Dear Wade,
I had huge problems with my 2400c/240 when 8.5 came out. Rather than
repeat myself, here are a couple of emails to the list from that time:
12/18/98 11:30 AM
If anyone on the list has any clue to what is going wrong, I'd really
appreciate some advice. Here is the situation:
I've been doing battle with 8.5 and the supposed bug fix 8.5.1 for it
seems like several lifetimes. I just can't get the thing to run stably on
my PB 2400c/240. It has plenty of RAM - 80 Megs and I've done everything
Iknowand a lot of things I hadn't known. I've reformatted the Hard Drive,
re- initialized it, initialized it as low format, written zeros, HFS +
and HFS standard, zapped PRAM, rebuilt the Desktop in various ways and
run DiskTools 8.2, all with amazing frequency. But it just will not run
stably.I will admit that 8.5.1 is more stable - at least I don't get the
type 2, 3, 10 and 11 errors, CHK sum errors, bombs and good old plain
freezes that I enjoyed under plain 8.5, but the finder keeps quitting. I
get messages like,"The Finder has unexpectedly quit ..."
I got onto Apple in the US and the girl said that the memory was probably
not seated correctly. I took it into the shop and we checked this - no
apparent problem. Technical - for want of a better word, "support" in
Japan was equally if not more useless. His pearl of wisdom was to deny
everything.
"8.5 is perfectly stable. No "bug fix release is planned."
"It isn't stable."
"It is."
"It isn't."
"'tis."
"tisn't."
And then the "bug fix" - 8.5.1 came out, squashing some but not all of
the bugs I was experiencing. At least I didn't get type 2, 3,10 or 11
errors any more. The finder quits were there in force, though.
The latest thing is the guy in the shop where I bought the machine tells
me that a lot of the disks themselves are defective and that is what is
causing the problem. I must say I had begun to suspect this myself.
Worried that my cranky old 2X CD was the cause, I copied the installer
onto an external hard drive and, booting off the Disk Tools disk, I tried
installing it and the upgrade that way - to no avail.
The best scenario I've had is this. I install it and the upgrade and work
on a word processor - MarineWriter or Nisus 5.1.3. All is well for
several hours. Then mysteriously things start crashing. I open a finder
window and the finder quits. I close one program and open something else
- the finder quits. This goes on for a while. It's only a minor annoyance
because the finder at this stage starts up again. Things get
progressively worse until the whole system freezes. I restart - disk
tools runs automatically and all is well for half an hour or so and then
it starts up again.
This leaves me with four interpretations, as far as I can see.
1.8.5(.1) is a buggy system.
2.It doesn't run well on my personal set up (but others are running it
with
the same set up with no problem.)
3.I have a hardware problem. (Unlikely I would have thought because I can
run 8.1 with no problem at all. It's very stable.)
4.The CD itself is corrupt.
UPDATE
I just installed Mac OS 8.5 and the update on a friends 1400 and exactly
the same phenomena - beautiful at first and then nothing but crashes. It
was the same CD as I used so I'm suspicious of it.
I've tried every combination with extensions manager I can think of -
from straight out of the box to heavily censored. Also with my favouriten
on MacOS extensions and without them. I've also tried clean install.
Reformat reinitialize - just about everything.
Any help you can give on this would be appreciated. I love the functions
of 8.5.1. I just can't operate with this instability.
Yours sincerely,
John Davis
[Duo] Re: Mac OS 8.5.(1)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear Craig,
Thanks for your help.
<<Recommendations:
a. No third party extensions for now.
Even Typeit4me? If I couldn't use that I'd probably go back to 8.1
permanently. Or find a Word Processing program that does the same thing.
I believe MS Word does, but that program is too bulky for my hard drive.
<<b. Take that RAM out. Work with the original 16 and VM for now. I
suspectsome bad, or improperly installed, Ram. I've installed Ram twice
into 2400's. It isn't always easy.
Interesting suggestion. You are not the first person to have said this. I
took it back to the shop where I bought it and had the RAM checked - as
far as installing it is concerned anyway. It is apparently seated
correctly. It may be bad though. I'll look into that possibility and try
it with 16 megs, as you say.
I'm still not quite sure why it would be trouble free under 8.1 though.
8.1is rock solid, far more stable than any previous Mac OS except
possibly System 6 just before 7 came out.
<<c. Get fresh installs of 8.5.1, Netscape, and Nisus. I would try to
avoid Nisus if possible (for now at least). I know nothing about Marine
Writer.
Will do. There is always a possibility of corruption. Mariner shouldn't
be a problem. I've never ever had any kind of trouble with it. It's a
very fine program.
<<d. Make sure that your machine is properly ventilated. If you are
getting problems after a few hours then you could be overheating.
This answers a question I had. In some Mac shops, they sell cooling pads,
little mounts with a fan in them, to put under 2400's. Again, I've had no
problem with overheating or crashes of any sort with 8.1.
<<I have had three crashes under 8.5.1. With two I had to force quit from
Comm 4.5 (machine was still stable afterwards) and one quit when I went
to visit the AOL site. Neither brought the machine down.
The one program guaranteed to bring down the 2400 under 8.5 was AOL 3.0
or 4.0.
I feel that some of the mystery is disappearing from this area for me and
that is directly the result of you and other people who have posted
advice on this board for me. I really appreciate it.
****************
I bought it new in May 98 in Japan. It came with 8.1 installed (Japanese
system). I took that out and installed the English 8.1. I had no problems
with it. It was a nice machine.
Then when I put in 8.5 all hell let loose. After months of screwing
around, I took it to the Apple Service center in Sapporo and they were
fabulous. They replaced the CPU/logic board and thereafter there has been
no problem whatsoever. It freezes up sometimes, but that is only when I
do something risky. Kaleidoscope can crash it. Some older extensions and
so on do too.
The problem WAS hardware. There is no doubt about it. My own opinion is
that 8.0 and 8.1, because they had to run on a variety of models, PPC and
040 chips, were "kinder" systems than 8.5. In a sense, you could say 8.5
is more honest. It certainly lets you know if there is a hardware problem.
Yours sincerely,
John Davis
----------
Duo/2400 List, The friendliest place on the Net!
A listserv for users and fans of Mac subportables.
FAQ at <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/DuoListFAQ.shtml>
Be sure to visit Mac2400! <http://www.sineware.com/mac2400>
Dr. Bott LLC | Get a LapBottom with new �GRIPPIER� gripper pads!
| http://www.drbott.com/prod/lapbot.html $23.00
Midwest Mac Parts <http://www.midwestmac.com> | After-market parts
for Macs. Fix your ticking dock for $59 w/ trade-in of PS. 888-356-1104
PowerBook Guy is | Click here!
Everything PowerBook! | http://www.powerbookguy.com
