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indianenvasion · Mar 24, 2005, 11:45 PM

Hello everyone, i just got a used G3 sawtooth and i added 256mb of the correct memory and a 60gig ibm formated HDD, when i boot the mac holding control i get the install mac os 10x screen and click on the ---> picture after a few secconds the prompt comes back.. now the i dont know if the original owner had a scsi or IDE hdd installed but their was no ide hdd but their was a scsi card. could it be possible that the onboard ide controler is bad and that is why their using scsi?? i dont know why only one control is broke bc the 2nd controler is hooked up to the dvd rom that is installed... i know my cd's are good bc my friend has a powerbook g4 and it worked like a charm ... is their something im missing??

thanx in advanced

an apple n00b

indianenvasion

suthercd · Mar 25, 2005, 12:00 AM

Hmmmm. The Sawtooth was a G4 either 350 or 400 MHz with the AGP motherboard. Check the clock speed of the chip and describe the USB/ Firewire ports so we can figure out what you have.

Craig

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 12:05 AM

the back says 400mhz :-) 2 usb i think one firewire... i just checked the hd jumper and its set on master since its the only one on the ide channel

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 12:26 AM

ok so i think i did a bios reset ( their was a small button above what looks like the bios battery) and now the system beeps once and then the power button blinks... hmm any idea guys? also i checked the Ide channel and its still good cuz the system will boot it seems like the computer dose not see the HDD i dont know what im doing wrong...

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 12:31 AM

Hmm, my guess is that the RAM you put in that machine is bad.

Do you have any other spare RAM that you know works, so you can try it in this machine and see if you still get this error?

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 12:34 AM

yeah i just read that!! haha ill check and see what happens any other ideas

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 12:44 AM

ok so i checked the memory and that fixed that...but now i get the loader and it will not allow me to do the install im guessing it cant find the hdd i checked the jumpers on the hdd its self and its on master im going to try cable select and see what happens

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 01:03 AM

ok so the only memory i have is a 64mb stick i have checked EVERYTHING and still cant get it to load so i checked the min req for os x and its 128mb is the OS smart to know that the memory is low during install

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 01:16 AM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
ok so the only memory i have is a 64mb stick i have checked EVERYTHING and still cant get it to load so i checked the min req for os x and its 128mb is the OS smart to know that the memory is low during install

Yeah, 10.3 won't boot with less than 128 MB. And trust me, you wouldn't want to anyway. 10.2 used to let you try to boot with 64 MB, and believe me, it would run slower than anything you could possibly imagine.

The thing to know would be whether you still get that beep on startup if you hit the CUDA switch with the 64 MB DIMM in there, or if it gets past the POST but just doesn't boot the OS. If the latter, the RAM was probably the problem.

Assuming you eventually get the machine to boot, if the hard drive still won't show up, try going to Disk Utility (in the Installer menu) and reformatting the drive.

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 01:19 AM

yeah i fig that it was all a memory issue :-( im looking for memory as we speak thanx again for all your help guys!!!

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 01:20 AM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
yeah i fig that it was all a memory issue :-( im looking for memory as we speak thanx again for all your help guys!!!

Do you not get that beep on startup if you hit the switch?

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 01:23 AM

i had a 256mb and a 64mb in and it wouldnt work i got the same issue as i did at the start of this topic but after i took out the 64mb the system beeped once so i took that out and just placed the 64mb in and now i dont get the beep but the darn thing only lets me see the button that says mac os x install disc 1 and when i click on the ----> it goes away ( the icon ) and then after reading the cd a bit it comes back... thats why i asked about the mem req guessing that the OS installer knows that 64mb is just not enough.. this g4 400mzh only cost me 150 and its my 1st mac so i dont really care if its slow i just want to play with it.

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 01:31 AM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
i had a 256mb and a 64mb in and it wouldnt work i got the same issue as i did at the start of this topic but after i took out the 64mb the system beeped once so i took that out and just placed the 64mb in and now i dont get the beep but the darn thing only lets me see the button that says mac os x install disc 1 and when i click on the ----> it goes away ( the icon ) and then after reading the cd a bit it comes back... thats why i asked about the mem req guessing that the OS installer knows that 64mb is just not enough.. this g4 400mzh only cost me 150 and its my 1st mac so i dont really care if its slow i just want to play with it.

Right, it won't boot with less than 128 MB. But, if the beep goes away without the 256 MB in there, I'd tend to guess that the 256 MB may be faulty.

