Forums | MacLife

BAD RAM!!!!

that grey screen is a kernel panic, when that happens there is something whacky, mast likely the RAM is bad or some other piece of hardware is bad, though it can also be caused by doing major damage to the system files, but this is extremely uncommon unless there is bad hardware or bad system files invalid, on my imac it has happened to me 3 times, once because my hard drive died

Can you give a bit of history about this cube too?  Ie is this something you fished out of a dumpster or something?

Did you reinstall X when you got the machine?  Also it would help us to know which version of X.  Click on the apple in the upper left and then select "about this mac"  I highly recommend using 10.2 or later, and if you are using 10.0, you'll definitely see instability.

Its also likely that you do have bad ram, especially if after market ram has been added.

Old?? HAH! You wanna hear OLD? I'm using an Upgraded 7300 - Sonnet G3 400Mhz processor, Voodoo3 3000 PCI, Firewire PCI and USB PCI, OS 9.1 and...

I have a Power Mac 6400/180. My fastest Mac is a 300MHz G3.

Hey since you metioned it.  I too have a 6400/180.  I think the video is dead.  Do you use the on board video or a PCI.  Can you recomend a PCI that's not too expensive.

Thanks

You're lucky you found this thread then. Yeah, i'll help you out. The secret is a Voodoo card. If all of us Mac users knew about this years ago, maybe they wouldn't have gone out of business and the would would have been a happier place! Why? Because the Voodoo cards are the ONLY PC Video Cards that work - 100% on the older Macs! All you need to do is re-flash the ROM... and you can get the utilities easily on the net. If not, drop me an email.

Ok, enough with the rants. Basically, for older systems, the Voodoo 1-3 cards are known to work flawlessly. Im running a Voodoo 3 3000 on my system. If you want cheap - go for the same thing. There have been reports that a Voodoo 4 and 5 card might work... but heed thy warning - MIGHT work. I'd stick with the Voodoo 3 2000 or the 3 3000.

There. I had a hell of a time with this - because no one gives it to you straight out... not even the folks at www.xlr8yourmac.com.

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Basically this is usually indicative of a bad piece of hardware.  I had similar symptoms when I had a bad harddrive once and another time after the computer got struck by lightning and had a bad motherboard, but the most common problem is probably sub-par RAM.

Before you go off on that troubleshooting nightmare you might try zapping the PRAM first.  Then run the hardware diagnostics disk if the problems still occur.  I have yet to have that hardware diagnostic disk ever actually find a problem, but still recommend trying it first.

I have a friend with a cube who uses it for video editing with iMovie, playing games, etc.  It has _never_ crashed once.  He uses it every day since he bought it new for several hours  a day. 

Basically, this is not usual for a mac and osx, and most likely indicates a hardware problem of some kind.

My OSX dual G4 500mHz (same vintage as your cube) hasn't crashed since I was a beta tester for OS X and found that rapidly unplugging and plugging in my Rio600 mpg player about 30 times could get a kernel panic. (something they fixed btw before the release)

Next I notice when I return to play and load a saved game, this white box appears and tells me in many languages that I need to reboot. This happens alot. Mac bad.

So last night I was booting up which usaually take a long time of watching the little clock do its thing, but it never stopped. So I rebooted. this time the bong was immediate but there was no picture, then the screen turns grey, so I tried to reboot same thing. then I reach for the manual. I try shift boot, c boot with the X disc in there, (which it wont give back). If I let it sit a couple of minutes it shows this little folder with two face on it, looks like the finder icon i think, but it is grey and does nothing.
What is the deal, how do i get this machine to show me its greatness? I was hoping to use it as an editing station or maybe it would become my main squeeze, but..........

found that rapidly unplugging and plugging in my Rio600 mpg player about 30 times could get a kernel panic. (something they fixed btw before the release)

how did you discover this problem, do you commonly plug and unplug your devices?

Heh, I took my beta testing really seriously!   

The key was _rapidly_ unplugging/plugging it.  You had to do it pretty fast to get the kernel panic.  I tried a lot of other really goofy and silly things to get a kernel panic, but that was the only one that worked.

Well, my fastest mac is 266 mhz so there!  And I still use my LC III so haha and a 200 mhz 603e PM 4400 for all my gaming needs.   Beat that  Old Schoolz

I can emulate all the old systems on my G5... beat that

I will. In March.

Does is go any faster? I have some Neon and Civic enthusiasts thank seem to think the same thing.

Only they do it in form of 'performance' stickers, when the actual hardware is missing from the vehicle.

-Tim

Well, my fastest mac is 266 mhz so there!  And I still use my LC III so haha and a 200 mhz 603e PM 4400 for all my gaming needs.   Beat that  Old Schoolz

Already have. Sorry - i forgot to mention that my first Mac was a Mac Plus in '86 (this is what got me started), and later on, a Powermac 6100/60, which we later upgraded to a Sonnet 266Mhz G3. We also have an LC IIi laying around collection dust with the 'Plus.

Oh... and before that, i was programming a SHARP MZ-80A. Note that i was a 6 year old boy then... thing is, it's hard to keep up with the times and i've abandoned programming since the Mac came out, and instead im doing animation and graphic design. Funny how the mac changes the course of your future. If not for the Mac, i would probably be some code cracker, serial hacker or something as devious.

The Mac has saved my soul. 

Now im a 2 year old adult 

Hey since you metioned it.  I too have a 6400/180.  I think the video is dead.  Do you use the on board video or a PCI.  Can you recomend a PCI that's not too expensive.

Thanks

You're lucky you found this thread then. Yeah, i'll help you out. The secret is a Voodoo card. If all of us Mac users knew about this years ago, maybe they wouldn't have gone out of business and the would would have been a happier place! Why? Because the Voodoo cards are the ONLY PC Video Cards that work - 100% on the older Macs! All you need to do is re-flash the ROM... and you can get the utilities easily on the net. If not, drop me an email.

Ok, enough with the rants. Basically, for older systems, the Voodoo 1-3 cards are known to work flawlessly. Im running a Voodoo 3 3000 on my system. If you want cheap - go for the same thing. There have been reports that a Voodoo 4 and 5 card might work... but heed thy warning - MIGHT work. I'd stick with the Voodoo 3 2000 or the 3 3000.

There. I had a hell of a time with this - because no one gives it to you straight out... not even the folks at www.xlr8yourmac.com.

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Thank you very much.  I'll give it a try.

Next I notice when I return to play and load a saved game, this white box appears and tells me in many languages that I need to reboot. This happens alot. Mac bad.

You definitely have 10.2 if you are seeing this white box with many languages because kernel panics prior to 10.2 would simply dump register and stack information onto the screen.

I would highly reccomend two things to see if you can figure out what is wrong with this Mac.

1) Boot from the OS 9 cd and use Disk Utility and Disk First Aid to check the status of your hard drive. If you are able to do this I would also reccomend reformatting the hard drive.

2) Boot from the Hardware Test CD and see if you find anything wrong then.

We don't know what is on this Mac or what condition it is in. I have been using Macs for a long time and if I had your machine in front of me I would want to start from scratch and I would begin with the two items listed above.

Later, Frank