[G4] Perplexed need help

[Robert C. Buitron]

Thank you Eric and Bruce for responding. Since you both think the 
underlying problem might be the power supply, I will search for a 
reliable replacement.

Would it be smarter to move all those internal HDs to external, each 
with their own external power cord?

I did press the button on the motherboard the first time this happened, 
but it only worked if I had the original Seagate 80GB HD startup disk 
connected to the motherboard. When I reconnected the SATA Hitachi 80GB 
startup disk I got nothing, that is I heard the HDs spinning (since I 
have 4 internal) but the monitor was blank (black). Removing the SATA 
startup disk, reconnecting the original startup disk, and pressing the 
button seemed to solve the problem.

Rob

Eric Wood wrote:
> Hard to be certain, but I'd suspect the power supply is overloaded. I 
> think Apple's tend to be fairly low in output capacity, at least the one 
> in my own G4 (digital audio) is. It was so bad, I had to stop using a 
> second hard drive, since it was failing to be mounted at boot time. The 
> drive itself is fine, as verified by its use in another machine.
> 
> First just zap the stored settings (like removing the battery and 
> pressing the button on your motherboard), and consider using fewer 
> devices. See if things clear up that way.
> 
> Eric W.
> 
> Am Oct 3, 2008 um 8:39 PM schrieb Robert C. Buitron:
> 
>> I have a G4 dual 1.25 GHz PowerPC, 2GB RAM (maxxed out), 4 internal 
>> HDs (3 SATAs & original Seagate ATA), a SIIG PCI SATA controller card 
>> 4-channel for Mac that can boot from any attached drive, and a Sonnet 
>> Allegro PCI Firewire 800/1394B card. The OS is 10.5.5. I boot up (or 
>> my startup disk) from the original ATA HD at this time.
>>
>> The problem is kernal panics and freezes.
>>
>> Some additional background:
>> About a month ago I was downloading some Apple software updates when I 
>> encountered some freezes that eventually turned to a kernal issue as I 
>> did troubleshooting. I used the Disk Utility from the DVD install disk 
>> to check the startup disk, which at the time was a SATA connected to 
>> the controller card mentioned above. All internal disks were verified. 
>> At one point using the Disk Utility on the SATA startup disk, the 
>> computer hung up. This continued to the point that I had to power 
>> down, power up, heard the drives spinning but blank on my monitor- 
>> just black.
>>
>> I did some internal HD troubleshooting and finally determined that it 
>> was the SATA startup disk that "seemed" to be the problem. I removed 
>> it and swapped it with the original ATA HD directly connected to the 
>> motherboard, and voila, my G4 was back to "normal".
>>
>> Now the perplexing problem:
>> I was downloading the latest software updates from Apple, which 
>> included the latest JavaScript,iTunes8, some remote security patch 
>> (which I don't  use), and some other update that I cannot remember.
>>
>> I started the update and walked away as I knew this would take some 
>> time. A half hour later I came back to a machine that had a kernal 
>> panic and message that I needed to power down the machine. I did and 
>> powered up and resumed the update with only two items remaining of the 
>> starting 4. I walked away again as it was iTunes 8 and JavaScript. 
>> When I returned I had another kernal issue but without the power down 
>> message.
>>
>> The first few lines of the kernal issue are:
>> "System failure: cpu=1; code=00000001 (Corrupt Stack)
>> backtrace terminated- frame not mapped or invalid: 0x4AD8FF10
>> Unresolved kernal trap."
>>
>> I'm not computer savvy, just enough to sometimes help myself and of 
>> course sometimes to create problems. Any ideas, suggestions, notions, 
>> preventive measures would help.
>>
>> The machine is up and running. I decided not to continue with the 
>> software download. Seems that that was one of the contributing factors.