape, etc. I have to hold the power button down to shut the computer down. Then, try to restart. Sometimes restart will work and the computer will work for a while and then freeze again. Other times on restart, instead of the Apple logo at start up, I get a Zero with a line thru it, have to power off and restart again. When it does restart, the "spinning gear" takes a lot longer than normal to spin up and take me to the login screen. Have been told it may be my hard drive getting ready to fail. Have looked at disk utilities, S.M.A.R.T looks fine, "verified" and have verified disk, and repaired permissions. In case it is the hard drive, I bought external hard drive and hooked it up to Time Machine. The backing up to a long time, overnight, about 10 hours because it kept freexing up and I would have to shut down and try restarting again. Finally got everything backed up.
Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated!!! Could it be my hard drive is dying? Is the the normal chain of events or is it something else???

Ok, to copy the Drive from one to another, get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Or SuperDuper...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/
Believe it or not, anything on the Desktop uses 3 times the Resources of the Mac than if stored elsewhere, I can note a slowdown from just 30 items on the Desktop on a really fast Mac, so the less the better on the Desktop.
DW will not tell you about Bad Sectors, it's just the very best at Repair Directory damage & such.
At this point I think you should get Applejack...
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667/applejack
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 6 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 6 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
Trash old Log files.
First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files! :-)
Disconnect the USB cable from any Uninterruptible Power Supply so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.

ITunes Freezes my Mac Mini - Power Cycle Required

Hi,
If I leave my Mac unattended for long periods of time with iTunes open (whether playing music (it helps negate my tinitus) or not), my machine becomes completely frozen and needs to be powered down. If I leave it without iTunes open, it does not freeze.
So I'm depserately looking for a solution. I've tried repairing the permissions, re-installing iTunes, removing screensavers and changing my power settings but nothing seems to have made a difference. There are no logs reporting problems either.
Does anybody have any idea what I can do to remedy this? There are no other problems with my computer (none that I am aware of).
Most of my music is on an external USB drive (MP3 brought over from Windows) and the rest is on my main personal folder. I have about 20Gb free on my main system drive.
Thanks in advance

I think the newest iTunes is a bit buggy. I have those complete system freezes if I start some movies one after another for testing purposes. All goes well unti film 3 or 4 and then the whole MBP stalls. Only help - reboot.
Another thing: every movie or TV show stalls after a certain time for some moments and jumps forward some seconds. After that stall, all runs OK, only some seconds later a short stuttering is noticeable.
I have a very large audio library on a external drive as primary drive. I leave the movies on another external drive w(o copying to the primary drive. So I just think, iTunes is stretched to its limit and has memory problems. The iPod classic 160 had those in the first weeks after its appearance, too. Lots of people with large libraries exchanged their iPods w/o effect. I was patient and now at least that works fine.
mk

Power Mac G4 (FW800) freezes often, with an occasional kernel panic

I recently purchased a Power Mac G4 (FW800) on eBay for $160, minus a hard drive and stock video card, along with a hard drive cage.
Since I opened the box it came in late Saturday night, the lovely machine has constantly stalled, crashed, and for a while, I received kernel panics left and right-in fact, I had one today, but it was the text version (unlike the visual kernel panic, which is the kernel panic seen in OS X 10.2+, and I have 10.4.11 running on this machine).
Often, if I multitask, import music on iTunes, or do intense activity, it freezes.
To solve the problem, I have done multiple memory tests, have performed disk checks (verified disk permissions and have verified the disk itself, and have done repairs on the disk), have swapped RAM for more stable ram (I was getting a RAM error for a while with some generic RAM).
I would hate to sell the machine for parts, but if worse comes to worse, that may be the route I may go under. Is there anything I could do to avoid having to go that route? From the inside, all of the motherboard capacitors look fine, but I haven't checked the graphics card yet, but I doubt that's the culprit. I want to see if I could push my luck with Apple sending the AHT for the Power Mac, since I can't find any on eBay, but I'm working with a vintage Mac here, and this is New York, so my luck may be out.
Interesting, I installed iStat, and it has been giving me misleading readings. It says my CPU is at over 1000ºC, when I know through Temperature Monitor that the CPU is around 100º-110ºF and rarely goes above 115ºF.
There are some things I haven't tried yet:
1) Buying actual 2.5v RAM. That may hopefully be the key.
2) Removing the USB card I put in, along with my Broadcom-equipped Belkin Wi-Fi card I put in.
3) Calling Apple and begging them to send me a copy of the AHT for the Power Mac, and with that, hopefully, a copy of the system software.
Any suggestions? Comments? If need be, I'll post the system/crash logs for you hardware junkies.
System stats:
Power Mac G4 (FW800)
1.0GHz PowerPC G4 on a 133MHz bus
1GB PC2100 DDR SDRAM (originally had some PC3200 in the machine).
120GB Seagate HD
Stock Phillips CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo
Pioneer DVD-111D (the nice DVD burner I cannibalized off my beautiful homebuilt Wine-doze PC)
Belkin 54g 802.11g Wi-Fi card
Masscool XWT-MTU25 USB 2.0 card
So far, I have removed iStat, have gone ahead and pulled out the USB card. We'll keep fingers crossed.

