It keeps locking up! I have to Cmd+Ctrl+power it to get it to reboot. What's wrong with it?

Please note that I will not give up on my poor sweet Macintosh. I can't afford anything else.

In what way does it lock up? Is it a plain screen freeze and no movement, not even the cursor? Or is there screen anomalities such as pixellation and/or breaking up etc. involved?

That might be an indication of hardware problems, such as faulty memory, faulty motherboard, faulty video...or the hard drive, even though apparently now resurrected with DW, might be toast and acting up.

Sometimes a clean install of the OS can help, too, if it is just a sw problem, especially in the case of classic OS, (OS 9 and earlier). But first, I'd run the Apple Hardware Tester fully, if you have it.

Yeah, can you provide more information as to what it is doing when it locks up?

Is it an application? Finder?

Can you not force quit the offender?

Oh, and specs please. Which TiBook, how much ram (and is that Apple Ram or from some place else), which OS, etc.

I'm still thinking there is a hardware problem. Is it launching apps and opening files normally, or does it seem to take longer than it should sometimes (my wife's previous iMac did that just before her HD died). Considering the problems you were having before this week, that HD may be going bad.

Mac OS X 10.3
256 MB RAM (i think)
550 mHz G4
Gigabit Ethernet model
18.63 (20) GB HD wirh 5.5 GB left

The apps launch fine. It's pretty fast. rarely do I get the beachball.

What it does when it locks up: It's not 1 particlar app, I can be doing something in iTunes, Finder, etc. and the cursor and nothing else moves. If it was making a sound at that time it throws that sound into a loop. That's all I can think of now.

It really needs much more RAM for starters. I'm still thinking there is a problem with the HD. The freezes as you describe seem to be related to reading/writing virtual memory, which it will be doing nearly constantly with only 256 MB RAM.

Where cam you buy Tibook ram? and the chime sounds kind of fuzzy, but everything else is fine. Are HDs expensove? I really don't want to give up on my Tibook.

Try here for RAM.

OWC has better prices on RAM. I'd recommend 2x512MB (1 GB) as a minimum which is the max for that machine. They also have HDs. I'm wondering if these TiBooks had the same HD volume limitation that my G4 tower had - 128GB max. If so, the largest drive you should consider is 120GB.

NewEgg has better drive deals. These are the 80GB models.

Of course, you have to be comfortable with opening up the case yourself, or find someone who will do it for you for a fair price.

I think I can do it. It can't be THAT hard, can it?

Aww, My grandpa said he's not getting me anything for it, because it's not worth it!

Guide for replacing hard drive. You'll need a torx 8 screwdriver. If you don't have one, you can get one at Sears or search online.

Do you have an external hard drive for backups? Is so, you could install a system on that, boot from it, migrate all your files to it and run the computer from that and see if the lockups still occur. If not, then you can be pretty sure it's the hard drive. You could just have a few bad sectors on the hard drive and doing a zero-all-data erase on the hard drive could fix your problems. Not the best solution but more economical.

I don't have an external. Does it have to be firewire?

It doesn't have to be FW, but that TiBook only has USB 1.1 which is really, really slow.

I know. It took almost an hour for me to transfer music to my psp!

haha, I jst told my dad that we need to make an appointment for the Genius Bar to take my Tibook in and he was like: "What's a Tibook? "

I don't disagree about OWC, necessarily, Michael, but dealram lists all of the RAM available, including from OWC--so you can judge what's the best for your needs.

What Michael said about speed, also if you want to boot from the external it has to be firewire, it also has to be formatted for Mac via Disk Utility.

FWIW over the last 15 years I have always bought by who has the cheapest price and never had problems, RAM is RAM is RAM, it's all made by just a few manufacturers . I've used ramseeker.com for ages now.

I buy from Omni tech a lot, they usually have the cheapest price. The 512M PC133 for the TI book is 25.99 with free shipping.

My Mac: "yes? What would you like me to do?"
Me: "what's 1+1?"
Mac: "uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh......... 75? wait no..... Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep"

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dmQZzPe868[/video]

Launching Classic? You need to upgrade to 9.2.1 for compatibility.

It won't let me. and it's different every time.

Can you boot from the 9.2.1 updater disk?

