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PowerMac G5 constantly crashes

Hello everybody


I started to have problems with a used PowerMac G5 that I bought on December last year. The computer came with dual G5 at 2.0GHz, 8GB and 160GB Sata hard drive. The computer was running Leopard 10.5.8.

Once in my home I erase completely the hard drive and installed Leopard from scratch and ran software updates. At this point the computer was functioning good, sometimes crashes when I tryed to import images on iPhoto or Aperture, but appart from this nothing more. Few weeks ago I installed a new hard drive, the disk it's ok and doesn't give problems. The problems started two weeks ago, when computer crashes constantly and at any time with any reason, kernel crashes reports sometimes reports for Safari, other times for iTunes, others for uTorren, mdworker and mostly by Unknow application. I must to restart the computer by force shutdown, that only put thing worse. I was looking for documentation about solve my problem, but there is not so much responses.


Cheers

Power Mac G5 (June 2004), Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Apr 28, 2012 9:16 AM

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Posted on Apr 28, 2012 10:53 AM

Hola,


Get Temperature Monitor to see if it's heat related...


http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381/temperature-monitor


iStat Menus...


http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/


And/or iStat Pro...


http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/


If you have any temps in the 70°C/160°F range, that's likely it.


Open console in Applications>Utilities, check the system log for the date/time of the last problem for clues.

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Question marked as Best reply

Apr 28, 2012 10:53 AM in response to CristRecabarren

Hola,


Get Temperature Monitor to see if it's heat related...


http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381/temperature-monitor


iStat Menus...


http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/


And/or iStat Pro...


http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/


If you have any temps in the 70°C/160°F range, that's likely it.


Open console in Applications>Utilities, check the system log for the date/time of the last problem for clues.

Apr 29, 2012 2:03 PM in response to BDAqua

No it was not this, today I clean my computer and replace the thermal paste, the idle temperature decreases from 60º to 41~45º and in heavy (compiling jpge library using make -j4 and gcc -O3) use increases to 57º and crashes again, now let it alone with Mail, adium and uTorrent and about a 45% of load.

The crash report says that thread responsible was Mail, but I don't hesitate that any application could be done the same.

Apr 29, 2012 7:10 PM in response to CristRecabarren

I looked at the FAQ section of Temperature Monitor and found this temp info:


"G4 processors of type 7455 or later (typically used in Macintosh systems with 867 MHz and above) are designed for a maximum operating temperature of 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit), also measured at the chip die of the CPU.


I get readings of more than 90°C (194°F) for the FB-DIM modules in my Mac Pro. Isn't this a bit high?


No, temperatures in that range are normal for FB-DIMMs and are no cause for concern. Each FB-DIMM contains its own controller, called "Advanced Memory Buffer (AMB)". An AMB also contains an internal sensor which measures temperature directly inside the chip. The specified maximum temperature
range of an FB-DIMM, measured by the AMB, usually lies in the interval between 95°C and 125°C (203°F .. 257°F). It will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, a typical value is 110°C (230°F). If you like to know the exact specifications for your FB-DIM modules, note the part number and manufacturer of the respective modules (printed on the label of each module), and download the data sheets for those parts from the manufacturer. Nearly all chip manufacturers and RAM vendors publish the specifications at their web sites."


External USB and Firewire device can cause Kernal Panics. What external devices do you have connected?


Have you run Disk Utility - repair permissions and repair hard drive?


 Cheers, Tom 😉

Apr 29, 2012 7:58 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Yes I ran Disk Utility and no troubles with both disks. The only usb devices that are always connected to the computer are a mouse and keyboard, sometimes an external hard drive and my iPod.

I'm still testing my computer from last crash, and for a while it's stable, I think that Mail could be the problem, is not running now and there are not crashes....


😉

Apr 29, 2012 8:29 PM in response to CristRecabarren

Not certain, but this can fix myriad Mail problems...


Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), it will try to repair your Disk Directory while the spinning radian is happening, so let it go, run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, then move this folder & file to the Desktop.


Move this Folder to the Desktop...


/Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/


Move this file to the Desktop...


/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/Envelope Index


Reboot.


If that doesn't do it and you can afford to redo all your Rules, try these & reboot...


/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist


/Users/YourUserName/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist.backup


Note, in 10.5 & up /Users/YourUserName/Library/Caches/Mail/ may or may not exist.

PowerMac G5 constantly crashes

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