Mac questions (don't get mad)

[booman]

Don't worry I don't have a Mac. I don't even work on them that is why I'm asking questions.
Our youth minister at Church has a Mac that locks up.
I'm going to look at it on Thursday and was curious if anyone has some tips besides trashing it?
Is the hardware similar to PC hardware (motherboards, hard-drives, IDE, SATA, etc.)???
Could I just buy a new hard-drive and install windows xp for him?
thanks

[Gizmo]

Unless it is one of the newer Intel-based Macs, it is unlikely (IMO) that you will be able to install XP on it.

However, if it is locking up, then I would tend to be investigating the typical hardware-based causes of lockup (like dust-bunnies, fans that aren't working, bulging caps, etc., etc.).

[aghastpumpkin]

I am extremely mad at you Booman, all this talk of Macs! Traitor!


Only joking. No recovery discs he can use?

[booman]

I'll have to find out on Thurdsay. I'm sure there isn't cause its been sitting there for at least a year. I will definitely check the CPU fans, case fans, and spray out the dust. Good call Gizmo!

[raphael2040]

A Mac.

And a Youth Minister for the Church.

Does anyone else here see the irony?

[captinhector]

The hardware like hard drives and ram is all the same, psu is probably not atx unless it is a cheese grater(no j/k that was there code name) or newer. I have had many macs and still have one left, I would recommend a full blow out, and if that doesn't do it. Remember: Macs are just unix w/a nice gui on it, so trash your temp folders and cashes. Do a top and see if it isn't just a runaway process or something like that, make sure he also has atleast 15 gig of hdd space free, they don't like less.

[Strongwolf]

Hope everything works OK. If it does remember to install a friendly F@H.









BTW; Remember the kerosene and the torch, just in case things don't work out.

[fantomfreq]

There are some simple utilities that you can run, too. The most useful is Disk Utility, which is found under /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. Click on his main disk to the left and some options on the bottom should light up. Run 'Repair Disk Permissions' and 'Verify Disk.'

Also, the fact that the computer 'locks up' is quite vague. Does this computer respond to any feedback when it's locked up? Does it recover without having to switch it off? Does it perhaps have a Kernel Panic (which is essentially equivalent to the BSOD)?

You also might check the Console (located in /Applications/Utilities/Console) for any repeating error codes that may be popping up and causing the computer to hang. If the computer seems to be hanging from something using all the CPU cycles, /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor should be of use.

If you've got any experience with troubleshooting Linux/Unix then the same ideas can be applied here. The Terminal is located in the Utilities directory.

Something tells me that barring a corrupted system file, you should most likely be able to pin down the problem using these methods. Any additional questions can be fielded my way.

[booman]

Thanks captinhector & fantomfreq for the tips. I know that I was being vague about the problem because I havn't actually looked at it yet. I'll let you know by Friday. I saved a copy of your suggestions and I'll go through all of those utilities to see what is going on. It's probably something normal with people who don't take care of their computers...
you know: not defragging, not blowing out dust, not backing up files, no antivirus, etc.

Thanks again. You guys Rule!
This is why I allways ask questions here before getting into something.

[booman]

Well, didn't find out much because I only got to look at it for 30 min.
We had to call some people to get the password for logging in.
Otherwise, I did blow some dust out of the fans but it was fairly clean.
Apple Power Mac G4 (I think)
1.75 Ghz CPU
400 Mhz processor speed
100 FSB
1.5 Gigs RAM
25Gig hard-drive

It seemed to work fine. No lock-ups so far. I didn't run any programs but I would like to defrag the drive and delete some profiles.
How do I do that?

Also the motherboard has an AGP port and PCI ports with standard IDE.
It should be simple to add a new hard-drive and just install windows xp but I'm worried about the processor speed and video card.
The Youth Minister wants to edit video with this computer.
I wouldn't mind upgrading the video card, adding some more RAM, but I don't know how to up-grade the processor.
This one has just a heatsink on it, no fan. Then there is a large fan at the top of the case blowing air out, or maybe in.

Any suggestions?

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by booman

Also the motherboard has an AGP port and PCI ports with standard IDE.
It should be simple to add a new hard-drive and just install windows xp but I'm worried about the processor speed and video card.
The Youth Minister wants to edit video with this computer.
I wouldn't mind upgrading the video card, adding some more RAM, but I don't know how to up-grade the processor.
This one has just a heatsink on it, no fan. Then there is a large fan at the top of the case blowing air out, or maybe in.

Any suggestions?

You've got a couple of issues to deal with here:

WindowsXP probably doesn't have drivers for that motherboard; last I knew, Apple mobos were NOT standard kit

You may not be able to get the necessary Apple drivers to load the replacement video card into the computer; AFAIK, Apple tends to be very choosey about what they let 3rd party vendors stick into the machine.

[Favu]

It won't install XP because it does not have an x86 compatable processor. It has an IBM PowerPC G4 chip if you are correct, so your only options are OSX (which is pretty good actually) or linux

I would clean it out, defrag etc, and then see if you can reproduce the crashing.

