[atomico37]

hi all, just got a powermac g3 off of ebay and it's already giving me some problems. it's 400 mhz rev 2. 512 megs of ram. i'm running jaguar on it and for some reason it's freezing up on me. trying to rip a cd, freezes on me. didn't have any other program running. it's also freezing up on me on other occassions. i'm wondering if it's just the chip trying to keep up and failing. or maybe it's something else like bad ram or something. is there any way i can diagnose the problem myself.

thanks mucho

[Arkham_c]

The steps to fix crashing:

1) Create a new user. Try it with that user. Does it crash?
2) If yes, reinstall OSX.
3) If that doesn't help, check all the internal cables like IDE cables and see if any are loose.
3) If not, try replacing the hard drive with one you know to be good.
4) If that doesn't fix it, try replacing the RAM.
5) Finally, if that fails, you probably have a motherboard issues.

[kbata]

Freezing in OS X is almost always caused by bad ram. At least that is the most common cause. When I first got my G3 B&W on Ebay the seller said it had problems. After having random freezing I bought some RAM from OWC and replaced the existing RAM. I found that 2 of the three original sticks of RAM didn't like OS X. I haven't had a problem of any kind with it since then.
Make sure you get RAM that is fully compatible with the G3. Some types over 128 meg don't work with it.

[Eriamjh]

Apple RAM has an Apple sticker on it. Remove all other ram and see what happens. If you do not have enough RAM to run OSX (I think B&Ws came with 64MB) then just try each stick one at a time and see what happens.

You might also want to check the heat sink on the processor. If it was ever removed for any reason, it may not be seated properly or may need some heat sink compound on the bottom to better transfer heat.

Did the seller indicate that it freezes up? Is that why they sold it?