Serious Startup Problems

try to delete these preference-files (they are for the power management):

macintosh hd/library/preferences/systemconfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist

macintosh hd/library/preferences/systemconfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist

macintosh hd/users/your user folder/library/preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

try to reset the pram (press apple alt+PR during the startup until you hear the startup sound a second time.)

if all that does not work:
reset the smu:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301283

what is written in macintosh hd/library/logs/panic.log

com.apple.GeForce(4.0.0)@0xa1d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.6)@0x452000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4)@0x5a3000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4)@0x5c7000
dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(4.0.0)@0x5dd000

thats a problem with you graphic card driver.

disconnect all external devices. does this failure come again? if yes, try out which device caused it.

if no:
try an archive an install with the osx tiger dvd.
on that way you get a completely new system AND keep all your users, user files and applications.

if this does not help there is a hardware error with your graphic card...

do you run norton applications or virex? deinstall them. they don´t work with tiger...

Surely Nicolas you meant if the failure happens without the external devices connected (save KB and Mouse) that a reinstall of OS X would be the next step.
And if the problem doesn't display, then to try with each device and combo of devices until it does?

That's the logical approach to diagnosing where the problem likely lies.

I have been having the same problem. Imac G5 but Panther. I now used disk utilities numerous times, I did a safe start and uninstalled Norton Utilities, I also uninstalled Sophos and Virtual PC. I also deleted all start up items from the administrator account before that. did the fsck, did the reset nvram, reset all, and reset the PRAM. I still have problems and it is getting worse.
Nothing shows to be askew according to disk ultilities and Tech Tool and fsck.
However, I did notice in the log the following as of this morning (it has been waking up on it's own at 2:30am) This was when I still had all those programs on my computer. This is from the system.log

May 14 23:15:37 localhost kernel: AppleNMI mask NMI
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: System Sleep
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: System Wake
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: Wake event 0020
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: AppleNMI unmask NMI
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: FWOHCI handleSelfIDInt - nodeID not valid (reset bus and retry 1)
May 15 02:37:06 localhost kernel: UniNEnet::monitorLinkStatus - Link is up at 100 Mbps - Full Duplex

Did you check there's nothing scheduled in Sys Prefs Energy Prefs to turn on at a certain time?
Tried setting up a new User account and using it to see if the same problems manifest there also?
Try running DU/TTP on the FW drive to see if anything is found, and remove it before sleeping (in either account).

a sleeping mac always wakes up once a night.

then it runs the daily weekly and monthly maintenance scripts...

No it does not!
Not unless Apple's reintroduction of the schedules in Sys Prefs Energy Prefs and a change in the crons scripts initiates that.
The crons happen only IF the Mac is left on, but not sleeping, overnight.

The crons are nothing worth overly worrying about - if they were absolutely needing done without fail, you'd bet they'd get done upon first boot or waking, not at some ungodly hour of the morning. And that's also only if the Mac is only being used below a preset operating level. If you've left the Mac on overnight to render in Maya or Motion/FCP, then the crons will not be initiated.

LIke I said, they're nothing to worry about, otherwise they'd get done no matter what at waking or starting up. The fact they can be missed proves they are not a major concern.

Thank you pjskel. i created another administrator account. So far there is nothing wrong. I am amazed. After I posted the last message, I could not get it to start anymore, not even techtool cd. So I went online with my old imac, and found your suggestion, and tried it.
Energy preferences were set to wake up at 6:30a every morning, but not at 1 or 2am, as it did the last few days.
Does this mean the main administrator log in related files are corrupt, and should ultimately be deleted?
Forgive me how do I run DU/TTP? I will search in the forums. Meanwhile, I think I will just shut it down at night. 🙂

I just encountered a similar problem on one of our iMac G5's. There was a third-party DIMM that I removed and the iMac started without a problem. I am not yet sure why a DIMM would go bad after 5 months, but it looks like it has...

TRy cleaning the contacts on the module and the slot on the logic board. if you use a pipecleaner with acetyalchol, allow a good few mins for the liquid to evaporate before inserting the module and powering on the Mac - just to be extra precautious.

Sorry, my shorthand causing problems again - DU (Disk Utility) for Verify/Repair Disk. TTP - TechTool Pro [4].

As for the Energy Prefs - it's related to that I believe.
You could delete the com.apple.systempreferences.plist in User/Library/Preferences folder, log out and back in, and redo any Prefs needing done, but leaving the Schedule off.
I noticed a scheduler.plist but couldn't replicate it in my test account, so it too could be moved to the desktop or trash and log out/in again, if the syspref one alone doesn't solve the problem in the original account.

* Edit - on second thoughts, scheduler is probably related to iCal, so that's probably why I couldn't get it to replicate. If you don't have it in yours, since you never used iCal's Alarm function for an event reminder, then ignore what I said above about it.