[booman]

I see what you both mean. I know he doesn't have the origional OSX disc, so cleaning it out would be the only way.
I may do that for now, but I may be able to talk him into building a new PC. He said that he was looking at a $1700 computer and I said "WHOA' you don't need to spend that much.
I may just build him a pc with a decent video card and 2 gigs of RAM to get the video going.
If I do that, he may just give me the MAC.
Then I'll think about putting linux on it.

Thanks for the tips!

[Favu]

Macs are generally very tasty bits of kit, at least in my experience.

Let us know how it goes!!

[captinhector]

Originally Posted by booman

Well, didn't find out much because I only got to look at it for 30 min.
We had to call some people to get the password for logging in.
Otherwise, I did blow some dust out of the fans but it was fairly clean.
Apple Power Mac G4 (I think)
1.75 Ghz CPU
400 Mhz processor speed
100 FSB
1.5 Gigs RAM
25Gig hard-drive

It seemed to work fine. No lock-ups so far. I didn't run any programs but I would like to defrag the drive and delete some profiles.
How do I do that?

Also the motherboard has an AGP port and PCI ports with standard IDE.
It should be simple to add a new hard-drive and just install windows xp but I'm worried about the processor speed and video card.
The Youth Minister wants to edit video with this computer.
I wouldn't mind upgrading the video card, adding some more RAM, but I don't know how to up-grade the processor.
This one has just a heatsink on it, no fan. Then there is a large fan at the top of the case blowing air out, or maybe in.

Any suggestions?

When did this computer come out/when was it bought for how much...(apple has fixed prices, so you can tell w/this info)

Apple Power Mac G4 (Is actually a motorola 7400 series processor)
------------
1.75 Ghz CPU < either a hardcore oc or not the cpu speed, as g4's topped @ 1.4ghz before the switch to g5(ibm ppc)

400 Mhz processor speed < this speed could be a g3 or g4, it should tell you in the About this mac
-----------

Figure out which of these speeds are the truth, or if the computer says 875x2, that means its actually a dual physical processor.

Find out what the os version is by clicking (apple logo)>"About this mac"
The os version will be between 8.5 to 10.4. If you search through the applications/utilities folder in the root directory(in os 10 or greater) for a program(i dont remember the name) but it will find ALL the info about the computer(it gives about like everest does). If 9.2 or below, you just have to crack the case or dl some program that reads the acpi chip for apple uses.....

As for os's all you can install, you can install all the os's from apple, unix/linux and any variant that supports ppc based processors.

Standard ram and hard drives are what apple strives to use(but their move to ata from scsi baffles me)

Even with that slow of a processor, it will still eat video for lunch, I have a old apple(8500) that I stuck a faster processor in that will encode 480p just as fast as my current rig, with the 8500 only having 277mb of ram and a G3 400! Risc based processors(as apple has used up untill the switch to Intel) about 2x as efficient as a Cisc based processor that pc's use, and it shows.

If you can figure out the basic info, google mac tracker, and dl a slightly older version than 4.0.7(as the installer is corrupted). You will enjoy this little program if you have any dealings with macs of old.

pm me if you can't figure it out, or just e-mail me some pics of it, and I should be able to get you in the ball park by the look....

[fantomfreq]

Originally Posted by booman

It seemed to work fine. No lock-ups so far. I didn't run any programs but I would like to defrag the drive and delete some profiles.
How do I do that?

Also the motherboard has an AGP port and PCI ports with standard IDE.
It should be simple to add a new hard-drive and just install windows xp but I'm worried about the processor speed and video card.
The Youth Minister wants to edit video with this computer.
I wouldn't mind upgrading the video card, adding some more RAM, but I don't know how to up-grade the processor.

Defragging the hard drive is unnecessary. The operating system should optimize itself automatically. Deleting profiles is much easier; press the blue apple button on the top left and go to System Preferences. From there, the Accounts option is what you want. Click on the Account you want to delete and press the little minus underneath the list.

You have to understand that within the last year or so, Apple computers have switched to pretty standard equipment for PCs. Before that, it was much more specialized. You won't be able to install Windows on the computer because it uses a PowerPC G4 processor. Hard drives and memory are standard PC stuff, but that older graphics card might be a little harder to replace, as I believe the older Mac cards had special firmware.

Depending on how much video editing he plans on doing, it may be more economical to simply buy a new computer. However, Apple computers come with a suite called iLife that includes an application called iMovie. Now, iMovie is incredibly intuitive and easy to use for a video editing program. One thing to find out is the version of the operating system and version of iLife that is currently installed on the computer. The current latest version of MacOS is 10.4.x and the latest version of iLife should have iMovie HD (6.x.x).

In addition, if worst comes to worst, I have a restore disk that is compatible with that Powermac. I see you live only a few hours north, so it wouldn't be much trouble to ship it out to you if needed.

There are plenty of flavors of linux that would be compatible with that PowerPC processor. However, many of them are moving to not officially be supported anymore as Apple has completed their transfer to completely Intel processors.