It doesn't want to boot from a disc today, but I'll try. Is there any temporary fix for it locking up like that?

Don't launch "Classic."

I can't stop it! and even if I do, It still locks up within 5 min.!

Will it read the 9.2.1 updater disk? Sometimes, if it does, clicking on the installer will prompt you to restart.

It does, but it won't update for some reason.

Is it launching due to iTunes? What is your version of iTunes?

No. iTunes 4.

IT launches because of photoshop.

You might have to start again from scratch. Install 9.1, update that to 9.2.1 and only then install 10.3.

that will take DAYS! and it isn't cooperating.

It won't boot from a disc today, but I'll try this week. And I have to go to bed.

I don't think that's bootable.

Boot into 9.1 and then update? It has been a long time.

The three beeps at startup means no RAM banks passed testing, you have faulty RAM and or bad RAM socket(s). It will not function correctly until you solve that. New RAM may fix it, but if it's bad sockets then it would need the whole logic board.

I was wondering what those beeps were indicating.

RE: The three beeps. Have you tried reseating the RAM module(s), someone suggested that a while back, I never saw if you confirmed trying that.

Yeah the beeps do mean something , what I don't know

When my Performa went down , the tech "Eastman Kodak" asked me how many beeps I said 7 - he said bad logic board so he came over with one a swapped it out . No charge thanks to apple care

Was really bad ram chips but these were hard wired to the board not plug ins

yas, but my top ram chip won't snap all the way down.

Well, there you go, sounds like a RAM problem. If the top chip wont seat, try leaving it out. However, if the socket is really messed up, you might be out of luck.

That could be the problem (or one of them). Take out the top stick and see it it will boot and not freeze. Of course if 256 MB is woefully under-RAM, 128 MB will be really poor. If it is the top slot, then one 512 MB stick in the lower slot would be marginally sufficient RAM for OS X, 10.3.

Ah hah, I didn't realize that. That could be the whole problem with the malfunctions that you're having. Pull the loose chip out and see how it runs.

I just realized you said you have 256M of RAM in it. 256 is what the machine came with originally, so my guess is that loose chip never has functioned, and when you pull it you'll still have 256. Since it won't lock down, if you do upgrade RAM, you'll only be able to do it in one slot then.

I thought that at first, but then remembered the machine comes with 256, so I don't think it ever was functioning, unless it cam with 2 128's.

But I do.

My G4 tower shipped initially with one 128 (if I remember that far back).

Yeah, the G4 tower did. That model of PB came with 256 in the 867Mhz and 512 in the 1Ghz model. I just checked the manual to be sure, it came with 1 256M chip.

Her TiBook is the 550 MHz, I believe. From EveryMac:



So, it depends which model # it is.

I thought it was the 867 for some reason. She has the 20G HD, so it's probably the first one. It will run on 128, but really slow.

I had it repair permissions. here's what it came up with.

Repairing permissions for “B's Hard Drive”
Determining correct file permissions.
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups/certs, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups/certs
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups/certs
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups/classes.conf, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups/classes.conf
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups/classes.conf
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups/cupsd.conf, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups/cupsd.conf
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups/cupsd.conf
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups/ppd, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups/ppd
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups/ppd
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups/printers.conf, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups/printers.conf
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups/printers.conf
Group differs on ./private/etc/cups, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/etc/cups
Permissions corrected on ./private/etc/cups
Group differs on ./private/var/spool/cups/tmp, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/var/spool/cups/tmp
Permissions corrected on ./private/var/spool/cups/tmp
Group differs on ./private/var/spool/cups, should be 26, group is 0
Owner and group corrected on ./private/var/spool/cups
Permissions corrected on ./private/var/spool/cups
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

Permissions repair complete

That's normal, it will probably show the same thing if you reboot and run it again. It has to do with security for the cups printer engine. Don't have time to explain, gotta run, just trust me, and it doesn't have anything to do with all the problems you're having.

Pull the loose RAM chip before we try anything else. Thx.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh4mcL8evM4[/video] Airport and DW.
Like my background?

You just think you do

I'm a legend in my own mind.

