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My Power Mac G5 is freezing up. A few days ago my G5 started freezing up, the cursor is unresponsive and none of the keys have any use. I have to press the power button to shut down and then restart. Sometimes on the restart, instead of the Apple logo I g

A few days ago my G5 started to freeze up while in use. It doesn't matter if in Safari, iTunes, Pages, etc. The cursor will not respond nor does any keystroke, force quit, escape, etc. I have to hold the power button down to shut the computer down. Then, try to restart. Sometimes restart will work and the computer will work for a while and then freeze again. Other times on restart, instead of the Apple logo at start up, I get a Zero with a line thru it, have to power off and restart again. When it does restart, the "spinning gear" takes a lot longer than normal to spin up and take me to the login screen. Have been told it may be my hard drive getting ready to fail. Have looked at disk utilities, S.M.A.R.T looks fine, "verified" and have verified disk, and repaired permissions. In case it is the hard drive, I bought external hard drive and hooked it up to Time Machine. The backing up to a long time, overnight, about 10 hours because it kept freexing up and I would have to shut down and try restarting again. Finally got everything backed up.


Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated!!! Could it be my hard drive is dying? Is the the normal chain of events or is it something else???

Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7 Ghz, 8GB SDRAM, ATI Radeon X850 XT, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Apple 23" HD Cinema Display

Posted on May 18, 2011 4:58 AM

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35 replies

May 18, 2011 5:19 AM in response to skyflynbeachbum

I don't trust Disk Utility in such cases.


Disk Warrior Rescues HDD

DiskWarrior 4 Disk Repair

Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper



I recommend a clean OS install on another hard drive to start from. Then run Disk Warrior, clone your drive to external with CCC or SD. You can also try using Apple RESTORE part of Disk Utility.


Have you checked temperature monitor readings?

Looked for dust and leaks, you have one of the liquid cooled G5s.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/G5_coolant_leaks.html#storytop

May 18, 2011 5:44 AM in response to The hatter

Hi and Thanks for your help!! From the items I described, does it sound like a disk problem?? I have ordered a new HD and it should be here today or tomorrow, if I have to replace. Am also looking at Disk Warrior now. I saved all my stuff to a backup HD, via Time Machine, but never done that before, and it took a long time. Not sure I can reinstall. Don't know what you mean... CCC or SD?


What would Apple Restore do? Sorry... Novice here!


Have cleaned dust and didn't see any leaks. Thinking about buying Hardware Monitor from Marcel Bresink to test Temp. etc... but as of now, don't have anything like that and don't know temps, etc

May 19, 2011 4:47 AM in response to The hatter

I received a new hard drive yesterday. Have installed it, formatted (initialized) and it seems to be working fine. I have a couple of questions.


1. Is the slow startup (spinning gear), slow loading of pages and freezing ( no matter which app is running.. safari, mail, itunes, etc), characteristic of a hard drive that is failing? My machine is 6 years old an has been running a long time.


2. If I remove the suspected bad hard drive, replace it with the new one... is it as simple as starting up using Time MAchine and external/backup drive, hitting restore.... and then everything is put back on the new hard drive, automatically, and all is normal?


3. If I do the "recover your entire system" from Time Machine and the new hard drive... and still have the same problem (meaning that it's not the original HD".. can I put the old HD back in place in the 1 slot, my new HD back in the 2 slot... and everything will, at least be back to the problem I have now. Then have to start looking at other reasons?


Any help/suggestions GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!


Sorry, for all the questions, this may be basic stuff, but, it's ALL NEW for me!


Thanks for your help!!

May 19, 2011 2:20 PM in response to BDAqua

Well, removed old HD, installed new HD, cranked up the machine and nothing happened. My display showed the MacOS smiley face switching back and forth with a folder with a ?. No Apple logo or anything. I did get the bay door to open, inserted "original" Power Mac G5 install dvd, thinking that I could tell it to do a reinstall on the new HD from my Time Machine/External HD... nothing. Switched everything back, original HD in slot A, new HD in slot B. Don't know or figure out how to tell Time Machine to make a new Mac HD copy on the new HD so I can start using that.


Then again, since I don't know what I'm doing... all of this may be wrong. At least, I'm back where I was.


Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

May 19, 2011 4:52 PM in response to BDAqua

Did the Option/Alt key. Did the Apple Hardware Test, everything passed. Then went to the install page. In the Installer, went to Utilities>Restore from Backup. Picked a date from Time Machine, directed to restore to the "new hard drive"... hit restore. Got a long page of error logs. Wouldn't do it. Frustrated. I give up.. beyond me.


