OSX G4 Crashing all the time

[Burgal]

I have one computer that is continously crashing.

OSX 10.3.8
G4 733 dual
1GB DDR Ram
80GB HD

It crashes in one of three ways.
-loading an application or using an application and the whole thing locks up but the mouse still works
-opening the hard drive or network drive and getting beach ball of death
-Getting the multilanguage you need to turn your computer off and restart due to a system failure

I'm not sure how to diagnose a bad mac... I don't have components to cross check with.

I've replaced the RAM, the CPU isn't hot to the touch and I've reinstalled the OS from scratch.

 

[jmgalvin]

Don't panic. Macs are usually pretty easy to clean up.

First of all, you say that you're running 10.3.8. Did yu just buy this or download the update. Yesterday you said that you had upgraded some machines and had startup problems.

You replaced the RAM, hopefully you used the right ram. It's very rare that ram goes bad on mac. If you can click on Apple menu/About this mac/More Info. click on the Ram and make sure it's being recognized adn that it's the right type. If it's not all recognized it's either seated improperly or the wrong type. If so, try taking it out and sticking it back in so the 2 end pins close fully.

If you want, you can try Apple Hardware test. It's usually a sliver cd that came with the install doscs on the machine. It could be on the install disks if they're dvd rather than cd. Before running disconnect everything except monitor, keyboard, mouse. Your hardware is probably ok though. We've been running Apple machines since 1994 and have only had one hardware failure ever.

If your ram checks out, you're probably best off wiping the hard drive and reinsatlling the ORIGINAL 10.3. Before yu do disconnect any outboard firewire drives that might be connected. Start up from the system install disk, and run disk utility from that. Check that everthing is ok and repair if necessary. If you can't repair, reformat the hard drive.

Then you're probably best off using the Restore feature to put the thing in the same software state that it came in - and worked fine in. If the machine works, reinstall things like apps and user docs from backup.

 

[Burgal]

I swapped the ram from one mac to another. The RAM works on the other mac, and is recognized properly on this one.

I have 4 identical G4s all running OSX 10.3.8 (10.3 upgraded to 10.3.8).

They're a purchased OSX, and I despise using restore CDs. I always format and install from scratch.