Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Well done Alastair! Cheers, Carlo On 17/11/2011, at 13:55 , alastair taylor wrote: Hi Ronni, Carlo and James Just to feed back on the memory slot - before even reaching for the isopropyl I tried another suggestion I read - rubbing the contacts on the dimm with a pencil eraser. Whaddya know - now gets a perfect score on memtest and safari hasn't quit since. Haven't given illustrator much of a workout but I'm hopeful. If I'd known it was that simple weeks ago... Many thanks for leading me in the right direction best alastair On 11/11/2011, at 3:34 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, Depending on what model PowerBook you have. The 15” PowerBook5,6 can take Maximum RAM 2.0GB, The 12” PowerBook6,8 Maximum RAM 1.25GB Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command,
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Alastair, Good news … The PowerBook lives on! Doesn’t have to be put ‘Out To Pasture’ yet ;-) I expect you do have a good 'Backup Plan' in place though. Just in case the PowerBook is wearing out, and this may not be a permanent fix. Fingers crossed. Cheers, Ronni On 17/11/2011, at 4:40 PM, cm wrote: Well done Alastair! Cheers, Carlo On 17/11/2011, at 13:55 , alastair taylor wrote: Hi Ronni, Carlo and James Just to feed back on the memory slot - before even reaching for the isopropyl I tried another suggestion I read - rubbing the contacts on the dimm with a pencil eraser. Whaddya know - now gets a perfect score on memtest and safari hasn't quit since. Haven't given illustrator much of a workout but I'm hopeful. If I'd known it was that simple weeks ago... Many thanks for leading me in the right direction best alastair On 11/11/2011, at 3:34 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, Depending on what model PowerBook you have. The 15” PowerBook5,6 can take Maximum RAM 2.0GB, The 12” PowerBook6,8 Maximum RAM 1.25GB Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
my powerbook g4 is still in working order (but with external screen) i use it sometimes for presentation or rip a dvd, g4's should not die that soon James SAD Technic U3 6 Chalkley Pl Bayswater WA Australia +618 9370 5307 mob 0414 421132 (international +614 14421132) sad...@iinet.net.au http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~saddas/ Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. On 17/11/2011, at 5:27 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, Good news … The PowerBook lives on! Doesn’t have to be put ‘Out To Pasture’ yet ;-) I expect you do have a good 'Backup Plan' in place though. Just in case the PowerBook is wearing out, and this may not be a permanent fix. Fingers crossed. Cheers, Ronni On 17/11/2011, at 4:40 PM, cm wrote: Well done Alastair! Cheers, Carlo On 17/11/2011, at 13:55 , alastair taylor wrote: Hi Ronni, Carlo and James Just to feed back on the memory slot - before even reaching for the isopropyl I tried another suggestion I read - rubbing the contacts on the dimm with a pencil eraser. Whaddya know - now gets a perfect score on memtest and safari hasn't quit since. Haven't given illustrator much of a workout but I'm hopeful. If I'd known it was that simple weeks ago... Many thanks for leading me in the right direction best alastair On 11/11/2011, at 3:34 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, Depending on what model PowerBook you have. The 15” PowerBook5,6 can take Maximum RAM 2.0GB, The 12” PowerBook6,8 Maximum RAM 1.25GB Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Ronni, Carlo and James Just to feed back on the memory slot - before even reaching for the isopropyl I tried another suggestion I read - rubbing the contacts on the dimm with a pencil eraser. Whaddya know - now gets a perfect score on memtest and safari hasn't quit since. Haven't given illustrator much of a workout but I'm hopeful. If I'd known it was that simple weeks ago... Many thanks for leading me in the right direction best alastair On 11/11/2011, at 3:34 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, Depending on what model PowerBook you have. The 15” PowerBook5,6 can take Maximum RAM 2.0GB, The 12” PowerBook6,8 Maximum RAM 1.25GB Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
I forgot to say, Alastair, the requirement for grounding yourself is so that you do not damage the computer circuit or the DIMM with static discharge. Cheers, Carlo On 11/11/2011, at 11:42 , cm wrote: One more possibility that just occurred to me, Alastair. You might try cleaning the slot. Over time you can get a coat of oxide building up on the contacts and these can stop current flowing. One non-professional way to clean the slot would be to repeatedly insert and remove a DIMM, so as to scrape clean the contacts. If you choose to do this just make sure you are earthed by wearing a wrist strap or holding on to a large metal object, or exposed metal casing inside your computer with your free hand. C On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 , Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
