I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
Joe Vinikow Seattle
archtops joev@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
That'll have suffered a serius crash then. Sounds like a sleep issue. The noise is actually all (7 in a single G5, 9 in a dual) of the fans running at full speed as the OS has crashed, and unable to control them. It's a safety measure.
Mac OS, for me, has often suffered with issues with sleeping. Sometimes it is just down to the exact configuration you have, others can be incompatible, or faulty, peripherals.
The most common things will be USB gadgets or hubs. I had a PCI USB card that causes everything the have sleep problems, G4s G5s and even PCs. Check any third party PCI cards if you have any.
You could try checking the crash logs in Console, they may give a clue, look for any marked 'panic'.
I'd start by running a few maintenance jobs first. Get a copy of Applejack:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79562
And run all the routines as it recommends. This will check the disk for errors, repair permissions, check for bad prefs files, and clear caches. You just install it, reboot and hold down command-S as it starts. When you see the Unixy screen, type Applejack AUTO, and go and get a cuppa. The fans will run up while this is working, as the OS isn't running.
Next start with the easy stuff, unplugging USB peripherals, try unplugging all of them first, then reconnecting one at a time. Hubs can often be the first to cause problems.
Have you upgraded anything, such as a graphics card? I put a flashed GeForce6200 into mine and that caused a failure to wake after sleep (I now have a Radeon 9800Pro and that works fine). Third party memory is worth checking too, Mac OS is very fussy about RAM specifications, and you could also have a module start to fail.
It can be a long process to fix, and you'll often not know what did it.
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:24:31 -0700 (PDT), archtops wrote:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
Joe Vinikow Seattle
One possible cause is bad memory. I once had a PowerMac G5 that crashed repeatedly with exactly the same symptoms that you describe. No hardware or memory tests were able to pinpoint the cause, and an Apple-certified technician ran it for days in his shop without managing to diagnose the problem.
I later bought some extra memory and did some swapping until I found that the crashes were always associated with one particular DIMM, and they ended when that DIMM was removed. The technician confirmed my diagnosis and got the memory replaced under warranty. The bad DIMM was from Apple, but the extra memory I bought was third-party and worked fine.
archtops joev@redacted.invalid schrieb:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
This might be a bad or unconnected thermal sensor. CPU-Calibration might be gone.
Florian
In article 1ifw901.1kyyxdhaic0v9N%wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid, wildrover.andy@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
Next start with the easy stuff, unplugging USB peripherals, try unplugging all of them first, then reconnecting one at a time. Hubs can often be the first to cause problems.
I have this on an older OS9 machine.
At some point yet to be discovered when i reboot the CD tray just opens on its own fo rno reason. Each successive reboot it does the same thing.
I learned from Mac Usenet groups that the USB hub may be the problem.
So when it happened again, I disconnected theUSB items, and did a reboot with desktop rebuild, followed yet aggain by a second reboot.
That actually cleared the problems and I was able to reconnect the USB devices. A final reboot would then prove the problem had been solved.
Hasn't happened in a few months now but at least I know what the problem is.
On Apr 24, 1:19 am, wildrover.a...@redacted.invalid (Andy Hewitt) wrote:
archtops j...@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
That'll have suffered a serius crash then. Sounds like a sleep issue. The noise is actually all (7 in a single G5, 9 in a dual) of the fans running at full speed as the OS has crashed, and unable to control them. It's a safety measure.
Mac OS, for me, has often suffered with issues with sleeping. Sometimes it is just down to the exact configuration you have, others can be incompatible, or faulty, peripherals.
The most common things will be USB gadgets or hubs. I had a PCI USB card that causes everything the have sleep problems, G4s G5s and even PCs. Check any third party PCI cards if you have any.
You could try checking the crash logs in Console, they may give a clue, look for any marked 'panic'.
I'd start by running a few maintenance jobs first. Get a copy of Applejack:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79562
And run all the routines as it recommends. This will check the disk for errors, repair permissions, check for bad prefs files, and clear caches. You just install it, reboot and hold down command-S as it starts. When you see the Unixy screen, type Applejack AUTO, and go and get a cuppa. The fans will run up while this is working, as the OS isn't running.
Next start with the easy stuff, unplugging USB peripherals, try unplugging all of them first, then reconnecting one at a time. Hubs can often be the first to cause problems.
Have you upgraded anything, such as a graphics card? I put a flashed GeForce6200 into mine and that caused a failure to wake after sleep (I now have a Radeon 9800Pro and that works fine). Third party memory is worth checking too, Mac OS is very fussy about RAM specifications, and you could also have a module start to fail.
It can be a long process to fix, and you'll often not know what did it.
-- Andy Hewitt http://web.mac.com/andrewhewitt1/
Andy,
Huge thanks to you and all the others for your very kind and detailed advice. Happy to keep the forum posted on results. You folks are truly the best!
-Joe
In article fupves$q0k$1@redacted.invalid, Dave Seaman dseaman@redacted.invalid wrote:
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:24:31 -0700 (PDT), archtops wrote:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
Joe Vinikow Seattle
One possible cause is bad memory. I once had a PowerMac G5 that crashed repeatedly with exactly the same symptoms that you describe. No hardware or memory tests were able to pinpoint the cause, and an Apple-certified technician ran it for days in his shop without managing to diagnose the problem.
I later bought some extra memory and did some swapping until I found that the crashes were always associated with one particular DIMM, and they ended when that DIMM was removed. The technician confirmed my diagnosis and got the memory replaced under warranty. The bad DIMM was from Apple, but the extra memory I bought was third-party and worked fine.
Same with me. Bad memory was my problem as well. And to make it worse, it started while I was on vacation, and the person in the office next to mine had to keep power cycling my system.
Eventually I suspected bad memory because of other crashes I was having, so I ran 'memtest' in a loop until it got lucky and reported an error.
After replacing that bad memory, I have not had a problem since (2+ years since then).
Bob Harris
On Apr 23, 10:24=A0pm, archtops j...@redacted.invalid wrote:
I'm running a PowerMac G5 under OS 10.3.9. The unit works normally most of the time, but I will occasionally find it first thing in the morning roaring full blast, with the hard drive and/or fan just spinning continuously at full speed and making quite a racket. Stopping it requires a reboot. If anyone has any counsel on solving this problem, I'd be very much obliged. Email reply preferred, many thanks in advance.
Joe Vinikow Seattle
Pleased to report symptoms abated. Suspect USB wierdness. Many thanks to all for sage and generous advice. Applejack is good!
Best,
-jv