Slow Boot

THanks

What was your more powerful facility?

Roy

Thanks to all who have made suggestions. Sometime next wek I shall get over to my friend's house and see what we can achieve.

Further to the Slow Boot problem. If the computer is shut down normally it usualy boots up again straight away the next time it is used, but recently it has locked up while being used and the only way to continue is to switch off via the power button, but then it will not boot straight away, but after, possibly hours, it does boot up and continues working until it freezes again. I have tried all the previous methods and replaced the PRAM battery, any I deal where I can go from here. The local Apples service agent says basically I have done all they would do and anything else would probably need new parts which aren't available.

This has been an interesting problem which I will outline (within my very limited knowledge of computers). The symptoms suggested the PRAM battery. Initially I thought this might be a service agent problem but then found it is a readily available CR2032 hidden below the graphics card and easily replaced. But that wasn't a cure. Eventually my friend said it was mainly when he was using Safari that it crashed. I am now guessing that some helpful (PC) friend had dragged Safari from the Applications folder and placed it on the desk top - he likes to see lots of icons on the desk top. I replaced it but that didn't help. I then found that somehow he had created 585 bookmarks - he doesn't know how.

Now I am guessing:- At one point in time it said I had no VRAM. Was VRAM being used to store those bookmarks, and was it full and any attempt to add anything to it the reason it crashed?

I deleted the bookmarks, reinstalled Safari from Time Machine still with no improvement. Fortunately I had loaded a second version of Snow Leopard in a separate drive which enabled me to re-boot the machine by removing the main drive before doing so. I also made the second drive the default drive while I was workington it.. Provided I shut down normally using the second drive, I could replace the main drive and it would reboot OK from either drive. The second drive worked perfectly satisfactorily but the main drive would still crash even after using restart. Eventually I resorted to reloading Snow Leopard from the disk, onto the main drive and although it wasn't an immediate solution it is now working OK. At least it appears to be.

Thanks. So that is my theory gone. Although I now seem to have got it working (possibly by reloading Snow Leopard on the Main Drive) I am curious on one or two things. This was originally my computer and I erased the Main Drive, Reloaded Snow Leopard and made my friend the user, then when I loaded Snow Leopard onto a second drive it came up with me as the user, I could sign in with my old password but couldn't unlock anything neither with my password or my friends.

If I booted up with "my" drive everything seemed to work OK, For example I could make "my" drive the default drive and restart OK but if I then selected to bootup with the Main Drive, though it appeard to work OK, if I used restart then the computer locked up. I could only restart by removing the Main drive when it would then find "my " drive.

So why did it remember my original password, and what may have caused the Main Drive not to function if it crashed or I just used restart?

Just curious, most of this is probably beyond my comprehension.

Thanks, but I think I am getting into areas beyond my comprehension.

Hello Grant, and thanks for your help. Searching my unreliable human memory, I think I remember seeing occasionally that when it boots up only one of the red lights on the memory boards comes on, and other times it is both. I am now guessing there is a memory problem. If that is so is there a way of checking which piece of memory is failing. I am aware of the About this Mac route to Memory but am not with the computer at the moment so would like to be prepared next time I visit.