try to clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol, check with a magnifier for darkened contacts, may be some resoldering is needed James SAD Technic U3 6 Chalkley Pl Bayswater WA Australia +618 9370 5307 mob 0414 421132 (international +614 14421132) sad...@iinet.net.au http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~saddas/ Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. On 11/11/2011, at 11:10 AM, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Many thanks Ronni Carlo and James I only have 2 slots and although the max ram is 2gb I can't find a compatible 2gb module - maybe there's no such thing - so I'm down to 1gb - unless alcohol and friction can save the day - thank you for both suggestions, which I will certainly try... alastair On 11/11/2011, at 12:24 PM, James / Hans Kunz wrote: try to clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol, check with a magnifier for darkened contacts, may be some resoldering is needed James SAD Technic U3 6 Chalkley Pl Bayswater WA Australia +618 9370 5307 mob 0414 421132 (international +614 14421132) sad...@iinet.net.au http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~saddas/ Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. On 11/11/2011, at 11:10 AM, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one pair in the G5 systems). Once you're down to the minimal installation, put back in all of the now known good DIMMs and swap one of the remaining suspects out for the next test. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to isolate the failing DIMMs in just a few swap/test cycles. There are many other reasons DIMMs can appear to be bad. Sometimes, a defective DIMM socket is the culprit and simply not using that socket solves the problem. Problems can also arise from mixing and
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Alastair, Depending on what model PowerBook you have. The 15” PowerBook5,6 can take Maximum RAM 2.0GB, The 12” PowerBook6,8 Maximum RAM 1.25GB Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:24 AM, Ronda Brown wrote: Oh dear, not the best news Alastair, The PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz Memory Slot Repair Extension Program ended on July 24, 2008 :-( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2164 I feel it is time for you to put the PowerBook ‘out to pasture’ and upgrade to a MacBook Pro, unless you can do as Carlo has suggested below. Cheers, Ronni On 11/11/2011, at 11:18 AM, cm wrote: That's a pity, Alastair. As you say it is harder to fix the slot than the DIMM. I have no corresponding model here to look at, but your DIMM slot is likely connected to the mother board and may require that the mother board be swapped out. A less painful alternative may be to find out the maximum memory that you can load up the remaining slots with and just live without the fourth slot. It's possible that by increasing the size of DIMM in the remaining good slots, you may end up with even more memory than you have now. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 11/11/2011, at 11:10, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi Ronni and Carlo It's not the dimms it's the slots! Both modules test fine in the bottom slot and throw a bunch of failures in the top one. I'm thinking it's a lot less easy to fix a slot than replace a dimm?? thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:20 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Ronni and Carlo Well I did the permission repair from the disc and it found a whole paragraph of things to fix which hadn't appeared before, and so far no safari quits (though it hasn't been long and I'm not using illustrator this morning) But I've had 2 kernel panics. Don't remember ever having one on the PB before. Any further thoughts appreciated best alastair On 09/11/2011, at 12:31 PM, cm wrote: Hi Alastair, (Just saw Ronni's email but this was mostly written so I will send it along) When a problem is really baffling it can sometimes be hardware related but at this stage you can't rule out a software problem. Some serious diagnostics are in order. :-) These tests could be run in order so that if one test comes back positive there is no need to proceed to the next. To check for a software problem: 1) Check your system log for anything unusual. 2) Try to repair permission from the CD so that you do not actually boot into your potentially faulty system. 3) Create a new account and run Safari to see if it is stable. If it is then the problem could be in the user settings of your original account. 4) Get an external drive with a clean install on the external drive see if Safari is stable -- if this works there could be something wrong with your system level settings, but there could also be a hard-drive hardware problem. To check for a hardware problem. The most likely candidates are the hard drive and memory. 1) Clone your current installation to an external drive. Run from the external drive and see if it is stable -- if so the hard drive is likely at fault. 