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Graymalkin · Jul 4, 2004, 04:14 AM

My girlfriend's Lombard (333MHz 384MB) has developed a serious problem. When she is connected to the internet via dial-up her modem will randomly freeze and ends up locking the entire computer. The system never gets a kernel panic, it just freezes and refuses to respond to anything. Her only recourse has been to reset it. This is something that happens almost daily and I haven't been able to figure out what is causing it. I've run TTP4 but it hasn't found anything amiss in any of its tests.

It isn't just pppd or Internet Connect hanging. It's the entire system freezing up, it won't even listen to SSH connections through its ethernet port. Is this a sign of the modem going out or is there some other culprit? She doesn't have broadband at her house so simply disabling the modem and using an alternate means to connect to the internet isn't an option at this point.

The Lombard is running 10.3.3 and my girlfriend is using PeoplePC for an ISP. Any ideas of suggestions would be appriciated. The Powerbook is in good condition and used to be mine. When I had it I didn't use the modem under OSX much because I had a cable modem. Back when I did use its modem I was running OS9.

Waragainstsleep · Jul 4, 2004, 04:48 AM

Never heard of this behaviour, but I have never usedmy Lombards modem with X either.
If it is the modem, a replacement is cheap on eBay (Pismo modem is the same too). Or you could spring for an Airport station with its own modem and a Wifi card for the Lombard. Might work better.

Detrius · Jul 5, 2004, 08:41 AM

You didn't specify whether the mouse still moves.

If the mouse still moves, it's not likely to be hardware.

If the mouse does not move, it's generally memory/processor related. If you still have the Apple Hardware Test, run that. Tech Tool Pro isn't reliable for checking those kinds of things.

Graymalkin · Jul 5, 2004, 05:38 PM

Sometimes the mouse moves and sometimes it doesn't. I'll give AHT a shot though, I didn't think to try that. Thanks!

tooki · Jul 5, 2004, 10:03 PM

Lombards didn't come with AHT. It was introduced during the time of the Pismo (my Pismo -- an early one -- didn't come with it).

AHT discs are hardware-specific, so a disc from a newer model wouldn't work, by the way.

So unless you have access to a Mac Test Pro disc (a service provider-only program), other troubleshooting methods will have to do.

tooki

Graymalkin · Jul 6, 2004, 01:52 AM

Well damn. Tonight we tried logging into the PB via SSH and killing pppd. Doing so still didn't do much good. I'm beginning to think it is the modem. I was hoping it was something in software but it doesn't appear to be.