LOL

I used to work with a old Japanese guy , one of them left circle , right circle old school attitudes .
Anyway he always says to everyone "you just think you do" with no explanations - drove us nuts

Well, The Titanium One made it through School today... Sort of.

Was that without the loose RAM chip?

Yes. wait- no. I got in trouble for taking it out.

The conversation went something like this:

*takes the keyboard off to take out the RAM chip*
Teacher: "what are you doing?"
Me:"taking this RAM chip out to see something."
Teacher:"Don't."
Me:"Why? I have to take it out to see-"
Teacher:"I SAID DON'T!"
me:"ok."*puts keboard back on*

and one of my friends and I were joking about just listen to music and pretend to type.

"are you taking notes?"
*closes iTunes*
"yeeeeeesss"

You should have said

Teacher; I have a problem with the ram chip seat not inter facing with the turbo confabulator connected to the bhing emulsifier magnetic phasing romp , which converts to titanium binary conversation to the locktium platunium silica array

OMGLMAO! She would have been SO confused!

Well, you probably shouldn't dismantle your TiBook in class anyway. Do you scare all of your teachers?

yes. I do. It's funny. Like today, I was typing something and thinking out loud:
"Ok, if my Hard Drive's going bad then I need to get a firewire external disk to run off of and some more Ram, but then how will I take it here? hmmm, mabye I can convince the teachers to convert to Mac... well, I f I can get a newer Mac with at least Tiger... a lot of RAM, a big Hard Drive..." and the teacher was just listening to me going

Well it's cool because I'm the only one out of 1,200 kids that gets to use any kind of computer for class!

Today, while I was showing one of my teachers something, a black strip with white writing came on the top of the screen, and said "system falure CPU code- 0000"

I rebooted and it was fine...

Doesn't look good, but if it rebooted and continued without problem, then I'd say you're still good to go. Still running on one RAM stick?

Yep. but what does that mean?

I don't know what that error is about. Maybe Reboot knows.

Well, apparently something failed and it made me freak out and nearly knock people over to go get something out of the case in my locker.

REBOOT! CALLING REBOOT! WHERE ARE YOU!?

LOL. I was out fixing Macs. It's what I do for a living. Adults don't get off at 3:00, not ones that still have to work anyway.

The black stripe with white text is a kernel panic, 99% of the time it means hardware error. Take the RAM chip that you took out, and put it into the slot where you have the one chip. The newer KP has the grey window shading thing, can't remember if 10.3 does the grey, but the black bar/white text that you got I see often often on new systems with bad RAM.

If you get the same thing after putting the other RAM chip into the good slot, I hate to say it, but the old laptop has a serious hardware problem, probably on the logic board. Slight chance it's the HD, very very slight. The only way to check would be with another HD. I really doubt it's that though.

but then I would have to turn it off! oh ok.

With the 128 chip, its too slow to do anything. that bottom one was actually a 256. my bad.

So it never was reading the loose 128 chip, that makes sense as to why it was saying you had 256.

Don't know what to tell you. It's going to run slow, but let's see if it won't KP. If it doesn't it's worth scrounging a new chip.

But I have STUFF to do on it!

Like?

Can anybody you know put this into it?

That's a great price!

Photoshop projects, general Mac stuff, and I take it to school to use.

Until you get more RAM in it, it will be slow.

With 128, veeeerrryyy. But with 256, it's pretty good.

Can you boot directly to OS 9? As I recall, OS 9 ran quite nicely with 128 MB. Classic runs OS 9 in emulation, so that is slow compared to running OS 9 natively.

I'm afraid to after what happened. and I need X! I have all my music, and what will I do without Aqua?

I forgot she's running Classic, yikes. No wonder it's a dog.

That may have been related to your RAM problems - it failed OS 9's boot test. Since you've removed the offending RAM, it might boot to OS 9. You can do that for your PS work and then boot back into Panther for your other stuff.

Be able to run Photoshop until you find someone to buy you that chip at least. Better than having nothing.

How are you getting the Photoshop files from your Titanium to the net BTW?

A Flash Drive to transfer to the Dell. It's a PAIN! How will I get my Wifi set up on the Titanium One? I really need to.

So you got the Flash drive working?

As far as the wireless, you'd need to know the password for your wireless network and its name, choose the network from the menu bar icon, enter password, and connect.

