Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

os8surfer · Jan 7, 2001, 05:57 PM

Hi All,

I need help. My Macintosh Performa 6214CD has 64MB of RAM. 2 32MB DIMMs. One of the chips is a different speed than the other. My Mac freezes sometimes. Is that the reason?

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com

giantmike · Jan 7, 2001, 07:43 PM

That could be a reason, but more information is needed to make that kind of assesment. Like what kind of applications are freezing? How often is it happening? Have you run programs such as Norton Utilities or TechTool Pro? What MacOS version?

The more information the better.

------------------
The Mac Information Depot. Why go anywhere else?

os8surfer · Jan 7, 2001, 09:20 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by giantmike:
[B]That could be a reason, but more information is needed to make that kind of assesment. Like what kind of applications are freezing? How often is it happening? Have you run programs such as Norton Utilities or TechTool Pro? What MacOS version?

Mac OS 8.1-Doom, AOL,No Norton Utilities, or Tech Tool Pro.

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com

jeromep · Jan 8, 2001, 06:39 PM

I have always favored Norton over Tech Tool, but in your case, I think that Tech Tool would be better since you have brought up issues as to the stability of your hardware; Tech Tool will do the hardware tests that might be needed.

I am not convinced that it is a RAM issue. It could be a disk issue, or an OS version issue, an extension issue, the list could go on.

The applications that you say are freezing are always on my hit list with regard to stability issues. Doom is a game. Games are usually written at the very edge of the programming envelope and often times against the programming standard that Apple has published. When OSes change, Games are the first to break. Whereas standard apps tend to transcend changes in OSes (Photoshop, ClarisWorks).

I'll state right now that I'm biased against AOL, but they too do not always follow the Apple programming standard. Newer versions of the AOL client software are nothing more than ports of the Windows versions, at least from my perspective. When software is quickly ported from Windows to the Mac, often times the quality of that software is compromised because it is ported and not enough is done to follow the Apple programming standard.

With that said, purchase Tech Tool and use it to see what kind of errors you might have in your hardware or disk. Fix any disk errors that show up with the disk and then tell us what you find or your experiences. Good luck!

os8surfer · Jan 8, 2001, 07:31 PM

Thanks,

I will try tech tool. Ill let u know. by the way how much is tech tool? and what are the requirements? u can email the SYS Requirements and price of techtool at

os8surfer@aol.com

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com

jeromep · Jan 8, 2001, 11:57 PM

Tech Tool Pro 3 is selling for $90 at outpost.com

It says that it only needs OS 7.5.5 and 5mb of ram.

os8surfer · Jan 9, 2001, 12:30 AM

Thanx,

i will have to save up/ ill try it.

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com

jeromep · Jan 11, 2001, 04:06 AM

Please don't wait too long to get diagnostic software. The longer you wait the more problems you may have.

druber · Jan 11, 2001, 11:20 AM

how often are you having crashes? is there a lot of disk activity before a crash? is it always a hard crash where the mouse freezes? does doom crash at certain point in the game, in certain rooms, or while loading levels? does aol crash when loading the browser or going to a specific area? have you tried turning off unused options in aol? have you run apple's disk first aid, done a clean system install, or reformatted the drive and reinstalled everything?

the more info you can post, the better chance we have of recognizing a problem. $90 is more cash than i can easily throw around. be longwinded and shoot us all the facts you can think of before you live off ramen to afford techtools.

Jodar · Jan 12, 2001, 10:55 AM

I have a Performa 6200, which is similiar to yours. My guess is you have a TV tuner card or something. A game like Doom requires a faster computer than the one you have I believe. Maybe thats why you are crashing when you
play. I've never ventured past the standard Power Pete game that came
bundled with the Performa start up software. Perhaps this game is taxing
your system to get it to crash.

os8surfer · Jan 13, 2001, 12:12 AM

Hi,

I got another 32 MB chip for free. Its fine now. Thanks. By the way, when i got the comp it had no sys software. I installed 8.1 and a bunch of new stuff. Thanks.

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com

os8surfer · Jan 13, 2001, 12:14 AM

Hi,

I got another 32 MB chip for free. Its fine now. Thanks. By the way, when i got the comp it had no sys software. I installed 8.1 and a bunch of new stuff. Thanks.

------------------
Thanx,

OS 8 Surfer

http://www.apple.com