PowerBook G4 Aluminum Freezing on OSX 10.4 and Above

[daniel_chapstick]

Hi all, I need some help/advice on troubleshooting a Powerbook G4 15” Aluminum. I replaced the logic board and original hard drive when I got it, and since then, have noticed the following issues:

1. The G4 on OSX Tiger will always freeze after about 3 minutes, usually triggered by me opening an application. When booting Tiger in safe mode, the freezing stops. I also tried installing Sorbet Leopard on the G4, and it will also freeze after a few minutes upon opening an application, with and without safe mode.
2. However, when I installed OSX 10.3, the G4 was perfectly fine. I could open applications and leave the computer running for a long time without any hiccups.

There have been some other issues with this computer (it has been extremely finicky about recognizing bootable media - it wouldn’t even boot from the original System Restore disc it came with). But this freezing issue is the main one. And what's more bizarre is that even before I replaced the original logic board and IDE hard drive, the G4 also froze after a few minutes on its original 10.4 install when I first got it.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Long shot, but have you tried different RAM and/or a different (or no) airport card?

 

[daniel_chapstick]

Long shot, but have you tried different RAM and/or a different (or no) airport card?

Thank you! So I decided to reinstall Tiger 10.4.6, and after trying out different RAM configurations and still experiencing freezing, I decided to disable WiFi. After trying this out more times, the system is now always stable when AirPort is turned off. I guess whenever I had 10.3 installed, the WiFi was irrelevant because 10.3 can't connect to modern networks.

The only other issue I face now is that when I try to connect via ethernet, the freezing comes back again. Would replacing the AirPort card potentially solve all these issues? Why would a faulty airport card cause these issues in the first place?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I don’t think that the Ethernet port has anything to do with the airport card, I’d guess there’s something wrong on the logic board related to networking as a whole. I thought of it in the first place as I had heard before that the later revision iBook G4s had some common problems with their Wi-Fi cards that would cause crashing, so I thought maybe it had something to do with that even though that PowerBook should just have a normal AirPort Extreme card as far as I know. You can try a different card if you have one, but due to the Ethernet issue I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

 

[daniel_chapstick]

I don’t think that the Ethernet port has anything to do with the airport card, I’d guess there’s something wrong on the logic board related to networking as a whole. I thought of it in the first place as I had heard before that the later revision iBook G4s had some common problems with their Wi-Fi cards that would cause crashing, so I thought maybe it had something to do with that even though that PowerBook should just have a normal AirPort Extreme card as far as I know. You can try a different card if you have one, but due to the Ethernet issue I wouldn’t hold out much hope.

Thanks for the advice! I just ordered a replacement AirPort Extreme card so we'll see if that changes anything. If that doesn't work, I'll just keep the G4 as a OSX 10.3 machine, since ethernet still works on 10.3 for some weird reason.

 

[CC_333]

This reminds me somewhat of a mute 17" Aluminum G4 I was working on.

I replaced everything from the speakers to the sound board. Even the logic board, I think. And no matter what, it never made a sound from the internal speakers.

I think I gave up and parted it out, since all the replacement parts worked perfectly in other machines, but the mystery was never solved.

c

 

[daniel_chapstick]

Okay, the solution was much simpler than I thought.

I just had to disable IPv6 in the network options in Tiger. So it was actually my router/modem configuration causing the freezing issues. My PowerBook (and now my other OS X 10.4 machines) work great now!

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, IPv6 was relatively new then, and support for it was somewhat incomplete and inconsistent, so I'm not surprised it glitched out.

Thankfully IPv4 is nowhere near obsolete yet, so it's still 100% supported on modern software and hardware.

c