[Teronzhul]

Losing my mind here. I have an old 1999 powerbook g3 lombard that for a long time nearly problem free. Several months ago there was a power outage and afterwards the computer would not start properly, so I took this opportunity to wipe the drive and install 10.3.

I had been running 10.1 without problems on it for some time.

Since the 10.3 install the powerbook has crashed incessantly. It seems to occur most often during disk intensive operations but sometimes it just locks up when doing nothing at all. Lock = full gui freeze, cursor and everything just stops.

As I had also installed additional ram prior to 10.3, I ran a number of checks on the ram and it came up fine.

Most recently, after one of the lockups the computer would not make it through the login sequence, either regularly or during safe boot. It would just stop about 90% through.

I then removed 10.3 and attempted to install 8.6 which came with the computer originally and it also locked up during install.

I ran disk first aid and it showed the disk as being fine, but could there be something else wrong that wouldn't show up?

I don't want to replace the hard drive without being certain but I can't find anything else that seems like it could be the culprit.

Any insight would be appreciated.

[The Placid Casual]

Have you tried running it without the extra RAM? Sometimes faults don't show up in hardware test and other testing programs...

[Detrius]

I used to think that it was possible for Panther to hard freeze... until my laptop's logic board died. This machine passed all hardware tests I could throw at it until it finally just gave up the ghost.

Hard freezes where the mouse stops moving are indicative of a hardware problem.

[bmhome1]

As discussed in length at MacFixIt.com's Portable forums, there is a severe issue with Lombards, 10.3x and greater than original factory spec RAM (384MB maximum) ceiling. The result is precisely what you are experiencing, video meltdown or hard crash during CPU intensive tasks.

The long, long roundabout solution has evolved to only use the 384 ceiling or LESS or ONLY purchase Curcial brand RAM if going above 384 to 512MB. That has eliminated the problem for several users where NOTHING else would.

This is exactly what happened with Wallstreets and 10.2 and could serve as a warning to Pismo owners with more than 512MB (original specs) RAM when 10.4 debuts. The pattern is pretty clear about Apple's commitment to older laptops and certifying all the configurations possible.