OK. This is an update. I shut down the imac overnight. This morning when I started it the white screen with the grey apple logo was very grainy shaking horizontally and had horizontal lines as well as what appears to be missing pixels on the logo and other odd grey pixel areas. Utlimately it would result in a white screen. (This was happening the last few restarts before the new user account) I rebooted with the CD and did disk verify. Nothing new there.

from the system file:
May 15 22:48:06 localhost /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari: * Warning: ATSUSetFontFallbacks has been deprecated. Use ATSUFontFallbacks objects instead. *
May 15 23:35:53 localhost /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Microsoft Excel: * Warning: ATSUMeasureText has been deprecated. Use ATSUGetUnjustifiedBounds instead. *
May 16 00:09:44 localhost /System/Library/CoreServices/ARD Agent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARD Agent: ******Launched Agent ******
May 16 00:09:45 localhost loginwindow[196]: halting
May 16 00:09:45 localhost shutdown: halt by justme:
May 16 00:09:47 localhost syslogd: exiting on signal 15
May 16 07:11:54 localhost syslogd: restart
May 16 07:11:54 localhost syslogd: kernel boot file is /mach_kernel
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: vm pagebootstrap: 123117 free pages
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: mig table_maxdispl = 68
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: IOKit Component Version 7.9:
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: Wed Mar 30 20:07:52 PST 2005; root(rcbuilder):RELEASE_PPC/iokit/RELEASE
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: 88 prelinked modules
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel:
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: using 1310 buffer headers and 1310 cluster IO buffer headers
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: AppleKauaiATA shasta-ata features enabled
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: DART enabled
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: MacRISC4CPU: publishing BootCPU
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: Local FireWire GUID = 0xd93ff:0xfe57f18e
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: Security auditing service present
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: BSM auditing present
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: From path: "/ht/pci@3/k2-sata-root/k2-sata@0/disk@0:3,\mach_kernel", Waiting on <dict ID="0"><key>IOPathMatch</key><string ID="1">IODeviceTree:/ht/pci@3/k2-sata-root/k2-sata@0/@0:3</string></dict>
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: Got boot device = IOService:/MacRISC4PE/ht@0,f2000000/AppleMacRiscHT/pci@3/IOPCI2PCIBridge/
k2-sata-root@C/AppleK2SATARoot/k2-sata@0/AppleK2SATA/ATADeviceNub@0/IOATABlockSt orageDriver/IOATABlockStorageDevice/IOBlockStorageDriver/ST380013AS Media/IOApplePartitionScheme/Untitled@3
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: BSD root: disk0s3, major 14, minor 2
May 16 07:11:54 localhost kernel: AppleSMU -- shutdown cause = 1
May 16 07:11:55 localhost kernel: Jettisoning kernel linker.
May 16 07:11:55 localhost kextd[87]: registering service "com.apple.KernelExtensionServer"
May 16 07:11:56 localhost kernel: Resetting IOCatalogue.
May 16 07:11:59 localhost kernel: Matching service count = 1
May 16 07:11:59 localhost kernel: NVDANV30HAL loaded and registered.
May 16 07:11:59 localhost kernel: AppleRS232Serial: 0 0 AppleRS232Serial::start - returning false early, Connector or machine incorrect
May 16 07:12:03 localhost SystemStarter: Welcome to Macintosh.

Since CD and ultimately the new account does start up into a steady screen I tend to think it is not hardware issue, even though over the last few days I found "chip error" in the log.

I tend to think the behavior is still in memory? I would like to isolate the suspect files, so I do not bring them back, but OS X is a rather new thing for me, I am more on top of 9.

I re

I walked away from the computer, came back to it, It was not in sleep. The only open program is Safari & Console. When I touched the mouse, the screen jiggled and now I have another jiggly pixel type B&W striped window (finder window) in the background of the forum screen. a smaller one in the right bottom and black scattered pixel stripe on top under the menu. A 1.5 x 2cm white box on the right top. ????
I will shut down now and will run techtool. Sigh.....Maybe it's time to re-install?

Ok. I found the problem! I think....
I restarted with techtool, the screen disappeared and changed to a blue screen with diagonal black lines in the middle of checking the disk.
So on my old imac I went back to see, if I can safely even shut down and what else I missed to check: Fonts in the OS 9 folder.
So I did a safe boot, and placed the fonts folder from OS 9 onto the desktop.
Then the normal restart was fine. So I swicthed to the old admnistrator account to restart, and so far it it is acting normal. Now I connected all the other devices back and it is still acting normal. Albeit, the DU 🙂 did correct quite a bit of file permissions this time. But the same permissions it always announcesto have corrected, for ColorSync, CD 9660, private/var/at/jobs owner is 1 ould be 0 etc...
If this is the cause for such omniously looking symptoms, I could kick myself, for having my own panic kernels in overdrive.
btw, does anyone know what a "cf#ak7fi" document in the prefernce folder could be? It does not say preference, it says "document" but lists itself on top.