Machine hanging.

[Ger2111]

I know nothing about Apple Mac's . The system is hanging periodically causing some annoyance to the user. Is there a monitoring tool I can use built in to the system? I'm not sure what OS is running but its 20mnths old if that helps. There is plenty disk space available and theres 256mb of RAM and it does not appear to be the problem. Possibly defraging the HD would make a difference but I dont know how to do this. Help.....

 

[PTmon]

First of all find out what system version you are running. Click on the apple in the top left corner and select "about this mac". That will pull up a window and display system version. Also, what program is in use when it hangs? I'm guessing you're running some version of OS9. Memory allocation on macs running os9 is done manually. If it's mainly one app that is hanging, chances are you need to bump up it's ram allocation. FInd the application, click on it ONE time to select it (make sure the app is not running) and click file-->get info. Select memory from the pull-down. Change the preferred setting and bump it up 10 megs for a start. Another simple thing to do is rebuild the desktop. Hold option & command (the squiggle key next to control) at startup. When the finder loads you will be asked if you want to rebuild the desktop, click yes. If you're running OSX it's a completely different world.
Best of luck,
PT

http://mahon.homeip.net/remember

 

[Ger2111]

OK. I zapped the PRAM??? And rebuilt the desktop. I have told the user to try and pin down one application so that I can allocate more memory to it. The OS is 9.1 . I want to defragment the Hard disk, how do I go about this? Is there any built in system tool or do I have to use Norton ?
Thanks

 

[PTmon]

You have to use norton. You can boot from the cd or a different hard drive. (Drive to defrag can't be in use.) To boot from cd, insert it and restart, hold down "C" on your keyboard. Once it's booted run speed disk. (I'd run disk doctor first..just in case there are any problems.) Honestly, I'd allocate more ram to every program that your user uses. By default the ram allocations are always set low. Some apps are happy by upping it 2 or 3 megs, some like Photoshop are happy upping it 100 megs or so if you have the ram. I usually figure what apps I will be running at one time, and allocate most of my ram between them. I usually run photoshop, golive, ftp, web browser, icq, and email all at once. Photoshop gets the biggest allocation, then golive. The rest do fine only by upping ram a small amount. Hope that makes sense. Moving to OSX eliminates ram allocation problems Oh, upgrade to 9.2.2, it's free from apple's web site.
PT

http://mahon.homeip.net/remember

 

[macmend]

all that ihas gone before I would agree with, but I would add make sure that in apple menu>control panels>general controls that the x is the box for running disk first aid and telling you if the machine has crashed or been force restarted, this forces the mac to run disk first aid in any situation where it crashes. It cuts out alot of problems

macmend can be found at

http://www.macmend.com

 

[Macpwm]

Sometimes a Mac hang because of conflict in extentions loaded.
Is there a certain app, that you run when it happens,or is it a random crash.
What was the latest app that you installed on your mac.
Try the extention control panel to get more info, there you can see wich are loaded or not.
regards
Macpwm

 

[Ger2111]

OK People,
Thanks for the help with this. I called in an engineer who replaced the HDD and that seems to have been the root of the problem.
Thanks again