[G4] New to List, G4, OS X

[CJ Scaminaci]

>
> 2. I thought this was the uncrashable OS. I am getting one or two 
> freezes(endless spinning beach ball) a day that are so profound that 
> even the power button on the front does not work. Occasionally I can 
> save it by restarting the finder, but usually I have to reach in the 
> back and unplug it to reboot.  Is this unusual behavior? I do not have 
> much on it yet. I have not connected it to any particular sequence of 
> actions yet. Could it be a hardware problem?  I have added some 
> memory, but it started crashing when all the memory was the Apple 
> store stuff.
>

Hey,

Sounds like bad memory to me, I too have had the endless beach ball 
under X. I think you aught to really try to avoid unplugging the 
machine to reboot. Under X this causes problems. If you are comfortable 
with OSX reboot the machine holding down CMD-S. This will bring you 
into "Single User Mode" which allows you to fix the computer with a 
non-graphical interface. When everything is done and ready in single 
user mode type fsck -y. Make sure you have a space between fsck and the 
-y. You may want to run it 2 or 3 times to make sure. And I would 
DEFINATLY recommend testing your memory. A great OSX memory testing 
utility can be found here http://www.appleisp.net/~frisky. It includes 
complete instructions on how to run it from the command prompt. This 
will tell you if you have bad RAM. But first run single user mode 
before continuing to use the computer this will repair any damages to 
the file structure or system.

Let me know how things turn out,
CJ