PowerPC :: Powerbook G4 Crashing - Going Blank?
Jul 11, 2007
I bought a Powerbook G4 about 2.5 yrs ago, top of the line, new from an Apple Store and its been great. However over the last 2 months, its developed this habit of crashing/sleeping/going blank while it Itunes is streaming music, and/ or while Safari is up. Last night it did it while I was recording a Live DAT into garage band. I used to be able to hit the space bar or any key, and it would come back briefly, crash, repeat etc until I restarted. Now however, its just suddenly black. nothing. All I can do is take the battery out for a little while, wait, put it back in, and then restart. I've backed up everything as a precaution. I am diligent about uploading software updates, and I run MacJanitor from time to time...
I probably have 1200 songs, 15TV shows on Itunes, and 1000 pictures on iphoto, So I would hope my hard drive still has ample space.
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Sep 30, 2006
I've got a 15in aluminium powerbook, a couple of years old. So far I've had nearly everything go wrong with it. replaced screen, knackered hd, ram port failiure, and a battery that lasts 10 minutes.
I recently replaced the harddrive, as the standard issue one packed up a few times. I followed the instructions on ifixit.com website. To my delight I actually managed to do it, and the pb worked well for a few weeks. Then suddenly, the screen froze and faded to white. So far I've tried everything -
Resetting the pmu. Resetting the pram and nvram. Opened it up to check I reconnected everything.
and checked to see if the hd is still working starting it up from another computer, and it works fine. Everythings still there. Someone also said if you hold 'R' key down on start up it resets the lcd.
BUT STILL BLANK!!!!!!!!!
The screen still seems to turn black after a little while, indicating the energy saver is still on. I'm thinking I may have dislodged an lcd connection or something?
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Oct 11, 2006
I had a good-running Powerbook G4 for several years until -- seemingly out of nowhere -- it started rejecting all new, blank CDs (DVDs as well). It still reads disks with data on them, but after a couple of seconds, ejects blank ones. I'm running OS 10.3.9 and do all the software updating.
I've tried re-starting, while holding the option key down, and some other things I picked up on the Internet, but to no avail.
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Dec 13, 2006
i'm having some old school os 8/9 crashes -- everything just freezes up. no kernal panic screen, i can't move the mouse, the keyboard doesn't even respond so i can't apple-ctrl-pwr to reboot, i have to hold down the power button to shut it off.
this is the second time it has happened in the past 2 weeks. any ideas?
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Oct 4, 2008
I just bought a powerbook, and I'm trying to get it to turn on. It doesn't have a hard drive, so obviously it won't be able to get it to boot. I just want to be able to get to the flashing folder. When I press the power button, the computer does nothing, not even the fan spins. The only indication I have that it is on is the caps lock light turns on. I've tried resetting the pram, but the screen stays blank and does nothing. I don't have any ram modules in it, so it shouldn't be a ram problem.
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Feb 2, 2008
I have a Powerbook G4 1.67GB with 2GB ram.
I am constantly having problems with the laptop shutting down when it is just on battery. It doesn't do this if I am plugged into power.
It does this on a random basis whatever program I am running but generally at 80%. I currently have Leopard as the operating system.
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Feb 28, 2008
I have an older 15" powerbook Titanium. About five years old now. Been working pretty well all five years, save for an external hinge I had to replace. Last night, the computer started buzzing from the insides, a buzzing reminiscent of a distant chainsaw. The program i was working in (firefox) just went to the pinwheel of doom and never recovered. I moved to the finder, which did the same. I forced booted. Same noise. Same problems. I can use programs for a few minutes, but then they pinwheel of doom and the computer freezes out.
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Nov 15, 2006
I am leaving for a week long trip and many parts of it will not be able to run the computer off of the powercord, which is a problem because I get about 40mins of wordprocessing use out of it when I run the battery alone. Can someone explain what the significance of these levels are for my Powerbook G4 15'' (Alm) 1.25GHz, namely the cycle count and full charge/remaining capacity?
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Aug 19, 2007
My powermac keeps crashing about after a few hours of use.
I installed some new samsung 1gb x 2 ram.
The hardware test and techtool show no problems but I'm positive the ram is the culprit.
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Aug 26, 2008
Just loaded OS X 10.5.1 on my G4 Powerbook which has all other 'original' software. Still learning to navigate (and find all files etc., which don't reappear in original format...) but MAJoR problem is cannot open iphoto which worked perfectly beforehand. Just crashes instantly. Computer suggest i relaunch, then crashes again, instantly, and then suggests reload and relaunch and, then crashed again. Would ideally hope my photo library is still intact
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Oct 15, 2008
My 12 inch powerbook does not start up. Instead it loads to Darwin. I have an install disk from a 15 inch powerbook G4 and I would like to know if using this would work on my 12 inch powerbook G4?
