My Crashing G4,need Advice From Mac Pros Options

[E rouge]

Hello. I am new to the mac sceen and I need some advice. My mac, since I got it , has been crashing. It crashes by freezing up, and I wont be able to do anything. on my windows machine, if something frooze , I would hit CTRL>ALT>DELETE and I could close the program that frooze. not so on my mac. When it freezes, I have to pressthe power button for a couple of seconds and reboot.

I have 867 mhz g4
1 GB DDR ram
running OS 9


Is there any buttons that I can press to shut down a program or help with my system freezes?

I dont know what it is. Someone said that to uninstall a program, just through that program folder in the trash. but what about the items in the extention folder? Is there any programs some mac gurs can recommend to keep my hard drivers in good shape?

I have no idea how a mac runs, I do however, have much knoweldge on computers in general, and on windows machines and the way they operate. windows hard drives can either be in FAT32 or NTFS. FAT32 fragments alot and is used in apps like windows 98, ME... it can also be used in XP, but NTFS is so much better, as it does not defragment much, and if and when XP does crash, it doesnt go through the long process of checking the disk for errors.

Has anyone else had this? System freezes? What apps do you recommend for keeping my system in good shape. does OS 9 or X come with a built in defrag program? How do I format a hard drive on a mac? if i wanted to put a hard drive from my windows machine onto my mac, how do I defrag my hard drive?

Last but not least, does anyone have an web links to sites that show how macs run. I want to read up on infomation about macs and their system. And the diffrences between OS 9 and X, and how to fix system freezes. i know its a long listm but I am a complete noobie on my mac, and want to read and learn. thanks, ERICK

[aladinsane]

as for quiting a frozen application on OS 9, you can try and press Cmd+option+Esc (called "force quit"). it doesn't always help. not like the windows task manager. OS X, however, has a "force quit" feature that resembles it, where you can choose an app from a list and force it to quit.

to find out what's causing the freeze, try Conflict Catcher at http://www.casadyg.com/.

Norton utilities and Drive 10 can defrag disks (there's also a thread here for defraging) and there's an apple utility that comes with your system (forgot it's name, but it's there, something with "HD" I think) that formats youre drive.

see the apple site, and if you're new to macs, you'll find the system help to be very usefull. read it, it will answer most of your questions.

good luck

[Levon River]

You are exhibiting classic signs of one of two prime suspects:

1) Extension conflicts, or,

2) Insufficient memory assigned to whatever you're running at the time of the freeze. Some genius once said something I can't remember but along the lines of 90% (or some high percentage) of Mac lock-ups come from insufficient memory. You need to get Info on the programs and check their memory allocation, and crank 'er up, at least for the ones that are bombing out on you.

If it's extension conflicts, the classic debug routine is to do everything by halves, contrary to whatcher granny told you.

You start with the basic Apple-only pre-configured set of extensions in extensions manager. If everything goes along swimmingly (and it should) you add back into the active Extensions folder (from the Extensions Disabled folder) HALF of those extensions that are disabled and restart. If everything is still hunky-dory, you know the offending little bugger is still in the Disabled half. If not, you take back out half of what you just added, and continue narrowing it down that way. It won't take too long to isolate the little troublemaker and show 'im the trash can.

Good luck. Let us know...

[E rouge]

hello, here is an update. It seems that I am not alone with these system freezes. With a look at the apple forum, I found out that these things are called "kernal panics"

Alot of people have had these problems. Here is a link to one such thread


http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?50@...e7Z.4@.3bbc02f2


I dont know if its just these line of macs. But it seems like an ongoing problem

[Levon River]

I also am on a G4 867, and have never experienced any similar problem. The only kernel panic I've seen was when trying to install OS X with the disk sent to me with the computer (it was an open-box sales demo unit), which the vendor somehow got wrong, or was munged, or something--I never bothered to track the whole miserable story down because we had also recently purchased an iMac, so I just tried the disks that came with it and everything went fine.

If what you're experiencing really is a kernel panic, and not symptomatic of the two most likely candidates I described above, you've left my league. I'd say your only option then is to reinstall all your system software, and if *that* don't do the duty, then start stropping that hardware warranty to a fine edge.

[lepetitmartien]

Kernel panic can only accur on a system that HAS a kernel… eg OSX

When your mac does it, is it aleatoric or always during the same tasks or apps running ?

Also, what are the last preferences (folder HD/system folder/preferences) that are modified ?

When crashing, try command+option+escape what daoes the mac tell you or show, does it permit you to quit the app or not.

rebuild your desktop anyway (command+option on startup until the mac ask for rebuilding)

(I should really finish my article on emergency exits…, really)