Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 27, 2003 11:34 PM |
ken882 |
Hi, It seems that I got my J700 system to boot OS X O.K., so I'll let my old thread rest for now. XPF seems to offer a more reliable startup than the Sonnet installer did (I have a Sonnet G4 800 Mhz card, a Radeon 7000 Mac Edition video card, and a 60 Gb ATA Maxtor drive connected to a Tempo Trio card). But all though my attempts to get a stable version of OS X installed, I've been plagued with complete system freezes. The freezes happen randomly, and require me to hit the power button to reboot. Also, as these freezes happen, they seem to result in some of the system files being corrupted. Today, I ran for a few hours with no problems at all, and then the system froze for the first time as I was in the middle of posting a message here to say that everything was fine (probably a good thing that the freeze kept me from posting it). Freezes became more numerous after that, until eventually, I had problems with the OS X top menu bar disappearing when I tried to run some apps. I think that these things are a symptom of a more fundamental problem, which I'm starting to think is my RAM. Are there any hard and fast rules about how to populate a J700's RAM to keep OS X happy, or is it more of a black art? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Currently, I have two 128 MB 60ns DIMMs for RAM, and they are currently in memory slots B3 and B4. I bought the memory from OWC (item# OWC5MD128BE), with serial numbers 292406 and 292445. Is this memory compatible with the Sonnet G4 800Mhz card and OS X on a UMAX J700? I also have what seems to be an 8 MB DIMM that came with the machine. Currently, I have that one removed from the machine as I didn't know its specs and I thought that it might be causing my problems. But I continue to have freezing problems even with that DIMM removed. The only other thing I can think of is my CD-ROM drive. I replace the original one with an Apple-branded one, but it's only 4x, I think. Could this be the cause of my problems? Thanks for any suggestions. |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 31, 2003 4:27 PM |
marcush |
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No, if you have disconnected the SCSI cable from the logic board then termination is no longer an issue. Since you are still experiencing the freezes it would seem that you probably have a problem with your memory. |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 31, 2003 10:32 AM |
ken882 |
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Well, I got my 2 additional 128 Mb DIMMs yesterday, and I put them in (fyi, they are in slots B1-B4 in the J700). The freezes didn't go away. So I did a complete reinstall using Sonnet's installer. No problems there. I then ran Sonnet's tuneup software. Still no problem, but when I actually started using the machine for more than just the installation itself, the system froze, then froze multiple times at the blue screen. So then I tried another experiment. Since OS X is now installed on a drive attached to a Tempo Trio card, I unplugged the SCSI cable from the motherboard and rebooted. The system seemed a bit faster, but as soon as I got a second app running, the system froze again. One question: By pulling the SCSI cable, have I eliminated SCSI as a cause of my problems? I don't have to terminate the empty external and internal SCSI ports, do I? |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 29, 2003 2:19 AM |
marcush |
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Reinstalling the XpostFacto extensions from OS9 is exactly what I meant. You will have to reboot after installing Sonnet X Tuneup anyway, if that 's what you choose to enable your caches. I hope the guy at OWC was being on the level with you too. If you read back far enough in the posts you will see discussions of system freezes. For some it was because of bad memory. For others it was the cache enabler software. I went through the same experience myself. At first I thought it was software related but in the end it turned out to be memory related. My interleaved OWC RAM would not function with an Xlr8 ziff G4/450 MPe card. No such problems with the Sonnet card. Good luck. I'll be watching this thread. |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 28, 2003 9:09 PM |
ken882 |
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marcush, Thanks for the suggestions. I ordered 2 more 128 Mb DIMMs from OWC this afternoon. The guy there said that the OWC memory should work O.K. with my configuration, and he also said that he knew of regular Macs that had freezing problems due to insufficient memory (I hope he wasn't just trying to get me to buy more memory). So that should arrive around Friday. I'm a bit confused about your mention of the XPostFacto extension. Are you saying that I have to rerun XPF from OS 9.1 and reinstall it to the drive where OS X lives? Thanks again for your suggestions, and I'll let you know how the extra memory does. |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 28, 2003 12:18 PM |
marcush |
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You may well be having a problem with your RAM. OSX is very picky. Another concern about your RAM to consider is the relative lack of it. For optimal performance you probably should have at least 512MB. It may be that your machine is freezing because it is thrashing, repeatedly accessing swap files for virutal memory. Being memory starved, combined with no external cache being enabled could be what's going wrong. Do you hear your hard disk being accessed constantly? If you do then your machine is definitely thrashing. You should definitely enable your caches. You can do one of two things either install the Sonnet X tuneup and then reinstall the latest XpostFacto extension (my preferred recommendation), or you can install both L2Cache config to enable your L2 and Cache Control X to enable the L3. Both will work equally well. Also, if you do find it necessary to reinstall OSX then only use XpostFacto to install, then do one of the above to enable your caches. Power Tower Pro; Sonnet G4 800 ,1GB RAM, Sonnet Tempo ATA/100, Macsense 10/100 ethernet, Ratoc Firwire/USB2.0 combo card, ATI Radeon Mac Edition 32MB; OS 10.2.3, OS 9.2.2. |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 28, 2003 9:33 AM |
ken882 |
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Marty, Currently, I'm not using any cache enabling software at all. Previously, when I was using the Sonnet installer, I was also using the Sonnet Tuneup software to enable the L2 cache. But I switched to XPF because when I used the Sonnet installer, I was encountering on average one freeze during each attempt to install OS X. So I concluded (possibly mistakenly) that there was some incompatability between what Sonnet's software was doing and my system configuration. So once I got XPF to work and install OS X, I was leery of enabling the L2 cache lest it bring back the problems. It seems that you are implying that having no cache enabling software running at all could cause my problem? I'll reinstall OS X again and then give Ryan's L2cacheconfig a try and see what happens, and I'll let you know. It also bothers me a bit that OS X seems unable to recover from these freezes. On other platforms that I've used, usually a reboot cures all ills once weird things start to occur. Before I do a complete reinstall, I'll trash all of my preference files and see if that brings the system back to a stable state. If that works, then I'll run the cache config software from that point. Thanks for your help. Ken |
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RE: Problem with complete system freezes |
January, 28, 2003 4:02 AM |
mjoecups358 |
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I had problems similiar to your which were caused by th epowerlogix cache enabler... Switching back to Ryan's L2cache config made my system stable again... What software are you using to enable L2 cache? L3? Marty |
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