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MAJOR system problems
I’m not sure what to do anymore….
I was running OS X.2.8 happily for a couple of years on a G4 dual 867. About 3 months ago I started getting semi-frequent crashes…maybe about once a week or two. Then about a week ago I was listening to an internet radio broadcast in iTunes, and uploading about 500 MB of jpegs to my site and my computer died right in the middle of it. I rebooted, and that’s when the following symptoms started occuring:
–taking up to 5-8 minutes to boot
–desktop boots but I can’t click on anything or open a program (mouse moves around fine though)
–computer boots up only to grey apple screen
–computer boots up and hangs on ‘Checking local disks’ for up to 7 minutes
–crashes intermittently whenever I open a program, move a window between the 2 monitors (both running off a dual-head card), or sometimes just crashes whenever it’s just sitting there for more than 30 minutes.
–crashes in different ways including kernal panics, spinning beach ball of death, or just unresponsiveness to any clicking.fun.
soooo, I do have a 120 gb backup drive, so I installed the basic OS X.2 onto that, & was able to backup all my files onto that (in between crashes). I ran apple hardware test disk and it said everything was normal. I was getting ready to wipe the main drive and reinstall everything, when I booted it up and it won’t even see the main drive anymore. So i’m thinking, OK–just a bad main drive.
But the symptoms I listed earlier are happening while booted off my backup drive with the absolute basic setup–haven’t installed any software, drivers, etc.
This feels like a virus, but I’ve searched and haven’t found anyone complaining about similar problems with a virus. I’ve tried running unconnected to the internet and still have the same problems.
One thing I haven’t tried that I’m probably going to is to physically take the main drive out (which isn’t even recognized by the cpu anymore)….Does anyone have ANY suggestions? I’m tearing my hair out here.
Thanks so much,
aaron -
6 Replies
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Startup off your OS X installer disk and see if the problems are still there. If not, its clearly a software problem (likely) and you should try reinstalling your OS Software. An “Archive and Install” would probably be fine. Using an application like Cocktail to clean you caches would be a good idea as well. While started off of the installer disk, be sure to run Disk Utility to repair the drives and the preferences (If you have DiskWarrior, run it – twice).
If the problem remains after starting up off of the installer disk, then disconnect all peripheral devices and 3rd party hardware to see if the problem is related to those items.
Hope that helps,
Tony!
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hey Tony!,
I appreciate your help…. one thing I noticed though, (and it’s been so long since i’ve had trouble with any of the macs I use) is that I can’t seem to start up from my OS X cd–I’ve tried booting off the install disks 1 & 2 and all it does is ask me how I want to install / re-install my system. I can’t seem to boot off one of them, and it seems like I remember doing this before……All I’m doing is holding down the ‘C’ key upon reboot–should I be doing something else?
I have tried installing the OS on the main & backup drives again, to no avail.As far as peripheral devices, I have a printer and a scanner, which I will try disconnecting.
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Hi Aaron,
Yeah, just boot off of the installer disk and run Disk Utility from the pull down menu (instead of the installer) to repair the drive and the preferences. If Disk Utility finds and fixes problems, run it again until it finds no further problems. If Disk Utility is opening and working, your hardware is likely fine as it is an application and you are started up. After running and repairing your drive, reboot and see if all is well. If not, restart again off the installer disk and just do an “Archive and Install.” Be sure to select the options to save your user files and applications, unless you want to reinstall everything again and have backups. Also, its a good idea to unplug any peripherals and 3rd party hardware while troubleshooting as that is another source of potential problems.
Good Luck,
Tony!
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Tony!,
will give it a shot tonight, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
thanks,
aaron -
Aaron,
Has the problem cleared up? I’ve just had this problem this week…but it’s happened on two separate systems. I’ve managed to reset each system but have lost my Dual screen capability…on both systems…Any ideas?
Jerry Pentin
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Crippled Leopard or Bridge too far…
Recently upgraded to an iMac and Leopard 10.5.6 and gone the Adobe
Creative suite CS4 route and find that I cannot preview eps documents
as images and just get basic icons in Bridge which is very
inconvenient.Have Apple decided that we don’t use ai eps anymore – or is it a problem with Bridge CS4!
Bridge CS3 works and previews are visible.I don’t seem to be able to find anything on line that will work. Just
downloaded Quicklook and that does not work either!I would contact Apple if only I could get hold of them.
Any help would be much appreciated.
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