[G4] Perplexed need help

[Bruce Ryan Nakamura]

Hello Robert,

I had a similar problem with my G4 dual 1.25Mhz Firewire 400 MDD which was
freezing and getting kernal panics.  Neither the Honolulu Apple Store nor an
independent Macintosh dealer could fix it.  The Honolulu Apple Store charged
me about $600.00 to $700.00 to replace the hard drive, RAM, and main logic
board without success.

The independent Macintosh shop had my MDD for 12 weeks and apparently it
changed everything including the microprocessor, but not the power supply.
In the end, because the independent Macintosh shop couldn't fix my Firewire
400 MDD, it exchanged my Firewire 400 MDD with a Firewire 800 MDD without
telling me and charged me $784.29.

I'm now of the hypothesis that I had a dying power supply that was putting
out intermittent and erratic voltage that was causing the microprocessor to
freeze and panic because neither the Honolulu Apple Store nor the
independent Macintosh shop changed the power supply.

If your G4 MDD is 5 years or older, it would be reasonable to hypothesize
that your power supply is hitting the end of its service life, especially
with all the drives your have in your MDD.

If you can swap your power supply with a known good unit, that might solve
your problem.  Don't end up like me, I paid about $1400.00 and my Firewire
400 MDD was NOT fixed.

Hope this helps,

Bruce Ryan Nakamura



On 10/3/08 3:39 PM, "Robert C. Buitron" <rcbuitron at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> 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.
> 
> Thanks for your help.
> Rob
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