[jreades]

I'm wondering if anyone else has seen these symptoms and, if so, what the cause was:

1. On an intermitten basis (say once every three to four weeks) my PB G4 667 will completely lock up -- the cursor disappears and the display freezes. Any running audio will play a half-second loop or so of whatever was playing just before the freeze. Only a hard reset fixes the issue.

2. Initially, this only occured while running on battery power without a DVD in the drive, but it has now 'spread' to running while connected whether or not a DVD is in the drive.

3. Continued attempts to use the machine result in an ever-shorter period of time before the display freeze/machine lockup.

4. Continued usage eventually results in the beeps from the BIOS upon restart -- 3 loud beeps followed by 4 flashes from the sleep light. This apparently indicates 'no good banks' for the memory controller.

5. At this point, the machine will somtimes freeze even while in Open Firmware.

6. Disconnecting the machine and allowing it to cool for several hours appears to correct the issue temporarily.

7. The fan *sounds* like it is working (i.e. noise comes out the back that sounds like a fan).

8. The relationship to the machine temperature is not 100% linear -- one day I can play a DVD on and off all day while running several other apps without encountering this issue, another day simply running the terminal is enough to produce this fault.

I'm guessing that it's one of:

1. Overheating due to fan failure
2. Logic board failure related to temperature sensitivity or RAM
3. Incipient hard drive failure

Either way, my fear is that this is going to cost me $$$ to fix (hmmm, maybe I'll do the trade-in... for an AlPB) but I wanted to get some input from other users who might have encountered this issue before taking it in for some diagnoses.

TIA.

[Avenir]

the beeping alone would make me think logic board. either way, it doesn't sound like anything I could tell you a quick-fix for.

[bitwiz]

I've experience similar freezes on a brand new dual 1.8Ghz G5 (with 10.3.2). I get the same second or two of looped sound that continuously repeats. I've been doing some looking, and I have come to the conclusion that it is a bug in Panther. There are quite a few people reporting similar lockup/freeze issues.

In my case, the force quit window won't even pop up -- the only recourse is a hard power cycle.

[Link]

my g4 does this too lol..

You sure the beeping isn't because you're holding down the power button on bootup?

I'm positive it's the RAM, myself... because my machine's motherboard has been replaced a few times