2) If you have spares or know of someone with a similar model computer swap out the memory and give it a try. If you choose to do any of the above please write back and we can give you a hand interpreting the results. Cheers, Carlo On 09/11/2011, at 11:11 , alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi all Been googling this till my fingers bleed and can't fix it. G4 powerbook 1.5 10.4.11 Applications keep quitting unexpectedly - worst culprits safari and illustrator CS2 - no use switching to firefox or camino; if safari is doing it, so do they. Sometimes i can go all day without quits, others it happens every 2 mins. if i repair permissions and restart things are usually ok for a while but problem soon returns. tried trashing plists and entire illustrator folder in application support, turning off plug-ins in safari, deactivating all but system fonts, run onyx and fsck. i'm running out of ideas! sorry about one hand typing - small niece on lap. your suggestions much appreciated kind regards alastair -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/ wamug.org.au-wamug -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/ wamug.org.au-wamug -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one pair in the G5 systems). Once you're down to the minimal installation, put back in all of the now known good DIMMs and swap one of the remaining suspects out for the next test. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to isolate the failing DIMMs in just a few swap/test cycles. There are many other reasons DIMMs can appear to be bad. Sometimes, a defective DIMM socket is the culprit and simply not using that socket solves the problem. Problems can also arise from mixing and matching different brands of DIMMs, especially if they aren't all rated with the same timing specs. It's even possible that the motherboard CPU caches may be bad and the fault doesn't lie with the DIMMs at all. Suspect the CPU caches if the tests pass in single-user mode but fail in a terminal window under the full OS. The CPU caches are turned off in single-user mode and are therefore not part of the memory test, whereas the caches are in the test path under full OS operation. EXITING SINGLE-USER MODE To exit single-user mode, type either the reboot command or the shut command at the unix prompt. The reboot command reboots the
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one pair in the G5 systems). Once you're down to the minimal installation, put back in all of the now known good DIMMs and swap one of the remaining suspects out for the next test. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to isolate the failing DIMMs in just a few swap/test cycles. There are many other reasons DIMMs can appear to be bad. Sometimes, a defective DIMM socket is the culprit and simply not using that socket solves the problem. Problems can also arise from mixing and matching different brands of DIMMs, especially if they aren't all rated with the same timing specs. It's even possible that the motherboard CPU caches may be bad and the fault doesn't lie with the DIMMs at all. Suspect the CPU caches if the tests pass in single-user mode but fail in a terminal window under the full OS. The CPU
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
That all sounds good to me, Ronni — very thorough as usual! I also agree that the fact that Memtest has reported a problem would suggest that one or both DIMMS are defective. If you are able to, try temporarily swapping out the memory and see if the problem goes away. Also take the opportunity to verify that Memtest comes back clean on the alternate memory. Cheers, Carlo Sent from my iPad On 10/11/2011, at 12:20, Ronda Brown ro...@mac.com wrote: Sorry Alastair, I hit send before I realised I had not included the link for Memtest, where you can download the ‘User Guide’ etc: http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one pair in the G5 systems). Once you're down to the minimal installation, put back in all of the now known good DIMMs and swap one of the remaining suspects out for the next test. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to isolate the failing DIMMs in just a few swap/test cycles. There are many other reasons DIMMs can appear to be bad. Sometimes, a
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Thanks again Ronni and Carlo Yes, I ran memtest in single user mode - 3 passes of which 2 had quite a few mismatches and the third, I think, only one. I will try taking out one dimm (don't have a spare to do a swap) and testing again. But have to get some work done first, between panics! thanks alastair On 10/11/2011, at 12:14 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, If you are now experiencing Kernel Panics and because you also mentioned you had run Memtest and it reported many errors, that your RAM (Memory) ‘could’ be the problem. This is not conclusive as there are other things that can cause Kernel Panics. If you have run memtest before I imagine you have already read all the documentation regarding running memtest. When you ran Memtest, did you run it in ‘Single-User Mode’? In this mode, nearly all of the installed ram can be tested whereas under the full OS, a considerable portion of memory is tied up by OS X processes and