Is my Mac dying?

Hi everyone:

I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
Hard drive is 70% free. I have DSL internet- speedtests show about
1500-1800kbps DOWNLOAD & 300-400kbps UPLOAD.

I have been having a few problems lately that make me wonder if my machine
is getting ready to call it quits.

1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the computer and
been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else. If I hold down the
power button for five seconds it will turn off, and then when I restart it, all is well.
This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens since I have heard about the
Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'

2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been crashing more and
more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.

3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading pages.
It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to load a page.

Comments would be appreciated.

Thanks, Phil

In article <20080327120224.615$>,
Mac-d(Phil) wrote:

> Hi everyone:
>
> I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
> Hard drive is 70% free. I have DSL internet- speedtests show about
> 1500-1800kbps DOWNLOAD & 300-400kbps UPLOAD.
>
> I have been having a few problems lately that make me wonder if my machine
> is getting ready to call it quits.
>
> 1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the computer and
> been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else. If I hold down the
> power button for five seconds it will turn off, and then when I restart it,
> all is well.
> This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens since I have heard about the
> Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'
>
> 2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been crashing more
> and
> more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.
>
> 3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading pages.
> It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to load a page.
>
> Comments would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks, Phil

Have you run Disk Utility to see what it reports on the condition of
your disk and permissions?

Gerry <> wrote:
> In article <20080327120224.615$>,
> Mac-d(Phil) wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone:
> >
> > I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
> > Hard drive is 70% free. I have DSL internet- speedtests show about
> > 1500-1800kbps DOWNLOAD & 300-400kbps UPLOAD.
> >
> > I have been having a few problems lately that make me wonder if my
> > machine is getting ready to call it quits.
> >
> > 1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the
> > computer and been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else.
> > If I hold down the power button for five seconds it will turn off, and
> > then when I restart it, all is well.
> > This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens since I have heard
> > about the Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'
> >
> > 2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been
> > crashing more and
> > more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.
> >
> > 3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading
> > pages. It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to
> > load a page.
> >
> > Comments would be appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks, Phil
>
> Have you run Disk Utility to see what it reports on the condition of
> your disk and permissions?

Yes, I have run 'Varifiy' & 'Repair.'

Mac-d(phil) writes:

> I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
> [...]
> 1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the computer
> and been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else. If I hold
> down the power button for five seconds it will turn off, and then when I
> restart it, all is well. This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens
> since I have heard about the Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'

This is not unusual. I have several 10.3 machines, and it happens once
in a while on all of them. Just hit the reset button. You don't have to
hold it down. It's the left one of the two just below the power button
on the front of the computer. Once in a while it takes more than one
reset, but be patient and give it a chance first.

> 2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been crashing
> more and more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.
>
> 3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading
> pages. It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to
> load a page.

This is probably because it's old, Apple no longer provides updates for
it under 10.3, and web pages are using new things that it can't handle.
There are also security issues in it that have been fixed in newer
versions, but remain unresolved in the one you're using.

Try the Camino browser and see how you like it.

http://www.caminobrowser.org/

I haven't used Safari in a long time now, because it's quite a slug
compared to Camino. Firefox is also pretty good, but not as fast.
Camino is from the same people, but optimized for the Mac - at the
expense of not having as many extra features in it as Firefox.

In any event, it's important to use a currently maintained browser
to be reasonably safe from web site based attacks on your system.

Billy Y..

Jolly Roger <> writes:

> The next time you get the blue screen, reboot and examine your system
> log. The system log will very likely contain an error message stating
> what is causing the problem.

There are likely existing log files to check. Open
the Console utility, then click on Logs in the upper
left corner of its window, and look around.

Although, at least on my machines, this display does
not include /private/var/log/windowserver.log

In my case not much gets logged, but here's something
from windowserver.log that is probably relevant -

Oct 31 15:08:17 [226] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXPostEventByConnection: invalid connection
Oct 31 15:08:42 [226] CGXRestartSessionWorkspace: session workspace exited for session 256 ( on console )
Oct 31 15:08:42 [226] loginwindow connection closed; closing server.

The process name is not logged, but I'd guess that
WindowServer or a close relative wrote these.

The hangs are not reproducable, at all, and because
Apple is no longer maintaining 10.3, I doubt this will
ever get fixed. But, any clues would be appreciated.

Billy Y..

Mac-d(Phil) wrote:
> Hi everyone:
>
> I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
> Hard drive is 70% free. I have DSL internet- speedtests show about
> 1500-1800kbps DOWNLOAD & 300-400kbps UPLOAD.
>
> I have been having a few problems lately that make me wonder if my
> machine is getting ready to call it quits.
>
> 1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the computer
> and been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else. If I hold
> down the power button for five seconds it will turn off, and then when I
> restart it, all is well. This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens
> since I have heard about the Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'
>
> 2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been crashing
> more and more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.
>
> 3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading
> pages. It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to
> load a page.
>
> Comments would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks, Phil

Thanks ( Gerry, Billy, Jolly ) for the replies. The computer logs weren't much help.
I couldn't find much there. It sounds like my biggest problem is using an outdated
browser.

I will take a look at the 'Camino' browser when I get a chance. Also I might consider
buying a updated version from Apple. Panther / Leopard, whatever would be compatible
with my system.

Ahhh, what I really would like is to get a new 'puter. Love the looks of the new all-in-ones
but they're not in my budget ...

Thanks, Phil

J.J. O'Shea <> writes:

> One or more hard drive attached to the system (ATA, FireWire, USB, whatever)
> may have a problem. I had that behaviour with a G4 just before its internal
> hard drive went tits-up. How good are your backups?

In my case, there are two internal drives in the machines. All are about a
year old Seagate ST3120814As, and I'm reasonably sure they are not part of
the problem.

As for external drives - I use quite a few of them, but they aren't plugged
in until after the system has come up.

Billy Y..

On Mar 27, 9:02*am, Mac-u...@invalid.invalid(Phil) wrote:
> Hi everyone:
>
> I have a Power Mac G4 ( Mac OS X 10.3.9) running Safari 1.3.2 (v312.6)
> Hard drive is 70% free. *I have DSL internet- speedtests show about
> 1500-1800kbps DOWNLOAD & 300-400kbps UPLOAD.
>
> I have been having a few problems lately that make me wonder if my machine
> is getting ready to call it quits.
>
> 1. About four times in the past six months I have turned on the computer and
> been greeted with nothing but a blue screen. Nothing else. If I hold down the
> power button for five seconds it will turn off, and then when I restart it, all is well.
> This makes me VERY NERVOUS each time it happens since I have heard about the
> Mac's 'Blue Screen Of Death.'
>
> 2. I am having so many problems with Safari lately. It has been crashing more and
> more frequently for the past few months. Very annoying.
>
> 3. The past couple weeks Safari has become really bad about loading pages.
> It may load 80% and then freeze up. Or take a couple minutes to load a page.
>
> Comments would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks, Phil

Get some other browser - IMHO - Safari is a patched mess that loves
to crash your computer
or itself at random. Sort of like the old lady who lived in a shoe
and had so many children she
didn't know what to do -- so, she crashed.

In article
<150832e3-ed16-4767-8080->,
Saint Isadore Patron Saint of the Internet <> wrote:

> Get some other browser - IMHO - Safari is a patched mess that loves
> to crash your computer or itself at random.

That's your opinion. But what do you base your opinion on? Do you have
access to the source code?

--
Support the troops: Bring them home ASAP.