G4 hangs permanently

[avw]

One of my OS 9 machines is a G4 (AGP) with an Giga Designs G4 1,4 GHz upgrade. It worked quite well for about 2 years now, until 10 days ago when it began to hang permanently.

The machine got an ATI 8500, a Stealth port, a SCSI card, 512 RAM and 2 IDE HDs. The used system was an 9.1 installed with the original G4 400/ and than upgraded to 9.2.1 and 9.2.2 manually before installing the G4 1,4GHz.

The symptoms began 10 days ago with several freezes without any systematics. Yesterdays I thought about installing a new 9.2.2 with my original G4 9.2.2 CD (from another modell).

The G4 hangs permanently. During installation of the OS, while booting and even while booting from CD! So I´m afraid it could be a hardware problem. I began with the discs, using Disc warrior - which worked after the 3rd time because of the freezes - who found no big problems. Later I installed a completely new HD - same behavior hangs during install-process etc.

Sometimes the computer now works for 30 minutes, sometimes for 10 seconds, I got no idea at all, ... As the problems occures while booting from 3 different systems/discs and even the CD I don´t belive it´s an software problem. The original hardware-diagnose CD refuses to work with the upgradecard, ...

Now as I´m not familiar with New-World machines, any useful hints? I just can go on and exclude every part (Upgrade, Ram, etc.). Had anyone of you a similar problem after years? Can RAM die from one day to another?

 

[Osgeld]

when opening the machine do you see any puffy / leaking / exploded mini cans on the board ?

 

[avw]

when opening the machine do you see any puffy / leaking / exploded mini cans on the board ?

Nothing I could see or smell ) also the vans are working, and the temperature of the upgrade seems normal, ...

 

[coius]

Sounds like bad ram. Run a checking utility and see if it will find bad ram. Do you have the original system checker disc that came with it?

Isn't there a utility called "Gauge Pro" or something

I forgot what it's called...

 

[avw]

Sounds like bad ram. Run a checking utility and see if it will find bad ram. Do you have the original system checker disc that came with it?
Isn't there a utility called "Gauge Pro" or something

I forgot what it's called...

Yes, that´s what I thought, I´ll give it another try tomorrow. Yes Gauge Pro has a "memory test". I´m not sure if the memory test within Gauge Pro will lead to something, as It also ould be only for performance test. Should´nt the test of the OS do a integrity at startup?

 

[H3NRY]

RAM can go flaky suddenly, though it's rare. Best memory test seems to be one called rember. You should also check the battery voltage, since if it's low that can lead to all sorts of startup problems. Failing that, remove RAM one strip at a time, then go back to the original CPU, and so on. Good luck!

 

[avw]

Seems to be the RAM but, …

It´s becoming more interresting every day As soon as I remive one 512 MB RAM, tha machine works perfectly. If I add the 2nd 512 the computer again got the problems described above. BUT it´s totylly unimportant which of the two RAMs I change. Both of them work in every slot! But not if I use both of them at the same moment. That´s absolutely crazy. The problems began after years of working correctly, ...

Are you sure that rember is in existance for OS 9? I think it´s just for that new OS I don´t use