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Jul 19, 2005
I'm wanting to copy some stuff onto a CD but when I insert the blank CD, it just pops it out (opens up). What gives?
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Apr 24, 2007
i have a powermac g5 dual 1.8 tower. the dvd burner is a pioneer dvd-rw dvr-107d. according to the system profiler, this should be able to burn either - or +R discs and cds. also, the computer belonged to a friend who was using it to burn dvds up until the day she delivered it to me.
i switched out the harddrive and reinstalled everything fresh (in case that matters.)
now when i put in a blank dvd or cd (different brands, different formats) it comes up with an error message that says: This disc cannot be used because it is not recognized.
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Aug 23, 2006
I've got an 800Mhz iBook G4 (640MB RAM, latest update for Tiger 10.4) which has worked without a hitch for the last 2 years. Suddenly it has started going dead while in use - the screen goes completely blank (although the backlights are still on) and all sounds cease. It doesn't matter if the machine is idle, or playing World of Warcraft, or encoding a DVD in DVD Studio Pro. It is completely random. The only way to get out of it is to hold down the power button to force it to shut down. Powering up is also becoming difficult - 9 times out of 10 the machine boots but I get no startup sound. Instead the screen stays dark and the fan goes on full throttle, and nothing happens. Sometimes I can force it to shut down by holding down the power button, sometimes I need to take the battery out. When the machine does boot and I get back into OS X, sometimes it displays a message saying my clock and time/date are set before 2001 and I may have problems.
I understand this message comes up if you reset the power management unit, but on checking the time/date it is set correct. I have tried resetting the power management unit, but it doesn't make any difference. I have run the hardware test CD, and all items pass on the extended test. The iBook's battery is almost dead - this I know! But would that make any difference? With the time/date error that sometimes comes up on restart, it's almost like the internal battery that stores data like the time has run flat. Is this charged by the big battery? I haven't booted into open firmware, but I've read I can run the reset -nvram and reset-all commands from there (not sure what they do). It's not hardware, as the hardware test CD works. It doesn't seem to be a software error (although I haven't reinstalled OS X). Has my RAM gone bad or become unseated?
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Sep 1, 2007
My 2002 iBook G3 notebook with OS X3.9 started acting up on me finally! 2 days ago I turned it on and it sounds like it is starting up normally, but when the screen comes on, it just stays lit up and black - I tried everything, from trying to adjust the brightness, to restarting it a zillion times to completely draining the battery and then restarting it again, nothing seems to work right! I thought it may be the backlight, but then the light does come on, and stays on - the apple logo on the back stays lit up even when I close the notebook.
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Nov 1, 2007
So my quicksilver has been working great up until this afternoon. i had to restart and now whenever i turn it on all i get is a blank grey screen and nothing else. i dont hear a startup chime or anything.
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Mar 12, 2008
I came home for lunch today, and found my Mac Mini G4 with the fan running, and a blank screen. It was obviously locked up. System has 10.5.2 with all of the latest updates. This is not my primary system, I have an MBP for that.
Here is what I did:
Force a power off/on, and I get the normal gray screen with the Apple, and spinning gear, but it never stops spinning.
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Oct 26, 2008
I have a G5 that has started intermittently booting up with a totally blank screen - not blue, no video at all. Sometimes on reboot or after resetting the PRAM it works again.
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Jul 17, 2010
I recently picked up an iMac G3 with a 600 MHz G3 Processor and a slot-loading CD-RW drive. It had 10.2.8 and 9.2.2 installed. I went into the startup disk menu in system preferences and tried to restart in 9.2.2 and be adventerous. But it would just flash a floppy disk with a ? mark. No matter what I did I could not get back to Mac OS X. I also have a MacBook with Tiger restore CDs. I tried to install that on there but could not and decided to see if it would work if I erased the drive. It did not. So now I have an iMac G3 with a blank hard drive and a Cd drive and a mind that is completely clueless about what to do!
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Aug 14, 2006
I have had my g4 for about two years and all of a sudden the thing decided that it's not going to turn on anymore. Power is getting to the machine and a certain amount of whirring is heard but not the signature! as it starts. The screen remains blank and would stay like that all night if I let it. The only thing I did differently before this appeared was to take it to work in a different bag a few times. Rucksack before, Side bag (more vibration).