the Quartz window manager. Running memtest in single-user mode maximizes the effectiveness of the memory test. To boot into single-user mode, hold down the Command and S keys during startup. You will be automatically logged in as the user root with a minimal command line environment. The login directory for the root account is / which is the top-level directory of the boot volume. Assuming that the memtest folder resides in your Applications folder, a typical invocation of memtest would be the following: /Applications/memtest/memtest all 3 -L RETURN( RETURN means press the Return key) This would run three passes of the test suite, testing all available free memory. The -L switch instructs memtest to save the transcript of the run to a file named memtest.log within the working directory from which you invoked memtest (also known as the current working directory). Under the full OS, launching a terminal window sets the working directory to /Users/login_name where login_name is the account name you logged in with. Note that when running in single-user mode, you are automatically logged in as the root user so the default current working directory is /private/var/root. The main thing to remember is that the memtest.log file is always saved in the current working directory which is the same thing as the login directory unless the user manually changes to a different working directory. Alternatively, you can cd into the memtest folder and run the program using the command ./memtest all 3 -L RETURN (Don't forget the period before the forward slash!) Best to run at least 3 to 5 passes to obtain the best test coverage of marginal or intermittently failing DIMMs. To test less than all of the available free memory, replace the all option with the number of megabytes to test (e.g. 10, 100, 512, etc). The number entered is assumed to be in MB. For example, the command, /Applications/memtest/memtest 1150 3 -L RETURN will test 1150 MB of the installed memory assuming this much is available for testing. TIPS FOR ISOLATING DEFECTIVE DIMMS Memtest currently does not have the ability to isolate which DIMM or DIMMs are marginal or defective when the test results report a failure. This feature is planned for a future release. For now, the best way to isolate the offending DIMM(s) is to use a binary search methodology. This is an algorithm which is popular in many sorting routines and can lead to the discovery of a defective DIMM in a minimal number of swap/test sequences. When memtest reports one or more failures, the first step in isolating the offending DIMMs is to remove half of them and then rerun memtest. If there are no failures, then the suspect DIMMs are the ones that were removed. If failures are still reported, then one or more of the still-installed DIMMs are bad. If the failures are in the still-installed DIMMs, again remove half of them and retest. If the failure are gone, then swap the installed half for the removed half and retest. Each time a test is run, either cut the number of installed DIMMs in half (for a failure) or swap the installed DIMMs for the removed ones (no failure) until the minimal number of DIMMs are installed (e.g., one pair in the G5 systems). Once you're down to the minimal installation, put back in all of the now known good DIMMs and swap one of the remaining suspects out for the next test. Under normal circumstances, you should be able to isolate the failing DIMMs in just a few swap/test cycles. There are many other reasons DIMMs can appear to be bad. Sometimes, a defective DIMM socket is the culprit and simply not using that socket solves the problem. Problems can also arise from mixing and matching different brands of DIMMs, especially if they aren't all rated with the same timing specs. It's even possible that the motherboard CPU
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Alastair, How much Memory do you have and how much Free space on your Hard Drive? Have you checked in Activity Monitor.app to see what is actually using active system resources in your system? Also check Console.app for any reports that might give you a clue as to what is happening to cause the quits. Cheers, Ronni 17 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD OS X 10.7.2 Lion Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) On 09/11/2011, at 11:11 AM, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi all Been googling this till my fingers bleed and can't fix it. G4 powerbook 1.5 10.4.11 Applications keep quitting unexpectedly - worst culprits safari and illustrator CS2 - no use switching to firefox or camino; if safari is doing it, so do they. Sometimes i can go all day without quits, others it happens every 2 mins. if i repair permissions and restart things are usually ok for a while but problem soon returns. tried trashing plists and entire illustrator folder in application support, turning off plug-ins in safari, deactivating all but system fonts, run onyx and fsck. i'm running out of ideas! sorry about one hand typing - small niece on lap. your suggestions much appreciated kind regards alastair Cheers, Ronni 17 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD OS X 10.7.2 Lion Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
