OK.... so i put together a G4 (AGP Graphics) 400MHZ machine for my GF about two months ago, assembled out of left over parts. Cant remember the video card,but it is a mac card, G4 400, 1GB ram (4x256MB), 80GB hard drive, most recent firmware (as far as i know), DVD-DL burning superdrive (pioneer) ordered fromOWC, and OS X 10.4.4. While I was setting it up here i had absolutley no problems, but since its been at her house she says she can almost never power it on on the first attempt. She says she must try holding down the power button numerous times before the machine makes the startup chime. I do not doubt her, but it didnt happen when the machine was here? I wonder if line voltage from the house may cause this? Anyway, she got her taxes back and wants to buy a new LCD monitor,but is somewhat concerned about her machine booting. This morning she sent me this email:
> ... I had to start my computer like 6 times before it
> would start up and go ding. It's getting worse and worse, do you think
> I need a new power supply or something? Maybe I should buy one of
> those instead of a monitor.
>
anyway... what do you all out there think? I gues it could be the PS... the machine is a few years old... but it was rock solid here...and not there? maybe it is a indication of HD failure about to come? Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Bill
You said that she has problems starting up the Mac. Is she doing a Shutdown every night? Or is she disconnecting power to the Mac after Shutdown?
Have her leave the Mac On 24/7 with it just going to "sleep" when not in use.
Could be that the internal memory battery is weak & needs replacement. Check this site for battery part numbers and sources. Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/pram.html
Cheers, Tom
Mac Troubleshooting, Maintenance & Tips
http://www.geocities.com/texas_macman/MacTroubleshoot.html
I agreee. Letting a Mac sleep, esp. running X is the best best. I sleep all of my main machines instead of powering them up/down. I get months of uptime until another round of updates requires a reboot.
I know many people have gotten used to powering a system off with the switch on a power strip, but it's a really bad idea for a modern machine.
well... she has also said that when it sleeps for a while... like overnight.. that she cant get it to wake up. It IS plugged into one of those damned horrible switched power strips that MANY times i have advised not be used. Also, her situation is kind of weird, in that if her parents walk by the room and see the sleep light blinking, most of the time they rip the power cord out of the machine.
OK: so i guess i will ty changing the batery and resetting the PRAM...