[BWSchultz]

Ok, something fishy is going on with my computer.

The first problem I noticed is that I can't open the DVD drive from the keyboard anymore. The upper right corner button doesn't work, and F12 doesn't work either.

But it's not a mechanical issue. I was able to do a comm-opt-F-O restart and 'eject cd' opened and closed the drive fine. But if I'd put a DVD or a CD in the tray and restart, it wouldn't read. The drive wouldn't even spin up.

The next problem I noticed is that my iPod won't mount anymore. I tried to reinstall 4.7.1 for iTunes but the packages show up as 'disabled' in the installer window?

Anyone know what I can do to solve this?

I fear that I may need to buy a new DVD drive, probably the Pioneer 109 from what I read on here. I have the CD/DVD for iLife 04 but I can't re-install from ther because my drive can't read anything and the tray won't open. I think they may be related but it puts me in a catch-22 situation.

Any help would be very appreciated.

bws

[Detrius]

Can you boot from CDs? If you put the OS Install CD in that came with the machine, can you boot from it? If so, your drive is fine and you have a software issue.

[BWSchultz]

Originally posted by Detrius:
Can you boot from CDs? If you put the OS Install CD in that came with the machine, can you boot from it? If so, your drive is fine and you have a software issue.

I was able to load the OS X disc (software install and repair) but it failed on the installation.

Either drive will not read any other discs. It only read the hardware test disc by holding 'c' upon restart.

When I tried to download the free copy of iTunes, it says iTunes is disabled and can't be installed. How? Why?

[BWSchultz]

Right now, it seems that the drives just aren't being recognized by any software.

The Apple System Profiler lists the new drive correctly but no software is able to speak with it. DVD Player, Patchburn, iPhoto, and Toast all say there is NO DRIVE connected to the computer.

But it clearly is. From my previous post, I said I was able to load the OS X disc but only during the boot stage by holding 'c'. Nothing registers after I do a full reboot. Unfortunately, this failed during installation.

I reinstalled 10.3.7 by downloading it from Apple but that didn't do anything.

I feel like my machine is in serious trouble. Please help!!

[Big Mac]

"Well, like the tree said to the lumberjack, I'm stumped."
- Ned Flanders

I found one thread on C|Net that referenced your "iTunes disabled" issue, but there was no resolution found. The thing that's troubling is you say you can't mount anything. Are you getting any weird Console messages? It sounds like you may well need to take the G5 in.

[BWSchultz]

I think my next step is to buy a new copy of Panther and wipe the hard drive with a fresh installation - luckily, I have a second hard drive and that should mnimize my data loss. I did an 'essential' back up a couple of weeks ago as well, so I would only lose non-essential stuff which I call stuff that I can replace fairly easily.

I think I'd try this before taking it to an apple store and being without my computer for who knows how long. I'm also not a big fan of people poking around my stuff when I'm not present. Just a personal issue. So taking it in to Apple is an absolute final last resort. I'm not close to that yet.

If anyone thinks installing a new copy of Panther is a bad idea, let me know.

[mad cow disease]

Try disconnecting all of the IDE cables, power cables, etc., reconnecting them, then booting again. I realize this is an elementary solution but it may solve your problems.

Edit: I think that going out and buying a new copy of Panther may be extreme if you already have a copy...?

[Big Mac]

If you already have perfectly fine Panther discs, there's no reason to buy them again. Something definitely seems to be wrong with your hardware, unfortunately.

[BWSchultz]

I had tried to overwrite the OS but that gave me an error part way through, so I thought there was something wrong with the G5 setup disc.

But I moved as much data around as I could to my second hard drive and wiped the main drive clean with a fresh install of Panther. And THIS time, the installation worked. The OS must have been seriously corrupted and that wasn't allowing me to even install over it.

But, problem solved with minimal data loss. Thank goodness for the second hard drive and a backup from 3 weeks ago.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by BWSchultz:
...But I moved as much data around as I could to my second hard drive and wiped the main drive clean with a fresh install of Panther. And THIS time, the installation worked. The OS must have been seriously corrupted and that wasn't allowing me to even install over it...

Did you ever do a RAM test? Of course, a corrupted directory structure will cause all kinds of bizarre issues, as will bad RAM.

[BWSchultz]

Do you mean the Apple Hardware Test from the startup disc?

Yep, ran that. No problems found. Although, I did have a problem with RAM a couple of weeks ago that was solved by simply relocating the RAM within the G5.

thanks

[Big Mac]

Originally posted by BWSchultz:
Do you mean the Apple Hardware Test from the startup disc?

Yep, ran that. No problems found. Although, I did have a problem with RAM a couple of weeks ago that was solved by simply relocating the RAM within the G5.

thanks

I'm glad it has worked out for you, but I think if a certain module is giving you trouble it's best to get rid of it. You may have been able to get it to function to some extent by placing the combo in different slots, but they may well fail on you again, randomly. If you start having problems again that's the first place I would like, anyway.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I'm glad it has worked out for you, but I think if a certain module is giving you trouble it's best to get rid of it. You may have been able to get it to function to some extent by placing the combo in different slots, but they may well fail on you again, randomly. If you start having problems again that's the first place I would like, anyway.

There is also the possibility that the socket is bad. Try putting other RAM that has passed tests in the sockets you vacated--see what happens.