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Dec 9, 2006
I have a 17" g4 imac 800ghz with a super drive (not a new computer by any stretch)I'm getting two errors one follows the other when useing toast first i get Drive reported an error: sense key = blank check sense code = 0x00
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Oct 31, 2008
I have a last model G5 with dual 2.5ghz and 4.5 gigs of ram. It also has the 7800gt video card.After I start it up it runs for about 15 minutes and then the display goes blank and the system fans go full out. I've tried resetting the PRAM, PMU, VRAM, all of those things...the last thing I have is the video card to test.Also the power supply was just replaced by a Apple Repair Center under extended warranty.
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Jun 6, 2007
I have an iMac G4 and it keeps crashing. I've zapped PRAM, bought more RAM, re-formated HDD, installed Mac OS X over and over, I don't know what else to do. Even if I boot it up and let it run, it will eventually crash, but at random times. If I re-boot right after it crashes, it crashes again, but if I wait, it doesn't.
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Aug 2, 2010
I've got a 2005 iMac G5 PowerPC 1.8GHz running Leopard. It's been running absolutely fine since I had it (upgraded to Leopard for at least 18 months) but randomly a week or two ago it's started crashing.
Sometimes two or three times in a row, then it's been 2-3 days without problem.
The display starts flickering, usually the mouse pointer can still be moved but after 10-20 seconds or so it will just crash and I have to restart by holding the power button down.
There's nothing in the crash log. I've run the hardware test and checked the memory and everything is looking fine. I've completely reinstalled Leopard and also cleaned out the fan in case it was overheating that was causing this.
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Nov 22, 2006
I have a Powerbook G4 1.5 w/ 1GB of RAM and the stock 80GB HD. I've run this puppy pretty hard for a couple of years now, and it's lately started to lag a bit - perfectly natural. I was considering buying a new notebook but I've decided to wait until after Leopard comes. So my question is:
1) How do I determine the max RAM I can put in this machine?
2) Are there are specific specs I need to be concerned with when swapping out the Hard Drive? Any type, size limitations, speed limitations, etc.
I'd love a little input as to how I find out this info. I think instead of taking the notebook plunge now, I'm going to put a nice new hard drive in this one and possibly bump up the RAM a little more if it will take it.
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Mar 14, 2007
So is the is Powerbook G4 802.11g or b? it is the 1.25GHz model. Also, one thing I don't understand regarding the airport extreme or any airport for that matter: isn't the maximum speed going to be completely determined by how much the cable provider, Comcast, pumps out?
If this is the case, how do I determine what my transfers and speeds are looking like specifically for Comcast? And, how would an airport extreme improve upon this or any other performance aspect in this regard?
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Jul 18, 2007
Powerbook G4 (Ti-book) 667 mhz, 512 mb RAM. I finally after YEARS upgraded my OS (10.4.10), yay me! Just bought Adobe CS3 (for the new IMAC we have yet to buy), but I would like to install it on my Powerbook. SO, it it time to bump up to 1GB RAM. I was told it was tricky, and I should take it in to the apple store to install, but then I took a look under the keyboard, and it looks pretty simple. i have installed new RAM on a G5 tower, and this looks way easier. So, I am planning on buying the RAM either online or at FRY's, then installing it. BUT, I know I have to be careful of what type of RAM to buy. I found what I think will be good at [URL] but I will have to buy 2 (512's) as mine currently has 2 (256). I guess I just want to make sure I am not going about this the wrong way before I drop about $200 for RAM upgrade...
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Sep 27, 2007
I have a 15' Powerbook G4 1.67, currently with 512 of ram....so i'm shopping for an upgrade, but not sure which specific type to go with. In my system profile it says i'm running..
Type: DDR SDRAM
Speed: PC2700U-25330
And these are the types i've been seeing to choose from.
G4 15-inch 1.67GHz (DDR M9676LL/A) Memory
G4 15-inch 1.67GHz (DDR M9677LL/A) Memory
G4 15-inch 1.67GHz Double Layer DDR2 (M9969LL/A) Memory
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Sep 3, 2008
I just bought a used 12" powerbook G4 1.5ghz and I want to add some ram to max it at 1.25Gb. Did anyone try to use ddr400 instead of ddr333 on powerbooks? In theory it will run at 333 like in any pc, but is this flawless in powerbooks? Because ddr333 is expensive nowadays.
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Sep 6, 2008
I know the powerbook is rather archaic now, but I'm trying to get a new Macbook and don't want to throw my old powerbook away. So.. I have a friend who wants to buy my old G4 Powerbook with 60GB capacity, 512 MB memory, 1.33 GHz cpu speed. It's extremely worn in, meaning, it won't last more than 20 minutes off the power cord, but someone could always replace that. So what would be a fair price to charge someone to take it off my hands?
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