Do you have any place you can get ahold of a DIMM that's at least 128 MB in size?

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 01:39 AM

havent found one yet but my studio is a total mess! haha im guessing as well as your are that the 256 IS bad.. i have ddr 333mhz but notting thats 133 or 100 mhz... i hope it works when / if i get the memory

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 12:15 PM

ok so i got a 128 mb pc 133mhz stick and ill try that out....

im guessing the specs on the system but i think it is a

g4 400mhz
128mb memory - adding tonight
128 ati video agp dvi and vga ports.. i dont know the memory on it
2 firewire 400's
2 usb
60gb hdd - i added
dvd writter - came with the lot

i think thats about it...

my plan is to run OS x 10.3 then go to tiger when it comes out...

in you guys opinion do you think i can run 10.3, photoshop, quark ect and have the system be stable? I plan on going to 512mb ie 128X4=512mb the system has 4 memory slots. and later going to eaither a mini mac 1.42ghz or a g5 tower :-)

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
ok so i got a 128 mb pc 133mhz stick and ill try that out....

im guessing the specs on the system but i think it is a

g4 400mhz
128mb memory - adding tonight
128 ati video agp dvi and vga ports.. i dont know the memory on it
2 firewire 400's
2 usb
60gb hdd - i added
dvd writter - came with the lot

i think thats about it...

my plan is to run OS x 10.3 then go to tiger when it comes out...

in you guys opinion do you think i can run 10.3, photoshop, quark ect and have the system be stable? I plan on going to 512mb ie 128X4=512mb the system has 4 memory slots. and later going to eaither a mini mac 1.42ghz or a g5 tower :-)

You won't have to worry about system stability as long as the RAM and motherboard are good.

512 MB is probably the minimum you want to have for Photoshop. If you can afford it, you might want to bump the RAM a bit higher for better performance. I would do this only after making sure the machine works, though.

Chuckit · Mar 25, 2005, 04:03 PM

Note that while your system may be stable, there's no way you can run Quark and have Quark be stable. But that's just a general rule.

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 04:20 PM

so i got the system to the install screen but now after the format it gets to the 2nd base package setup and fails... any ideas guys? i know the cds are good so i dont know wuts wrong

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 04:27 PM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
so i got the system to the install screen but now after the format it gets to the 2nd base package setup and fails... any ideas guys? i know the cds are good so i dont know wuts wrong

I had that once. I fixed it by formatting the drive with the "Zero All Data" option checked instead of a simple format.

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 04:53 PM

i tried that but then it seems like the install kernal freeks out and i get a unix type all over the screen saying watting for debuggig server

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 04:58 PM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
i tried that but then it seems like the install kernal freeks out and i get a unix type all over the screen saying watting for debuggig server

...

That's not good.

Could you maybe post the text of the kernel panic on here? I'm not too good at reading those, but there are some people on here who are. At any rate, it might give a clue what's going on. But if you're getting a KP from the CD, it could easily be bad hardware.

Did you get one of the Apple Hardware Test CDs with your G4, by any chance?

indianenvasion · Mar 25, 2005, 05:33 PM

i didnt get the apple test cds with the g4..i got the computer from my dad he deals with electronics and buys pallets of close out stuff. if you can get me the name of the apple test cd im sure i can get it.. as for the kernal panic its all nuts and text everywhere

do you think its the hdd? it works fine the installer can find it, format it, partition it, heck do everything and im pretty tech about hardware i mean yeah im from a windows backgroud but their is a few things that all computers need to run and as far as i can tell i have everything working.. it may be just the cds are bad in some way..

CharlesS · Mar 25, 2005, 06:56 PM

Originally posted by indianenvasion:
i didnt get the apple test cds with the g4..i got the computer from my dad he deals with electronics and buys pallets of close out stuff. if you can get me the name of the apple test cd im sure i can get it.. as for the kernal panic its all nuts and text everywhere

do you think its the hdd? it works fine the installer can find it, format it, partition it, heck do everything and im pretty tech about hardware i mean yeah im from a windows backgroud but their is a few things that all computers need to run and as far as i can tell i have everything working.. it may be just the cds are bad in some way..

It could be. Could you try writing down the text and posting it? It might give some clues.

indianenvasion · Mar 26, 2005, 05:27 PM

ok so i tried again today to install the os... the error dosent come up anymore so i really cant type it sorry.. but now the install says "their were errors installing" then a grey screen comes up and says "your need to restart your computer. hold down the power button for several secconds or press the restart button" when i do i keep getting the same error...