MacBook Air Mac OS X Leopard crashing

Question

Level 1

4 points

MacBook Air Mac OS X Leopard crashing

Hi all,

I bought my a MacBook Air with Mac OS X Leopard installed from a person on eBay as a Christmas present for my wife.

I have been trying all day to get it working but I give up.

The first issue is that it kept hanging when we were setting up a new account during the initial setup wizard. After a bit of Google searching I found that I needed to not select a wireless network before creating an account during initial setup wizard. So I took the advice and did not select a wireless network, the account the created ok and we eventually got logged in.

Next issue, one logged in it constantly hangs / crashes needing a reboot every time. It crashes within a couple of minutes of logging in.

I then did some more work on Google searches, someone said to safe boot, I tried this and of course safe boot does not work. I cannot get safe boot to work by using the shift key or by going into terminal and entering the sudo nvram boot-args=" -v -x"

I do have the installation DVDs for Mac OS X Leopard however the MacBook does not have an optical drive.

The MacBook does also not have a NIC port.

I am totally lost, I am technical so would be happy to follow instructions on what to try but I am worried there is some underlying hardware fault the seller has not told me about.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

Wayne

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 25, 2015 5:58 AM

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Answer 1

noddy_2121 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 25, 2015 9:05 AM in response to noddy_2121

I managed to get into safe mode and all works fine - no crashing.

This tells me the issue is not with hardware, It must be software but I am not quite sure how to troubleshoot further? Re install Mac OS X? But how without an optical drive?

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Answer 2

a brody

Level 10

82,941 points

Dec 25, 2015 10:09 AM in response to noddy_2121

There are USB-ethernet adapters as well as USB DVD drives that will boot the MacBook Air. Apple made one specifically for the MacBook Air. Also http://www.macsales.com/ has drives that work as well. Etrecheck is software you can download to see if they included any software you should remove that don't work well with 10.5. Copy/pasting its results to the board can help people isolate what is on your machine.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Dec 25, 2015 10:21 AM in response to noddy_2121

Actually, there is a chance it is Hardware or Software, here's my notes on the subject...

One way to test is to Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, Test for problem in Safe Mode...

PS. Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive & trash/rebuild cache files

Reboot, test again.

If it only does it in Regular Boot, then it could be some hardware problem like Video card, (Quartz is turned off in Safe Mode), or Airport, or some USB or Firewire device, or 3rd party add-on, Check System Preferences>Accounts (Users & Groups in later OSX versions)>Login Items window to see if it or something relevant is listed. Or an errant process eating up RAM.

Check the System Preferences>Other Row, for 3rd party Pref Panes.

Also look in these if they exist, some are invisible...

/private/var/run/StartupItems

/Library/StartupItems

/System/Library/StartupItems

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchDaemons

EDIT: Safe Drivers are loaded in Safe Mode.

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Answer 4

noddy_2121 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 25, 2015 1:35 PM in response to BDAqua

thanks for the replies guys according to the disk utility, there are no issues with the drive, did a check, also did a permissions fix / reset - created a new account with admin privs, logged in as the user but it still crashed.

rebooted into safe4 mode and all ok.

So does it look as though i am going to have to buy a removable optical drive or USB to Ethernet NIC?

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Answer 5

noddy_2121 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 25, 2015 1:37 PM in response to noddy_2121

is there a way to create a USB boot device using windows? I do have the original disks but there are two disks, and i have no idea how to do it.

Had a look at TransMac but got no where.

I just cannot believe how difficult it is to re install the OS just because there is no optical drive.

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Answer 6

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Dec 25, 2015 1:52 PM in response to noddy_2121

I forget the name of it, but a very popular Windows® CD/DVD app can image Mac CDs/DVDs to other devices like a USB stick, though a USB optical may be cheaper.

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Answer 7

noddy_2121 Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 26, 2015 9:21 AM in response to BDAqua

I have been having a go with TransMac but not got much from it.

there are some good guides on how to use it but none seem to work for me, and I am not sure why so I have kind of given up on that option.

I have just ordered a mac super drive off ebay for £20 so I will just try a re install when it arrives.

For now thought I want to crack the issue, there must be a fix, all is fine in safe mode therefore something isn't quite right in standard mode.

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Answer 8

BDAqua

Level 10

239,177 points

Dec 26, 2015 9:59 AM in response to noddy_2121

Well, if a fresh Install doesn't cure it, it's likely Hardware, Video Card is my 1st guess.

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