This is a little convoluted so please bear with me as I relay some history:
I have a 2003 G4 MDD single 1.25 running 10.4.11 with 2G RAM. Up till last year was very stable. I routinely had it running for months at a time. Last year I was looking for ways to speed it up. I replaced the video card with a Radeon 9600. Some improvement. About a year ago I started hearing sounds coming from my second internal drive, so I cloned it and swapped it for a larger one I had laying around for a year or 2. Early this year I purchased and installed a Sonnet Encore MDX 1.6gz dual processor card (along with updating the firmware). It caused the fans to start working overtime and being very loud. I had to turn the computer off at nights to be able to sleep. Eventually I learned about NAP mode in CHUD tools, which took some finding to get the right version, but it seemed to work perfectly. However, soon I noticed that the computer would freeze occasionally on sleep. Never did that before. I changed the settings so it would not go to sleep, but it would still freeze on idle, usually overnight. Then, sometimes while using it! Then while rebooting, around the end of April, my new secondary drive refused to mount. long story short-it had died. I bought a new one, and eventually removed the Sonnet processor card and reinstalled the original processor. I turned off NAP mode. The computer still freezes! Recently, it has started to also freeze on startup. I removed the updated Sonnet firmware and the CHUD tools. I even swapped the video card for the old one temporarily, but the freezing continues. I moved around the RAM to different slots and tried to start with only one stick, but nothing helps. One thing - I have no problem starting in Safe Boot mode, even when it cannot start - due to freezing - in normal mode. I have not idled the computer in Safe Boot mode overnight yet to see if it will be OK. Any suggestions? Does it sound like software or hardware? Is there a good way to diagnose what to do? I'm tempted to throw out the whole thing and buy a Mini G4 (I use a bunch of Classic programs, otherwise I'd get a new Mini with Lion). Thanks. -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
