Hi,
I am new at this forum thing, so be kind with me... :-)
I have had multiple problems for months now with my Powerbook (Ti 500mgh/1Gb Mem) running Mac OS X 10.2.6. I have had partial success in finding out some of the causes after hours spent on the phone with Apple Care. Since they are multiple issues, for one thing, and they also involve a few non-apple programs, each Tech Sup blames the "other" software "they don't support". So I have found the problem overwhelming and never found enough time to really fix it/them.
I hope that s.o. can help me figuring out part or all of these questions:
1. Can the different issues be related to each other?
2. Have you ever had similar issues?
3. Can you help me fix them or direct me to resources to fix/learn about them?
Here are the issues:
1. My apps (not just one: IE, AOL, Photoshop, NikonView, Now Contact, AppleWorks... etc...) do crash on a regular basis. Never used to when I first got Mac OS X. I get one of these messages from the console log:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x04a2a000
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000008
2. The oldest and most disturbing problem has been that both my displays (LCD & the Viewsonic external P225f) set to solid grey, actually show a regular pattern of darker and lighter lines. About 6-8 horizontal lines (about 1/16" wide) and hundreds vertical lines (1/36-64") in these 8-9 horizontal sections.
Troubleshooting with Apple, we found out that it seems to be software related because the pattern does not appear when logging in as a different user, running with another partition (I had a partition with system 9) or with a bootable CD.
After erasing the hard drive, reinstalling Mac OS X and all applications from scratch, the problem went away but then came back when I forgot about it and mistakingly re-included the old user folder in the new one!
Further tests seem to point the problem to the user's library as it disappears when I move the library folder out of the user folder and re-login. Loosing all my settings, preferences, etc... of course!
Do you know another way to find out which item causes the problem without going and trashing each one individually?
3. My firewire chain also seems to have some problems! The last item in the chain seems to unmount itself from time to time, while I am just working on something else, as if I had disconnected it without dragging it to the trash. I have 2 EZQuest hard drives, one Smartdisk CD burner, and one LaCie pocket Hard drive chained together. Changing the order or reducing the number of items does not solve the problem which occurs very erratically and inconsistently.
4. Another issue occurs with my Lexar Compactflash Cards and the USB Lexar Jumpshot card readers. They seem to download the pictures fine the first card I do, but refuse to download or even show on the desktop the 2nd or 3rd time. Using another card or different card readers does not help until I restart the computer. I do drag the Lexar icon to the trash before taking the card out.
The new FireWire Lexar Card reared I just got, the firewire PicturePad Digital wallet, as well as downloading directly from the camera (Nikon D100), all seem to do the same. So I play with downloading with each device alternatively, but it's a pain, a mess to organize files and slows down my work terribly of course.
5. Oh, I forgot to mention that the computer feels very sluggish too...:-) and I get the "Spinning-Wheel-of-Death" way too often for my taste! But I read that this would happen with a slow processor (500Mgz), when you have a lot of apps on the internal hard drive with only 20Gb. I keep my documents on the external drives, which is not as fast as the internal, I understand also. Do you know a better way to optimize performance?
Well, is that enough issues for one poor computer?... So you can see how complex my problem is and why I don't seem to find solutions to it.
Sorry for this terribly lengthy message and thank you for reading it.
I'll really appreciate any contribution to help me solve any or all these problems. And many thanks again.
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