5 posts tagged “macosx”
For now 2 weeks, I'm switching on regularly the powermac to see if everythin is running fine. I start iPhoto and add lots of photos, add lots of music into itunes library, and yes it seems to go well :)
Last monday (12th), I was giving one more chance (I'm really too good) to my 2 PC133 RAM (128 and 256 MB). I really find that 448 MB of RAM is not enough to run Panther smoothly, and adding 384 MB of RAM couldn't be that bad, even if my experience showed my that these RAM didn't work.
(note to myself : I really need to build simpler sentences).
Well.. I opened the powermac removed one 64 MB PC100 RAM and insert the 256 MB PC133 one. And switched on the mac... it booted perfectly !!! I was amazed (and still am). The faulty supposed RAM seemed to worked perfectly.
I play with the mac one long day to see if nothing wrong is happening (So I know the fult is coming from that particular RAM). Nothing bad happened.
Today, I decided to add the second PC133 RAM : the 128 MB. Switched on the Mac... it gave me a nice console error (displayed on the white background where you have the grey apple logo). Looked like a kernel panic, with no mention of the it.
I tried to reboot one more time (yeah, sometimes, rebooting helps).
I don't know why, I had a (bright) idea : switching 2 RAM from their slots.... So did I and replace the 128 MB RAM with the Apple 64 MB RAM. I switched the Mac on again... and it booted normally !!!! Yiipeee :)
The Powermac is running fine for now one full day, running Adium, Skype, Colloquy, iTunes or iPhoto. VLC is runing fine also without telling me the computer is slow. I can look at In Digital, Ask a ninja and Diggnation podcasts without failure :)
Looks like the whole problem at the beginning was only because of the hard disk, and maybe the SCSI Card.
Okay... I spend the last days, since my ladt post to install, and install and reinstall the Power Mac G3. but this time I decided to think a little more of what should be really changed. The previous day were the place for lots of tries to discover and find out the possible part which may stick... The result is pretty simple actually :
- either a RAM problem,
- or a hard disk issue.
I found in a Apple.com discussion forum, that MacOS 10.3 and 10.4 are very sensitive to SCSI cards. Honestly, I had to read a lot of webpages and forum to read this sentence.... So I removed the buit-in SCSI card from the blue&white tower. I'm not using it. It's one less potential issue.
Thursday, I "found" 45 euro to buy a new hard disk. I test the Power Mac with 3 different disks. the original 6 GB harddisk, a semi broken 20 GB disk, and another 6 GB old but clean disk. That all are 6-7 year old. Why did I bought a new disk, when I wanted to buy nothing for this computer (I consider it as a game with no end price.. I mean, if I could repair it, that's cool, if not, I wouldn't loose anything). But, well, I could always use this hard disk in another computer or as external disk for backups.... A hard disk has always a use ;)
I Installed the brand new 80 GB hard disk inside the tower, replacing the Apple Disk. And tried one more time the installation of Tiger.... with no success..... I tried I guess 3 times, even with the Zero writing option. The issue wasn't coming from the hard disk, nor the SCSI card.
In the same Apple.com discussion board, you could read that these OS are very keen on the kind of RAM you're using.... And the last days confirmed this. This was the last and only known potential issue that could be resolved.
When I got the Power Mac, there were 3 RAM slots full out of 4. 1 Apple 64 MB + 1 unknown 64 MB + 1 unknown 128 MB RAM. I got these number from one installation try, and the "about this Mac" dialog. Nothing was written on the RAM.
From older PC boxes, I got other RAM : 2 unkown 256 MB PC133 RAM, and 1 unknown 64MB PC100 RAM.
PC133 RAM are backward compatible with PC100 one. You know this when you get a PC. And this has been confirmed in the Apple.com discussion. However, I experienced the opposite. You should know that the more memory you have the better the computer will run. It's obvious that I wanted to use all the 128 MB and 256 MB RAM in the 4 Power Mac slots. And I always get "writing" errors during the installation. So I tried using only P100 RAM. And guess what ? I got errors in the Essential installtion. So I tried Panther this time and : I got no spam (hmmm..., wrong... this is a quote from Twit ;) ). I got no problem to install Panther ! (this happened today morning). Yeeeepeee !
Happy, I prepare myself a nice omelette with vegetable for lunch !
After that, I began the updates session : updating Panther up to 10.3.9 goes in a charm ! Quicktime, iTunes, Java installed themselves easily... But not the Java update where I got a message from the Installer like 'outdated codec'.
I have finally a stable Power Mac G3 (White & Blue), with 448 MB of RAM, 80 GB IDE harddisk, running Panther (10.3.9).
I installed some little free applications, like
- Transmission for bittorrent download,
- AdiumX for Instant Messenging
- Colloquy for IRC
I'll see in the future what I'll do with this computer. I think I will use it to learn more the BSD system, and particularly Darwin and the specific path of files and directories. (I already learned a lot, when I followed a technical paper from Apple.com, that uses the console to find out issues and repair the OS...).
My main task (repairing the computer) is done. I cost about 2 month in all, and 45 euro (for the harddisk).
Last Sunday, I get a copy of Mac OS X.3 (Panther) on CD, from a friend, to test if this version could be installed on the Power Mac. As, I didn't success to install Mac OS X.4 (Tiger) on it, may be a previous version could help. So during the last 3 days I tried to install, and install, and install, and even install the CDs... but nothing helped out. I always got the same error at the end of the CD 1 installation : "There were errors during the installation".
Last evening, I decided again to get a chance to my new old Power Mac G3 (white & blue)... I switched it on, and put the brand old CD 1 into the DVD player.... and the first CDs did install ! The Mac rebooted, and asked me for the second CD ( where are stored iLife, language packs and printer drivers)... My happiness lasted 3 minutes. I got again the famous sentence.
However the base system is still installed correctly, I quit the installer, and hopefully, I can install dmg and pkg files directly from the CD, from the Finder. Just double click on the icons. So did I, and re-install itunes, iphoto, imovie, ical, isync, epson drivers, and french language pack.
I was really happy ! I got a functional Mac \o/
Now, the harder part is to come : updating the brand new OS to 10.3.9. And this is were the picture really began to fade out, but not that long...
Using the Software Update from the Apple menu, I could update some packages, but the most important was the 10.3.9 update Combo Pack. 117 MB length. And... it failed to install ! I tried 3 or 4 times, and always got the same dialog at the end : Check if you have permission to write in /tmp/501/TemporaryFile/com.....
Of course, being a linux guy, I thought : there're wrong permissions in the directory... I fired up the Terminal and chmod 777 /tmp/501/TemporaryFile directory. I know these temp files aren't very important, so 777 wouldn't damage anything. But this change didn't move the dialog out of the way.
I used then plan B ! That is, installing every updated from 10.3 to 10.3.9 : ie 10.3.1, 10.3.2, 10.3.3, 10.3.4, 10.3.5, 10.3.6, 10.3.7, 10.3.8 and 10.3.9. so I downloaded all these .dmg files on my computer and took my time to install, optimise, reboot, install, optimise, reboot (repeat this up to 10.3.5).
When 10.3.5 came to the end, the installer told me there were errors (argh, nooooo)... So I reinstalled this version again (thanks, I downloaded it on my desktop). But here were still errors....
It was about 1am. I rebooted the Power Mac... and come back on the desktop. I look at the "About this Mac"dialog (from the Apple menu) which told me I was using OS 10.3.5 !!!!
Ok, good :) ready for next update.. I double clicked on the 10.3.6 update... which returned error -5360820 or so. I cried and go to bed (after switching off the mac, of course).
Back home, I dismount my DVD player from my PC (Acer did something cool... there's no screw fixing the player to the box), and remount it in the PowerMac, checking if, of course, the player was Master and no Slave.
With stress I push the button, waiting for the chime to be played..... suspens.... Yes, boooooong. I press as fast I a can the C key to boot from the DVD. Insert the OSX DVD and wait.
Hey.... no boot from DVD :/ Switch off, switch on several time, C key pressed... no way to boot from the DVD.
Just in case the DVD disc was faulty, I insert the OS9 CD, and boot it up... Yes ! the OS9 does the installation on my PowerMac ! Cool and releaved, the box can be saved ! I play a little with OS9.2, do an upgrade and hate myself when I see Internet Explorer.....
I want OSX ! I retried almost 10 times with no success :( I even check on the Apple site if anything is said. And on one page, you can read : in some modern computer, you can press the option key to select the drive you want to boot on. *bummer*, I was pressing the C key !
I switch off and on again the mac, press the Option key and..... got the osx logo ! \o/ Hurray... But not for long, I install the OSX, and at about 50% of the bar, some error occurs. The installation failed :'(
Since then. I can't boot anymore on the DVD again. Or at least I tried 10 more time with no success.... This is very strange behaviour !
Ok, that all for tonight, I leave the Mac where it is, and go to bed. OSX is still not installed, but the box seem to be more stable than the last days. This is at least the small positive point I can have for now.
I wonder what I could do with MacOS 9.2.2 (as a second computer).. Any idea ?
Now, off to bed, good night :)
Several weeks ago, I can get my hand on an old powermac G3 (the blue and white tower). I knew from the owner that it was (obviously old) and had some difficulties to run smoothly. In fact the Mac had some unkown problem that makes him run slow or simply freeze at boot time (no more chime to be heard...)
And today was the resurection day ! I decided to get it one more chance to boot. It does the second time I switched it on \o/ Yeeeeehh, the chime does it :) The PowerMac bootup up rather slowly (for a mac). About 3 min after I get the blue screen, not of death but of the desktop. I got no login screen, which surprised me. In fact I was logged in as System Administrator, hey, ho.. what ? ! As a linux user and manager, I know that being logged as an administrator is really baaaaaaaaaaddd (or at least very risky).
The long story short, I used all my afternoon to try to tune my brand "new" mac, trying to understand why the computer either didn't boot (no chime at boot) or being really slow to start program.
For the moment, Half of the problem is solved :
- the second hard disk seems to be responsible for the slowlyness of the system. (I removed it, and everything is going well now)
Next step : I need to reinstall MacOS X.. So I need to find first the DVD, and second.. a DVD player (Yeah, PowerMac G3s were shipped with CD player by the time). I'll keep you informed of the resurrection !
