A few days ago I reinstalled MacOS 8.6 on my rev B iMac and only the software and drivers I actually use. Great - I have half my hard disk back again! But since then there's an intermittent problem on startup where the Finder seems to freeze. The mouse pointer still moves but clicking has no effect. Likewise the keyboard is dead - even the keyboard power key doesn't work.

Does anyone know what might cause this and how I might cure it?

Thanks,
Neil Gall

errr........ well you can always try that little option+comand+p+r thing when you hit the power on the comp. Just hold those keys for a while and your comp will restart again.... then replace the desktop file. Get 'FileBuddy' www.versiontracker.com to do that or press option+command right befor ethe finder starts to load (I think those are the right keys) You may have to reset things back to how you had them.. like the Keyboared and mouse and general controls control panels.

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In Velocity + Mass + Trajectory
You will find the creator,Fate.

[drewman]

How long do you wait before pronouncing it dead and restarting?

There are three things to check here. First, do you have the newest firmware for your Mac? Symptom was that the system would appear to freeze periodically if no CD was loaded in the drive.

Second, check the TCP/IP panel and make sure that configure via DHCP isn't selected as that will make the Mac look for its IP address from a DHCP server at startup and if no server is there it can take quite a while to timeout and finish booting.

Third, did you reinstall the MacOS 8.6 Font Fix? If not, then you might have a corrupted font resource somewhere that is causing your problem.

drewman

[This message has been edited by drewman (edited 03-19-2000).]

I read on MacFixit.com that this may be a temporary freeze so I left it for 10 or 15 minutes, but it never came back to life.

That site also mentioned problems with Iomega Zip drivers. I disabled all the Iomega extensions and have not had the freeze since. Unfortunately this also means I can't use my Zip drive. I see there is a new version of Iomegaware so I'll try that.

TCP/IP is set to PPP - is there anything else I need to check?

I've not installed the font fix yet - sounds like I need to do this.

Thanks for the help,
Neil Gall

Neil,

You don't have to disable ALL the Iomega drivers, only the ones from Iomega. You should be able to leave the one supplied with the Mac OS enabled.

I think.

MacOS9 has built-in Iomega support. I use a drive all the time with no problems. Well, that's not exactly true. My wife and I use it for a quick file transfer method (ethernet is occupied), and sometimes it won't recognize the drive without a restart. But that doesn't happen very often. But the point is that I disabled all Iomega and Zip extensions. So an upgrade to OS9 could help.

Regarding freeze... I get a ten-second freeze after the desktop (I think, could just be HD) but before startup items. I suspected it was because of my DSL router, and a previous message confirmed it. Thanks! So much for no dial-up time.

[wlonh]

this might help...
try deleting the 'Servers' folder in your System Folder, delete the invisible file 'AppleShare PDS' if it is on your Mac, open the File Exchange control panel and uncheck "PC DISKS: Mount at Startup", open the memory control panel while holding down the 'option' and 'command' keys and turn off the 'Startup Memory Tests' in the Memory control panel, delete the Finder Preferences and restart.