[BWSchultz]

Originally posted by Detrius:
There is also the possibility that the socket is bad. Try putting other RAM that has passed tests in the sockets you vacated--see what happens.

Yeah, I did that a few weeks ago when I had the RAM trouble. Check out my post on that:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=242988

For some reason, the 512 MB chips no longer worked in the innermost slots in my G5 but the worked in the next slot out. And the 256 MB chips worked just fine on the inside pair.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by BWSchultz:
Yeah, I did that a few weeks ago when I had the RAM trouble. Check out my post on that:

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=242988

For some reason, the 512 MB chips no longer worked in the innermost slots in my G5 but the worked in the next slot out. And the 256 MB chips worked just fine on the inside pair.

I had a machine a few days ago that I thought was having similar issues--that two modules wouldn't work on the inside, but they would on the outside. I thought this until I got them to successfully fail on the outside, and thus concluded that the modules were bad, since other modules were having no problems in the slot.

I would be HIGHLY suspicious of those 512MB modules. But, if they always return good data, then they are effectively good.

[BWSchultz]

Well, they've been going great for about a month now. And I do lots of CPU intensive activites so I'm constantly at 15 MB of RAM available (out of 1.5 GB). It's that unused RAM is wasted RAM mantra. I think OS X could be a little more efficient in freeing up unused RAM but that's just me. For instance, if I do a video conversion, I'm stuck beach balling for another hour while the OS recovers memory post video conversion. It's annoying. I don't know too much about how OS X manages the memory but in my head, it would make sense to reserve more than 15 MB of RAM for new tasks, say keep 100 MB free in my situation so new tasks don't instantly make my machine beachball.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by BWSchultz:
Well, they've been going great for about a month now. And I do lots of CPU intensive activites so I'm constantly at 15 MB of RAM available (out of 1.5 GB). It's that unused RAM is wasted RAM mantra. I think OS X could be a little more efficient in freeing up unused RAM but that's just me. For instance, if I do a video conversion, I'm stuck beach balling for another hour while the OS recovers memory post video conversion. It's annoying. I don't know too much about how OS X manages the memory but in my head, it would make sense to reserve more than 15 MB of RAM for new tasks, say keep 100 MB free in my situation so new tasks don't instantly make my machine beachball.

Sounds like 1.5GB isn't enough. If you watch the System Memory in the Activity Monitor, the red and yellow stuff is the active RAM--OS and currently running programs. The blue stuff is stuff that has been used recently. This includes stuff that has been modified recently and stuff that has been read recently. If you have enough RAM, the stuff that has been read recently can be dumped and you don't have to page anything out to RAM. If you don't have enough RAM, the stuff that has been modified recently has to be paged to disk. If you don't even remotely have enough RAM, then the stuff that is actively being used has to be paged to disk. There is no reason to have much of any free RAM at all. If you are having any pageouts, then in theory, you don't have enough RAM for whatever it is you are doing.

[BWSchultz]

Originally posted by Detrius:
Sounds like 1.5GB isn't enough. If you watch the System Memory in the Activity Monitor, the red and yellow stuff is the active RAM--OS and currently running programs. The blue stuff is stuff that has been used recently. This includes stuff that has been modified recently and stuff that has been read recently. If you have enough RAM, the stuff that has been read recently can be dumped and you don't have to page anything out to RAM. If you don't have enough RAM, the stuff that has been modified recently has to be paged to disk. If you don't even remotely have enough RAM, then the stuff that is actively being used has to be paged to disk. There is no reason to have much of any free RAM at all. If you are having any pageouts, then in theory, you don't have enough RAM for whatever it is you are doing.

So what is the relationship betwen pagesins/pageouts that tells me if I have enough RAM or not? That seems to be what you're implying I should look at on the Activity Monitor to determine if my system has enough RAM.

[Detrius]

Originally posted by BWSchultz:
So what is the relationship betwen pagesins/pageouts that tells me if I have enough RAM or not? That seems to be what you're implying I should look at on the Activity Monitor to determine if my system has enough RAM.

Pageins are normal--they happen when you open an application that isn't stored in RAM. That's not a bad thing.

Pageouts implicitly mean you don't have enough RAM for whatever you are doing at that moment. Small numbers of pageouts aren't a bad thing. Keep in mind that a page is 4KB. So, 1000 pageouts is only 4MB. However, 1000000 pageouts is 4GB. That's a LOT of disk activity. Also, a page is only written to disk when there are no free pages in RAM or no pages in RAM that can be discarded (e.g. unmodified disk cache). So, when one page is written to disk, that means you have no disk cache and the only stuff that is in RAM is the stuff that is somewhat actively running.

The easiest way to watch what is REALLY going on is with the vm_stat command. This actually can show you a table so that you can keep up with your vm over time.

e.g.:

vm_stat 60

Spits out a line of virtual memory info every 60 seconds. The columns you should be concerned with are the last two. The last one is pageout, which is a big deal. The next to last is pagein. You will notice that pageouts get paired with higher pageins. Often, a pageout implies a pagein of something. Take the numbers that pop up on here when you are doing your work and multiply them by 4k. This will tell you how much hard drive activity is being done, but it also shows you what would have been at least a little faster if you had more RAM.

BTW, you can never have too much RAM... there's always SOMETHING that will wind up causing a pageout at some point.