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MOTHERWELL · Feb 5, 2009, 08:04 PM

Got an iBook G4 that recently started crashing - the screen that shows up and says you need to hold down the power button.

I can't do anything because it crashes as soon as it starts. So I did an erase and install on the ibook after backing it up in target mode.

Still crashing, so its probably the ram. But I am pretty sure the ram that is in the ibook is the ram that came with the mac when it was purchased. The ram is soldered on? I am not sure but that is what i have read so far. If that ram is the bad ram it seems like I have a dead computer.

ghporter · Feb 5, 2009, 08:09 PM

There's a SO-DIMM soldered onto the logic board, and a socket under the AirPort card for another. Depending on which specific G4 iBook you have, the logic board RAM may be as small as 128 MB (as in my wife's 800 MHz G4). As long as that's not the RAM that's giving you problems, you should be fine. First, see what System Profiler says about your memory; it may even tell you which DIMM is going bad... Then let us know what you learn, and we can brainstorm it some more.

MOTHERWELL · Feb 5, 2009, 08:27 PM

I was able to keep it on to load up the system profiler - It has 512mb soldered on and it said it was 'OK' There is no other ram installed.

I went to click on the System Profiler menu and the mac crashed again. What else could be causing OS X to crash like this?

ghporter · Feb 6, 2009, 08:06 AM

That's a real puzzler. Can you post your crash logs?