Did both, and I still freeze up when importing iTunes songs. I'll include some kernel panic logs for reference, for you techies.
1) Thu Nov 27 22:42:50 2008
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00260820): fg: being freed with bad fg_count (32548120)
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x000954F8 0x00095A10 0x00026898 0x00260820 0x0025E95C 0x0025E730 0x002ABDB8 0x000ABD30
0x00000000
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x3C240780)
PC=0x90014BEC; MSR=0x0200D030; DAR=0x00424000; DSISR=0x42000000; LR=0x907C9088; R1=0xF007C240; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10 18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC
2) Tue Nov 25 20:21:06 2008
Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 0): 0x600 - Alignment DAR=0x0000000002DDCC3D PC=0x00000000000A43C0
Latest crash info for cpu 0:
Exception state (sv=0x2DAF7280)
PC=0x000A43C0; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x02DDCC3D; DSISR=0x000000A0; LR=0x0001DEAC; R1=0x17773C10; XCP=0x00000018 (0x600 - Alignment)
Backtrace:
0x0001DE68 0x0001F47C 0x00024224 0x0002407C 0x00049878 0x00029234
0x000233F8 0x000ABEAC 0x3B2F6B65
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2DAF7280)
previously dumped as "Latest" state. skipping...
Exception state (sv=0x2DEEF780)
PC=0x9000B348; MSR=0x0000F030; DAR=0xA0B8C068; DSISR=0x0A000000; LR=0x9000B29C; R1=0xBFFFC630; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10 18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xFFFF0006): 0x600 - Alignment
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 0:
Backtrace:
0x000954F8 0x00095A10 0x00026898 0x000A8204 0x000ABB80
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2DAF7280)
PC=0x000A43C0; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x02DDCC3D; DSISR=0x000000A0; LR=0x0001DEAC; R1=0x17773C10; XCP=0x00000018 (0x600 - Alignment)
Backtrace:
0x0001DE68 0x0001F47C 0x00024224 0x0002407C 0x00049878 0x00029234
0x000233F8 0x000ABEAC 0x3B2F6B65
Exception state (sv=0x2DEEF780)
PC=0x9000B348; MSR=0x0000F030; DAR=0xA0B8C068; DSISR=0x0A000000; LR=0x9000B29C; R1=0xBFFFC630; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.0: Wed Oct 10 18:26:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.24.17~1/RELEASE_PPC

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 - Move Hard Drive to another G5??

Hi,
I'm using a Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 w/ OS 10.5.8 with my Pro Tools 7.4.2 HD3 rig, 2 internal hard drives and tons of external FW hard drives. It's being hinky with me (every time I reboot/restart the Mac, I have to take the side cover off or it won't boot; wierdest problem ever), and being that I don't want to plunk down thousands of dollars on a new Mac and all new Pro Tools equipment, I'm hunting E-Bay for an exact duplicate of my Mac, of which there are plenty. Since PowerPC architecture is long dead, they are dirt cheap. No reason not to have a spare.
My questions are:
If I buy another Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 machine, and swap the hard drive it comes with, and use my already functional hard drive (with the OS, Pro Tools and all related plug-ins installed), and move over my Pro Tools cards and 8 GB of RAM to the new(er) machine, will it boot up and work without me having to reformat/reinstall everything?
I also see numerous Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7 machines out there as well. What are the chances of doing the same as question 1 with this? I know the processor is different, but would my already formatted and functional hard drive care? I don't think this will work, but I have to ask.
If Question 2 is even possible, would upgrading to a Dual 2.7 even be worth it as far as noticeable speed improvement? Superior Drummer, EZ Drummer and EZ Keys are all real time plug-ins that need the Mac's processor/memory to work. They don't use the Pro Tools cards to work. So, would getting that extra 200 Mhz of processor power even matter?
The reason I ask is that reinstalling the OS and Pro Tools is not the issue; 4 hours and it's done. BUT, reinstalling Superior Drummer, EZ Drummer,and EZ Keys, along with the mountain of expansion packs, will literally take several days of work. If I could just plop my old hard drives and 8GB of RAM into a newly purchased G5 Dual 2.5 or 2.7, and not go through that, it would be AWESOME.
Thanks for any feedback on this.

Just got done making the transfer to the "new" Dual 2.7 G5 I bought off E-Bay. (yes, on Christmas Eve, because....well.... I have no life). Worked dead, solid perfect!!! I'm grinning from ear to ear right now.
I had to reset some pref's in Pro Tools (not an issue), Just got done running Pro Tools through its paces, and it works perfectly. All plug ins run (had to re-authorize Superior Drummer and some related plugins because it detected the change in system serial #, again not an issue). Other than that, it worked like it always has. I loaded every third party plug-in I could find, and every third party program I could find, and so far everything works without any issues. Only exception is Team Viewer locks up when I try to close it (have to Force Quit), but I couldn't care less right now. I use that twice a year if that, and just to have someone help me remotely.
Thanks for the info and help. This made my Holidays.

Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 PCI (4 RAM Slots) - want to upgrade to 8GB?

My computer is a Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 PCI (4 RAM Slots)
Is there any way I can break out of the 4GB RAM limit into the world of 8GB RAM without having to buy a newer computer. I need to open a large 4.5GB TGA file in After Effects (48000 pixels x 36000 pixels).
Failing that, is there an application like RAM doubler I could use temporarily to get me though this job?
Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 PCI (4 RAM Slots) Mac OS X (10.4.10) Currently have 4GB RAM installed

If there is not enough RAM, OSX will use space on the disk drive, so the amount of RAM should not limit the file size an application can handle, but speed will be reduced. 32-bit addressing can restrict the use of huge files, but there are ways that applications can get around it (at the expense of lower speed).
If After Effects has a file size limit, extra RAM will not help A later version (maybe using 64-bit mode) may handle larger files. 64-bit applications can be written to run in Tiger on G5s, but will be easier to write when Leopard is released.
You may be able to use some other application, such as Photo Shop, or Graphics Converter, to extract part of the TGA file, or reduce its size by changing its resolution, so you can use the result in After Effects.

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 freezes up, Power Mac G5 Dual 2.5 freezes up

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