[Zemrec]

Hi, up until last night my FrankenMac was running beautifully almost non-stop since I built-in in mid-September. When I got home last night, the machine was still powered up, but locked up.

Reset didn't help. PSU comes on, fans come on, no chime. I reseated the video, CPU, and 3 DIMMs, and checked power/IDE on HD and CDRW/DVD. Unplugged power, held PMU button for several seconds. Plugged power back in, again, fans, PSU comes on, but no chime.

I started systematically trying just one of my 3 DIMMs in each slot. Finally I gave up and started to work on my Linux box to get it to read the Mac disk for salvage.

Then I tried the Mac again...this time it chimed and booted! Everything seemed great for about 5 minutes, then it locked again. Back to no chime after a reset. So went back to the linux box, then tried mac again with just 1 DIMM.

This time it booted and worked great for 30 minutes at which point I decided to try another DIMM. It booted! And went for at least an hour and a half, at which point I left it on and went to bed. This morning it was hung again.

So far I've only been able to get it to chime a few times, its very inconsistent, I can't find a pattern. Doesn't matter if I use one of my 256 MB DIMMs or my 128 MB one in any of the slots (except the first one, which has never worked, just get a scratchy hiss and 3 tones whenever somethings in there, but like I said I had been running it fine before.) Doesn't matter if I hold down the PMU, unplug power, etc. Just seems to need to "cool off" for about 5 minutes before it'll chime again. And its not heat...nothing feels hot. And again its been running fine until yesterday.

But today it won't complete a boot. I let it sit for 15 minutes at the Grey Apple with Spinning Clock screen. Next I tried holding CMD-V, and it seemed OK for a minute, then stopped a little bit later, keyboard/mouse unresponsive (USB Microsoft kb/m, I've noticed whenever it hangs, the power goes off on these.)

HELP! What's going on!

[superlarry]

edit: i should've read the whole post first to see it wasn't heat :c) but i still think that might be the case. make sure all your fans are working. what kind of upgrades are making this a "Frankenmac"?

[Zemrec]

yeah. so I came home, and it started up. but wouldn't load up normally, stuck on the grey apple/circle tick thing. use CMD-V for text mode start up, have to wait a while, hit enter a few times, and it seemed to boot. but locked up. I moved ram around, took out the 128 MB dimm. wouldn't start right away. I left it unplugged for 5 mins. started up, (again sits there on grey apple) but cmd-v works. and it was fine. :-? I dunno. suddenly it doesn't like that one dimm? and even if you take it out you have to let it sit for a few minutes.....

Its a gigabit ethernet and PSU I got off of ebay, plus a OWC 1.0 Ghz G4 with 2 MB L3, 512 MB (currently), Geforce4 MX 32MB, LG Combo drive, 80 GB Hitachci Deskstar.

[Zemrec]

Sadly, FrankenMac is sick again. It worked fine Thursday, but Friday and today its been locking up and then not chiming after a reset again.

I had reinstalled Jaguar yesterday to try to get rid of the start up problems, but Friday night it started locking up again.

I have a suspicion its the motherboard, but I don't know how to test it. And I really don't want to have to buy another $180 3-year-old motherboard. Anyone have any suggestions?