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shining-nickel17 · 07:51 PM

I have a fairly old G4 PowerMac, it has a single 500MHz processor and 640MB RAM. I was hoping to do an "erase and install" of OS X (10.4). This went well for the most part, but the system crashed (gray screen, saying you need to restart your computer) and now the HD is erased, and everytime I try to install off of the DVD the machine crashes. Any ideas/suggestions? Thanks!

Big Mac · Mar 22, 2007, 08:15 PM

The grey screen is known as a Kernel Panic. It can occur as a result of a software problem or a hardware one. In this case I'd assume hardware since you've already done an erase and install. The first thing I would do would be to pull third party RAM. Could you post one of the Panic logs you find in the Console (/Applications/Utilities/Console)?

shining-nickel17 · Mar 23, 2007, 01:36 AM

i could, im out of town at the moment and it'll take a couple more days for me to get around to that, but i will post them! thanks...

reader50 · Mar 23, 2007, 01:52 AM

He won't be able to post a panic log since the Install DVD is the boot disk.

At what point does the Install crash now? On bootup, or sometime after the Install starts? If later, at what point ... which package is being installed at that time?

Big Mac · Mar 23, 2007, 02:58 AM

In that case he should turn on screen dump KP mode in nvram. But first pull the RAM and see if that makes any difference.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 23, 2007, 12:17 PM

The install crashes at anytime between just having booted from the CD to about 20% of the installation being complete. I am trying to install OS X 10.4 onto the HD of my G4. I could try pulling all the non-Apple RAM and installing, i'll let you know how that goes when I get back home. And if that doesn't work what is this "screen dump KP mode in nvram" and how do I turn it on? Thanks again!

Big Mac · Mar 23, 2007, 01:33 PM

First pull the RAM, then we'll go from there.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 24, 2007, 12:51 AM

ok sounds good, give me a couple days (sunday eve.) i should be albe to try this. i'll post again then.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 25, 2007, 12:20 PM

well, i got home, settled in, and then went to try that G4 installation again. This time i removed all of the Non-Apple RAM. I put in my DVD it boots up and go to continue the installation. It Crashes, I tried this several times and it crashes everytime. Sometimes it starts installing, sometimes i click "Next" in the installed and sometimes it just trys to load up the installer screen. So you had other advice for me?

reader50 · Mar 25, 2007, 01:03 PM

Pull the Apple RAM, put some of the 3rd party RAM back in, and repeat the test. Use different slots, in case it's the slot that's bad.

Ideally, try it with one stick at a time, until you've tested all the sticks. However, it's not very likely that two sticks have gone bad, so one more test with non-Apple RAM will very likely either convict the Apple RAM of being the problem, or will find all the RAM not-guilty.

What graphics card do you have? Does it have a fan on it? Most ATi cards came with fans, and they used cheepo fans that tend to get noisy and wear out. If your GPU fan has worn out, your Mac is likely to crash when the graphics chip overheats. Which would happen an uncertain amount of time after booting up.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 25, 2007, 05:59 PM

from what I can tell my GPU doesn't have a fan on it....but i don't think that over heating is the problem.

Northeastern292 · Mar 25, 2007, 07:00 PM

It could be the hard drive, a PRAM reset is in order, or your motherboard is toast.

I recently replaced the motherboard on a PowerBook G4 (Mercury) given to me by my chorus teacher. Instead of a kernel panic, the computer would lock up and would boot with no screen.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 25, 2007, 08:28 PM

well the resetting the PRAM does nothing...so i suppose it could be the motherboard..?

BigBadBiologist · Mar 26, 2007, 01:09 PM

Originally Posted by shining-nickel17

well the resetting the PRAM does nothing...so i suppose it could be the motherboard..?

Did you try using different individual sticks of RAM? (the non-apple RAM as opposed to the apple RAM and in different slots)

shining-nickel17 · Mar 26, 2007, 06:11 PM

I've tried many dif. Ram configs. It could also be my gpu, which I am fiddling with now...

BigBadBiologist · Mar 26, 2007, 06:26 PM

Are you running it with the case open?

shining-nickel17 · Mar 26, 2007, 06:53 PM

haha no...

shining-nickel17 · Mar 26, 2007, 11:38 PM

anyone have any other ideas?

reader50 · 12:47 AM

It looks like a hardware problem, but it's difficult to diagnose because you aren't booting from the internal HD. It would be really useful to see what the panic log says, but there is no log when booted from a read-only medium.

Do you have access to another PPC Mac? If so, move the HD over, do the install there, and swap it back. Then boot. If it crashes, at least it will be able to record where the problem happened.

One possibility, are you updated to the latest firmware? If this is a Sawtooth (G4 AGP in Apple parlance), then it needs the latest firmware to run the later OSX versions. Try installing OS 9, see if it goes on properly. If so, open Apple System Profiler and check the "Boot ROM version". Again assuming this is a Sawtooth G4, the version should read 4.2.8f1

If it shows something lower, then you need to install the 4.2.8 firmware from Apple. The time spent reinstalling 9 wasn't wasted, since the firmware update has to be done in OS 9 - it won't work in Classic.

You can find a more complete list of firmware updates related to OSX compatibility here.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 27, 2007, 10:05 AM

Well i don't have another PPC mac, but this machine has OS X (10.4) on it when it was given to me. So I know that it works. Oh well... The mother board must just be fried...because I've tried pretty much everything else.

reader50 · Mar 27, 2007, 12:02 PM

Was it stable under Tiger before? If so, not much changed during a fresh Install. The HD gets a workout, so does the optical drive. Both are cheap, and many people have older, smaller HDs sitting around from previous upgrades.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 27, 2007, 09:43 PM

yes, it was stable under tiger before, but then it crashed halfway through a 10.4.9 update, and wouldn't boot up, so i decided to do a reinstall of the OS, but that wouldn't work...something must have fried in the process...

Big Mac · Mar 27, 2007, 11:07 PM

If you made no hardware changes and you've tried pulling the RAM, it's either the installation disc, the DVD drive or the hard drive.

reader50 · Mar 27, 2007, 11:50 PM

I agree, it's unlikely the motherboard/CPUs/PS would happen to fail in mid-installation. The three items listed above are the only weak points.

If it's the Install disk, then the freeze is likely to happen around the same time every time - when you hit the damaged point (such as a scratch or lipstick smudge) on the disk. The HD or optical drives would be more erratic in when they hang things up.

shining-nickel17 · Mar 28, 2007, 09:56 AM

Well I know that it isn't the HD because I installed another one and tried installing the OS to that one, and it also didn't work. During the OS "installation" the installer does it's disk check thing and my disc checks out ok. I suppose It could be the DVD drive, but I have another repair disk (DVD) that I can boot from on that machine and it works...your not telling me that the DVD drive won't work with just one specific disk? haha

shining-nickel17 · Apr 3, 2007, 09:59 AM

Hey, Me again. After having fiddled with it some more, it doesn't crash (Kernel Painc) as much as it used to. It lets me get about half way through the installer at that point I either get the nice restart your computer now or just shut it down error from the installer or I get a Kernel Panic crash screen. Any suggestions, or have we already wasted too much time with this?

mfbernstein · Apr 3, 2007, 12:37 PM

Sounds more and more like a motherboard-related failure (or perhaps a CPU failure). Have you tried installing any older OSes like 9.2 or 10.3? They tend to stress the hardware less, so you'd be more likely to make it through a full install without hanging.

shining-nickel17 · Apr 5, 2007, 12:08 AM

Just to let eveyone know, my computer works now! Probably because of a result of all your helpful advice, thanks. Also, when I thought it was fried I took it completely apart just for the heck of it and put it back together. Then I decided to try installing OS X 10.3 on it, and it worked! Who woulda thought that some PERCUSSIVE maintenance would do the trick eh? Well thanks again!