Someone wants to sell me an 12inch iBook G4 for $250...
here's the issue:

It runs fine so long as no intensive tasks are run, then it freezes.
They also claim that while the Airport card is recognised, they have issues finding wireless networks.

He mentioned once booting to an Open Firmware screen claiming an illegal memory operation.

Well, the Airport is a no-brainer. It's likely a damaged antenna or connection to the antenna.

However, the freezing is another issue. That could be anything, and, iirc, the logic boards in the iBook G4s are often defective. If it's a cache issue, I could always disable that until I find a new logic board... if it's the onboard RAM, I could solder new chips on. THat would be fairly inexpensive and maybe a morning's work.

Is it worth $250 do ya think?

Sounds like bad ram IMHO. Switch the sticks and see what happens. Then try

to switch the built in RAM. If none of that works, it's still worth it. I would think

you could strip it down and get at least that much back from eBay.

Go for it!

(Edit: Actually, I was just thinking that you probably wouldn't have to strip it down.
Just sell it "AS-IS" and explain the problem. It'll still probably sell for a lot)

Most iBooks have a sucky motherboard but i never heard of powerbooks having them like i said in my greatest thread ever (iBooks Suck But Why?). My dads titanium used to freeze like crazy until i replace the crappy 60gig HD with a 7200 RPM 100gig seagate and now it freezes less often. How do i stop the freezing period.

Its a fault on the board. I have one at the moment doing the exact same thing. Open firmware boot, memory error. Sometimes it just boots to a black screen.
Almost certainly the on-board RAM, but it fails no tests, so hard to be sure.

Thanks for the info, guys.
I'll first try the trick for securing the graphics chip, as I've read the soldering is bad, which causes some issues.

Then, I'll try removing the onboard RAM chips. Considering there are 1Gb DIMMs available, I may very well just remove them and replace them when I feel like.

Okay,
I have the iBook.
It freezes while installing OS X from the iBook install CDs.
There's just barely graphic tearing when this happens. It occurs around a third of the way through.


SO...
first, I'll pick up some copper sheets fromt he hardware store and cut pieces to fit between the GPU heatsink and GPU, which will aid in cooling and reinforce the connections to the logic board if the soldering is faulty.
I'll do the same with the CPU, and use the remaining copper to create a heatsink for the hard drive.

I'll also inspect the logic board for any obvious damage (of course).

Happy hacking,
Antonio

Okay, I booted from my Pismo in Target Disk Mode and ran Memtest.

About half way through the first loop, I experienced a hard freeze, so I'm fairly certain now that it's the onboard RAM.

Looks like about an hour's worth of work with my soldering iron and xacto knife, and I'm still adding copper to all the heatsinks.

Happy hacking...

PS... I also picked up some nice paints while at the store