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JDubya · Jan 25, 2007, 10:59 PM

My powerbook G4 is really acting up. At first, every now and then when I would wake it up from sleeping, nothing would happen. the keys or trackpad wouldn't do anything. I had to hold down the power button to shut it down. Then when I would turn it back on, i could hear the hard drive turn on but that was it. No image, no sound. So i'd turn it off and on again. same thing happened. This would repeat a few times then i'd get fed up and leave it alone. After a while it would decide to boot up correctly.

It would do that sporadically. Since then it has gotten worse.

Now in the middle of use it will freeze. I would then turn it off, on, off, on: nothing. I can hear the hard drive but nothing else happens. Today, one of the times i tried turning it back on, i got an image but it was a system failure message. I took a picture of it in case it would be of help. This happened twice.

Any ideas as to what's wrong w/my lappy? It's driving me nuts b/c I like using it to take notes during class.

mania · Jan 25, 2007, 11:49 PM

my powerbook g4 is starting to freeze randomly - have to unplug it and then pop out the battery to get it to unfreeze.

so I just backed everything up. now the question is for jdubya and I.

What should we do?

should we buy another hard drive in hopes that solves it - or should we buy another puter - or should we take it in and say - this thing freezes every so often (I think mine is not as bad as jdub).

suggestions?

mania · Jan 26, 2007, 12:04 AM

So any pb owners try one of these? do you all recon it will work in a powerbook?

Newegg.com - Seagate Momentus 5400.2 120GB 2.5" ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

MrN79 · Jan 27, 2007, 12:34 AM

My PB 1.5 started acting exactly like yours mania, SMART said everything was fine. Then one day the gray screen of death, puter wouldn't boot.

I have the 3 year warranty, called apple and they said they would replace the HD, but all of my data would be lost.

Bought DiskWarrior, and a new HD which I installed myself. Put the so called bad HD in an external case and ran DiskWarrior which fixed the bad blocks/sectors. I'm still using the original HD as an external HD and it's still working fine.

I bought my 100 GB, 7200 RPM from Powerbookmedic.com, along with the take apart manual...

jdrumstik · Jan 31, 2007, 12:50 AM

Does it really matter what HDD you get for Macintosh computers? It seems like they would be happy if any drive assumming it fits.

JDubya · Feb 2, 2007, 12:28 PM

I reset the PMU and PRAM but that didn't help. I then called a few places and they're thinking it's a logic board issue

Now what? Attempt to sell it then buy a Macbook?

romeosc · Feb 3, 2007, 04:38 PM

Originally Posted by JDubya

I reset the PMU and PRAM but that didn't help. I then called a few places and they're thinking it's a logic board issue

Now what? Attempt to sell it then buy a Macbook?

If you have an external clone backup, reformat and reinstall and migrate data from external. It is probably a bad sector that OS X is written to or is trying to read from!

Always try simplist solutions first!

MrN79 · Feb 3, 2007, 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by JDubya

I reset the PMU and PRAM but that didn't help. I then called a few places and they're thinking it's a logic board issue

Now what? Attempt to sell it then buy a Macbook?

If your HD is failing, resetting will not help. I personally don't think it's a logic board problem. I was having the exact same problems with my PB 15, and i replaced the HD...it's still working.

MrN79 · Feb 3, 2007, 09:03 PM

Originally Posted by jdrumstik

Does it really matter what HDD you get for Macintosh computers? It seems like they would be happy if any drive assumming it fits.

It didn't matter what i drive i bought as long as it was faster than the one I was replacing.

kick52 · Feb 3, 2007, 09:05 PM

can we see that picture you took?

earthlings · Feb 4, 2007, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by JDubya

My powerbook G4 is really acting up. At first, every now and then when I would wake it up from sleeping, nothing would happen. the keys or trackpad wouldn't do anything. I had to hold down the power button to shut it down. Then when I would turn it back on, i could hear the hard drive turn on but that was it. No image, no sound. So i'd turn it off and on again. same thing happened. This would repeat a few times then i'd get fed up and leave it alone. After a while it would decide to boot up correctly.

It would do that sporadically. Since then it has gotten worse.

Now in the middle of use it will freeze. I would then turn it off, on, off, on: nothing. I can hear the hard drive but nothing else happens. Today, one of the times i tried turning it back on, i got an image but it was a system failure message. I took a picture of it in case it would be of help. This happened twice.

Any ideas as to what's wrong w/my lappy? It's driving me nuts b/c I like using it to take notes during class.

That happened to me, someone said on the discussion board on the apple site, it was a kernal panic. I didn't have the start up disk from when my pb came in 2003. So I went to the Genius Bar, they found my logic board was broken, sent it into be fixed thinking and being told all my documents would still be there when I pick it up a week to 10 days and less than a week later they called and said it was ready for pickup and got home and bam, it was like a new computer, nothing was on there, everything was erased. I was very upset and still upset they lost everything, even my photoshop 7 that I borrowed from someone back in 2004.

JDubya · Feb 4, 2007, 03:10 PM

After I posted about resetting the PRAM and PMU, i took the battery out for a while. When I put it back in and turned it one it booted up fine. It worked perfect for the rest of the day. I shut it down at night. The next morning, however, when I turned it on it was acting up again. I didn't know if resetting the above would help or not, i just wanted to try anything i could think of.

Here's that pic:

SierraDragon · Feb 4, 2007, 06:34 PM

Fully back up your data immediately. The described behavior may indicate impending total failure.

-Allen Wicks

kick52 · Feb 4, 2007, 06:38 PM

hmm.. that kernel panic might be writen to the screen as the computer doesnt think it is safe to write a dump. (perhaps).
on the screen it has a couple of "allignment" things, and it has "system failure"
anyone know of these things?

JDubya · Feb 4, 2007, 09:40 PM

I already got everything off that I need so from here on out whatever happens, happens. I'm tempted to try a new hard drive or just take it in and have a repair tech look at it... I might try a fresh install first.

earthlings · Feb 4, 2007, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by JDubya

I already got everything off that I need so from here on out whatever happens, happens. I'm tempted to try a new hard drive or just take it in and have a repair tech look at it... I might try a fresh install first.

Maybe you should get a free inspection at the Genius Bar at Apple. They would know what they are doing SOMETIMES

mania · Feb 5, 2007, 10:08 PM

My problem was a bad RAM slot (not the RAM itself). so I am down to one slot but hey - at least it works and I don't have to rush out and replace it. Freezing is many times RAM related. Best of luck JDub