Hi Alastair, (Just saw Ronni's email but this was mostly written so I will send it along) When a problem is really baffling it can sometimes be hardware related but at this stage you can't rule out a software problem. Some serious diagnostics are in order. :-) These tests could be run in order so that if one test comes back positive there is no need to proceed to the next. To check for a software problem: 1) Check your system log for anything unusual. 2) Try to repair permission from the CD so that you do not actually boot into your potentially faulty system. 3) Create a new account and run Safari to see if it is stable. If it is then the problem could be in the user settings of your original account. 4) Get an external drive with a clean install on the external drive see if Safari is stable -- if this works there could be something wrong with your system level settings, but there could also be a hard-drive hardware problem. To check for a hardware problem. The most likely candidates are the hard drive and memory. 1) Clone your current installation to an external drive. Run from the external drive and see if it is stable -- if so the hard drive is likely at fault. 2) If you have spares or know of someone with a similar model computer swap out the memory and give it a try. If you choose to do any of the above please write back and we can give you a hand interpreting the results. Cheers, Carlo On 09/11/2011, at 11:11 , alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi all Been googling this till my fingers bleed and can't fix it. G4 powerbook 1.5 10.4.11 Applications keep quitting unexpectedly - worst culprits safari and illustrator CS2 - no use switching to firefox or camino; if safari is doing it, so do they. Sometimes i can go all day without quits, others it happens every 2 mins. if i repair permissions and restart things are usually ok for a while but problem soon returns. tried trashing plists and entire illustrator folder in application support, turning off plug-ins in safari, deactivating all but system fonts, run onyx and fsck. i'm running out of ideas! sorry about one hand typing - small niece on lap. your suggestions much appreciated kind regards alastair -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug
Re: applications quitting on powerbook
thanks ronni and carlo for your replies - yup, niece in position again pb has 1.5 g ram - 47gb disc used and 73 free on the main partition. i forgot to say i have tried another account and it was fine for a while then got the quits. ditto from my spare partition. i just ran memtest and it's coming back with quite a few failures - all data mismatch at bufa address. i don't know how serious these are, or how to tell which of the 2 ram sticks might be the culprit. A development - was strapping niece into bouncer and getting my other hand back and returned to find adobe crash reporter jumping up and down saying illustrator had quit but it has only half quit. It still has a triangle in the dock, though its windows have gone, and activity monitor says it is using 90% of CPU. This hasn't happened before and I don't know if it helps. Next stop Carlo's serious diagnostic regime. I don't really know what is unusual in a system log, but the crash reports often have corevideo and quicktime frameworks near the end. Will try permissions from the disc next many thanks alastair On 09/11/2011, at 12:27 PM, Ronda Brown wrote: Hi Alastair, How much Memory do you have and how much Free space on your Hard Drive? Have you checked in Activity Monitor.app to see what is actually using active system resources in your system? Also check Console.app for any reports that might give you a clue as to what is happening to cause the quits. Cheers, Ronni 17 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD OS X 10.7.2 Lion Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) On 09/11/2011, at 11:11 AM, alas.i...@iinet.net.au wrote: Hi all Been googling this till my fingers bleed and can't fix it. G4 powerbook 1.5 10.4.11 Applications keep quitting unexpectedly - worst culprits safari and illustrator CS2 - no use switching to firefox or camino; if safari is doing it, so do they. Sometimes i can go all day without quits, others it happens every 2 mins. if i repair permissions and restart things are usually ok for a while but problem soon returns. tried trashing plists and entire illustrator folder in application support, turning off plug-ins in safari, deactivating all but system fonts, run onyx and fsck. i'm running out of ideas! sorry about one hand typing - small niece on lap. your suggestions much appreciated kind regards alastair Cheers, Ronni 17 MacBook Pro 2.3GHz Quad-Core i7 “Thunderbolt 2.3GHz / 8GB / 750GB @ 7200rpm HD OS X 10.7.2 Lion Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/ wamug.org.au-wamug -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml Guidelines - http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml Settings Unsubscribe - http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug
