is my iMac on the verge of death?

[cjtmacclassic]

Hi all-

i have an iMac G3 slot loading with osx 10.2.8 installed. however, it's been acting very buggy lately. today it would not shut down until i removed power 2 hours later. also, while using camino to use facebooken, dark blotches appeared all around the minimize, resize, and close buttons, and the tabs bar turned black. is this a sign that my mac is dying? if you need any more info, just ask

 

[Bunsen]

"Dark blotches" around buttons is not a symptom I've ever heard of before. Does this show up in any other programs? Does the effect remain if you move the open window lower down the screen?

 

[Paralel]

I've seen blotches before, it happened on a friends system about 2 weeks before the video subsystem blew. Our best bet was an overheat/thermal issue.

 

[cjtmacclassic]

well that's another problem. when it happens, a spinning ball of death appears and i can't click anything!

 

[cjtmacclassic]

and bunsen, to answer your question, no other programs i use experience it. just camino. also, when it happens, i get a complete system freeze!

 

[Strimkind]

Maybe the system is just corrupt. I had a 10.4 install that gave out disk errors and took an hour to load with lots of spinning balls on a g4 mac mini. A reinstall fixed the problem and the mini worked perfectly.

 

[Bunsen]

Sounds like heat to me. iMac slottie - passively cooled and notorious for heat issues. Effect is at the top of the screen (thus, top of the case) and coincides with a system freeze. Only happens on a browser (CPU/RAM pig) and Facebook (CPU/RAM pig). Try installing a menubar temperature and CPU load monitor(s) and watch what happens.

How much RAM is installed?

it happened on a friends system about 2 weeks before the video subsystem blew

RIGHT NOW, make sure the bottom of the iMac is propped up to allow cool air in at the base. Pull the foot under the front forward, and prop the rear up on a chunk of wood or something, without blocking the intakes. If that helps, then heat is your culprit. It may also be time to clean and replenish the CPU heatsink paste, and even install an extractor fan.

 

[cjtmacclassic]

well, I've searched for temp monitoring freeware, and I couldn't find anything compatible with this old of an OS. also, the bar at the bottom has always been propped up, and I keep a fan next to the iMac to blow air over the top. oh, and I have 512 megs of RAM.

this is really weird. I can't figure it out!

 

[H3NRY]

Did you say it only happens in Camino? If so, trash and reinstall Camino. There is a chance the system has been corrupted, too. Repair permissions, scan the disk for errors and the usual. Odd behavior and appearance of windows as opposed to the whole screen is usually software. If the monitor is dying, usually the whole screen flickers and dims.