Again the problem is.... very slow starting, spinning gear forever... then, after some time, whether in Safari, Mail, iTunes, Pages...etc .... machine freezes. Have to shut off with power button, wait a few minutes, restart, wait... then get to use for a little while... while just waiting for the next BIG FREEZE!!!!

May 19, 2011 5:10 PM in response to skyflynbeachbum

What were some ofthe errors? Should be an Instal log in Console.

Sounds likely like a RAM problem at the moment.


The Memory test can really only be trusted if it finds a problem, not if it doesn't find a problem. 😟


Memtest OS X...


http://www.memtestosx.org/joomla/index.php


Rember is a freeware GUI for the memtest ...


http://tech.kateva.org/2005/10/rember-freeware-memory-test-utility.html

May 22, 2011 8:34 AM in response to BDAqua

Your comment "sounds like a RAM problem" made me think. The System Profiler, Apple Hardware Test, and Hardware Monitor from Marcel Bresink (just installed) all show everything is fine.... memory and hard drive. But, I noticed I had a lot, and I mean a lot of stuff on my desk top. Deleted 90% of stuff I had laying around on the desk top. Now, the computer still freezes but not as often. Instead of every 10-15 minutes, it might be a couple of hours. Initial startup is still alot slower than normal and takes longer to load pages.


Also, computer will not sleep sometimes and when it does sleep, sometimes wakes up with a black screen. I have looked at all the settings for display and energy saver.. they are fine.


I installed the new hard drive, formatted and initialized.. I believe. Wanted to transfer all the info and startup information from Macintosh HD to the new hard drive so I can see if the MacHD is failing..But, can't get the info to transfer. Basically, don't know how. Have read instructions in help but can't seem to make it work. Still hoping, if I can transfer to new HD, that it is a hard drive problem.


Does any of this make sense? Any suggestions? Am going to get Disk Warrior, will that tell me if the HD is bad and/or can it fix the HD?


I know a lot of questions, but this computer is not acting right/normal. Not as fast, still freezing and I need to fix it. Thanks Again for any and all of your help!!!!!!!

May 22, 2011 10:55 AM in response to skyflynbeachbum

Ok, to copy the Drive from one to another, get carbon copy cloner to make an exact copy of your old HD to the New one...


http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html


Or SuperDuper...


http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/


Believe it or not, anything on the Desktop uses 3 times the Resources of the Mac than if stored elsewhere, I can note a slowdown from just 30 items on the Desktop on a really fast Mac, so the less the better on the Desktop.


DW will not tell you about Bad Sectors, it's just the very best at Repair Directory damage & such.


At this point I think you should get Applejack...


http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667/applejack


After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...


applejack AUTO


Then let it do all 6 of it's things.


At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.


The 6 things it does are...


Correct any Disk problems.

Repair Permissions.

Clear out Cache Files.

Repair/check several plist files.

Dump the VM files for a fresh start.

Trash old Log files.


First reboot will be slower, sometimes 2 or 3 restarts will be required for full benefit... my guess is files relying upon other files relying upon other files! :-)


Disconnect the USB cable from any Uninterruptible Power Supply so the system doesn't shut down in the middle of the process.

May 22, 2011 8:26 PM in response to BDAqua

Well, took all day. Downloaded Super Duper. Half way thru, froze up and had to start over. It took 4 1/2 hours to transfer 131 GB to the new disk. Is that length normal? Or, a sign of a slow/failing original disk?


Anyway, restarted using new disk. So far, no freezes. But, my fans are running fast and a lot now. On Activity Monitor, only 15-25% idle. In the Activity Monitor screen it shows two items running, and I guess drawing the power... 1) mds and 2) mdworker. I have no idea what these are. Is this related to the new disk?? Or, the Super Duper program.


Have not got to Apple jack yet. Will try tomorrow. What is the CMD+s and the Apple Logo+s ???? I see the Apple Key and I think the CMD is the "option" key.... but, don't know what the "+s" is. Still a novice here>


Thanks for the help. Still working... no freezes!!!

My Power Mac G5 is freezing up. A few days ago my G5 started freezing up, the cursor is unresponsive and none of the keys have any use. I have to press the power button to shut down and then restart. Sometimes on the restart, instead of the Apple logo I g

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