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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Beige Powermac dying...again

Beige Powermac dying...again
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lothar56
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Location: Iowa State Univesity
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Mar 7, 2006, 03:19 PM
 
Okay, I revived the dead Beige Tower. I've got 2 128MB chips in there, I KNOW they're good, they were in my other beige machine running a bunch of server apps + BOINC for over a week straight. It also has a 400MHz G3 processor, running at stock speed and bus speeds and everything.
So here's the problem. At random times it will simply shut off. The screen goes blank, everything ceases to work, but the power light is still on. I know it's not energy saver or the screen saver, those are the first things i turn off when I installed 10.3.9. It completely locked up once while optimizing the hard drive after running Software Update to put it up to 10.3.9. It did another time while the iTunes visualizer was running and I hit the "Desktop/Screensaver" button in system preferences. It made the sound like it shut down both hard drives spun down, monitor went blank etc, but the light stayed on.
I don't think it's the processor, because I've had BOINC maxing it out for the past couple hours and nothing's gone wrong. I know it's not the RAM. Is something wrong on the mobo or something like that? I have a couple spare beige units at home so it's no real loss if so, I just want a reliable computer.
     
Psycho Therapist
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Mar 7, 2006, 04:34 PM
 
Are you using the onboard graphics?

Because what you describe sounds like the well known Video Panic, where the computer will just stop responding randomly, but often associated with heavy disk load.
     
lothar56  (op)
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Mar 7, 2006, 07:58 PM
 
yes I am. I have the 4MB chip in there too. I haven't heard of this before, do you have more info?
     
Psycho Therapist
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Mar 8, 2006, 10:09 AM
 
Yep, I had a feeling it was the same problem. I have a Beige G3 with that problem, same graphics & 4Mb too. The problem only effects Mac OS X and has effected every version I've tried (10.2, 10.3 & 10.4).

The only solution is to install a PCI Graphics Card, to replace the onboard graphics.

The ATI Rage 128, the card used in the Blue & White G3, seems like the perfect low-cost solution for a stable Beige, should also improve performance a little, too. However, if you have spare Beige G3s, then perhaps it would be easier/cheaper to test them and find one that doesn't have the problem.

I put a spare Voodoo 3 2000 card in mine and OS X runs stable now, albeit there is no hardware acceleration supported on this particular card, under OS X. I didn't really want to spend more money out on this Beige, since I have a Blue & White G3 in my collection that is more deserving, so when/if I upgrade that, the Beige will get the hand-me-down parts.
     
lothar56  (op)
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Mar 10, 2006, 03:50 PM
 
Thanks again for the info, I posted about this a while back, but no one mentioned this problem, they all told me processor/ram. I ended up throwing away a 128 chip that I thought was bad...n: I almost tossed the processor too. I've got two desktops (minus RAM, HD, and processors) sitting at home doing nothing now, so I'll swap stuff into one of those and see what happens. The desktops are a lot quieter than the towers, I've noticed, but swapping drives in the tower is soooo much easier.
     
   
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