I did. And I did that, but it said that there was a problem connecting. It's WPA2.

Do you get the WPA option? It didn't say password problem?

What brand of wireless router? It may be set to WPA2 only and not WPA. I forget if 10.3 can do WPA2.

no. it just said "a problem" I don't know what kind of router it is.

You need to ask whoever set the router up. I can't give you information to access the router since a wrong move may disable wireless for everyone, especially if I don't know what kind it is.

How did you get the Flash drive working, you never mentioned.

i just plugged it in and it mounted. and my dad is going to see what kind of router it is.

Well, I was using iMovie to put together a movie. Then, when I moved the cursir it started going all crazy. (it would move, skip around, stop skip around again) I quit iMovie, and it started making a lot of error sounds for no reason. I rebooted, and it does the same thing anywhere, with both my Pro Mouse and the trackpad, making error sounds like crazy. What's wrong nd what do I do?

Beg, beg, beg for that 512 MB RAM for $20 and change that Reboot posted a link to.

but what happened?

I'd guess a VM issue - the CPU probably didn't wait for it and got confused.

It was making error sounds so fast, that it sounded like a machine gun!

Were they error sounds or just stuttering audio?

Error sounds. and I have it set to read the windows that ask or tell you things, and it sounded like it was hicupping.

Maybe that TiBook should go in the GARBAGE!!!


LOL

NOOOOO! Hey, That's not funny! We G fans take that as an insult.

It did it again! and it always seems to do wierd stuff at school and not at home.

Now, when I try to type something on it, after I press the key, it puts a 0 after it. even when I don't press a key. It could be sitting there with me not touching it and it will just be there "typing" a bunch of zeros. I can't even type on it now, it's so bad. What do I do now?

I think the poor thing needs to be put out of its misery.

NOOOOOO! *literally cries* I CAN'T Let it go! It's my only Mac! Isn't there anything else I can do besides take it to The Store?

I wonder if a can of compressed air would help.

I don't have one. anything else? There HAS to be a way! I wrote a poem on Facebook to convince it to keep fighting!

Probably something stuck under the 0 key, or the kb is going bad too.

If the kb is it, what then?

It went to sleep, a second later, It woke ITSELF from sleep, I had it on terminal, and it started typing zeros. There's nothing under the key and it's STILL going! WTF!? What do I do?

Now It WILL NOT sleep! every time it goes to sleep, a second later it wakes itsself up! If I have it closed, It's a loop! What is wrong?

That 0 key keeps waking it.

It's annoying! When I press the 0 key, it doesn't do anything! all the other keys are fine.

Can you shut it down, or is it having boot problems too?

I was about to shut it down, when our old friend tha nobody wants around came along- Kernel Panic!

I think it's time to be really, really good and lobby all of your Santas to pool their resources to get you a newer model for Christmas.

But what's a temporary fix?

Keep it on life support as long as you can.

What kind?

I wonder if there is a way to disable the 0 key.

But I need it.
?

But if there is a way, that would be GREAT! and less annoying!

Hmmm, an external kb? I wonder if plugging that in would disable the built in kb.

I dunno, but I don't have one. Any other ideas?

A used usb kb should be easy enough to find, and cheap.

But not cheap enough for us. *sigh* Any hope of saving it? I really don't wanna hold a funeral for it on YouTube and have my Italian friend make fun of me.

I don't remember if I saved my old graphite kb. I think I sent it to Mac heaven with my dead G4 tower.

I meant the whole TiBook. How long do you think I can keep it on life support?

It seems that various parts are beginning to wear out and fail. I don't think it will last much longer. Maybe only using it when it is only absolutely necessary?

but that's ALL the time! I've got several people looking for RAM. and it's on right now and the fan is loud tonight. Should I make a reservation for Mac Heaven?

I'd be making final arrangements.

*sniff* Ok *Sniff* How can I get ahold of Mac Heaven? *small wink*

I tested it today, and I mapped out all the problems.

[list]
[*]1. Random freezes (not very often)
[*]2. Crazy error sounds and erratic cursor
[*]3. Keyboard typing random zeros a lot, sometimes going on for 7 minutes or more
[*]4. 0 key not responding
That's all I have for now.