Here's an update:
We temperature measured my freezing PB G4 / 400 running with an
alternative HD. We used an external multimeasurement device with a cable
attached to the heatdissipator. The temp reached 66°C before the fan went
on ( I had to use 2 movies running in VLC and QT player as well as coding
a 20minute piece to AAC in iTunes keep the temp rising for about 90
minutes). The temp dropped to 52°C and the fan stopped. So there went my
fan-not-running-mustbe-heatproblem theory. OK.
So I took my old HD, that have been working error free in a PB G4 550 for
the last week, and put it in my -book and booted. The move took about 15
minutes and the machine naturally cooled off. It frooze at the login
screen! Further proof that this freeze problem is unrelated to heat,
right? I did a hard restart and could login and 5 minutes later it frooze
again. At this point I decided I could deduce that excessive heat wasn't
casuing the problem and further the fan is actually working. I then put
my HD over in the 550 again and here it works without freezing. Again.
So I'm going to run my machine with the other HD and if the freezing
stops, then there must be something fishy about my drive (30 GB IBM
Travelstar). But if so, why does it work in the 550? I'm using my HD in
that machine now. Something to do with differences of internal power
tolerances? I'm not sure at all, but all of the above is repeatable.
There are no logical errors on the disc that I can detect with software,
and it seems unlogical that logical errors on the disc would cause
problems on one machine and not on another? Or am I wrong?
Any further suggestions and even wild speculation are more than welcome
at this point. What data can I measure with my disc? It has SMART. Can
that help me?
Mikael Byström said:
Noone have any insights on this type of problem with a Powerbook G4
suddenly start to freeze after using a firewire disc? (See both earlier
posts further down for details)
If not, anyone care to say anything on strategy for measurement of
temperature and other useful data? I've fixed simpler problems with the
PB G4, more complicated problems in the wallstreets and Pismos, but this
kind of freeze problem in a PB G4 is new to me.
Mikael Byström said:
It just got Worse!
Three times since this drive encounter my whole machine have frozen 4+
times. It just freeze and there is nothing you can do except the three
finger salute. There is no log of anything in the OS, indicating hardware
failure. I did a Open Firmware set defaults, reset nvram reset all.
This didn't improve anything.
Then I popped up the keyboard and discovered that the connection cable
from the PCMCIA slot had been disconnected from the motherboard. I
reinserted it hoping this would solve matters.
I think it froze four times since, one of them booting into single mode
and stopped just after the first 20 lines.
All of this because I pop in a firewire drive during sleep? Or did it
just cause already broken things to surface? The new thing with the drive
was that it was the first firewire unit I have used that needed bus
power. Maybe this put some toll on the motherboard or something?
Hmm, one thing I seem to notice is that my fan isn't running as far as I
can tell. Maybe it stopped? How do one force start the fan? Will the
Apple hardware test CD, that came with the machine, test the fan? If it
doesn't, then maybe this is a heat problem? Any ideas on how to verify
the fan operation or other ideas to solve this problem?
I tried Temperature Monitor, but unfortunately only the HD SMART
controller is supported on my Powerbook G4 400 and I noticed that when
crashes occur the temp is 43° C/109.2°F after rebooting. The first
troublefree time it's at 39°C to 42°C.
Mikael Byström said earlier:
Anyone know what this can be about?
I sleep my TiBook 4oo with powercord in, insert a cordpowered
firewiredrive and the machine refuses to wake up. It's not off, but HD
seems to not spin up, just kinda sims about and display is dark.
Three finger salute with drive disconnected, machine boots up and just
before logging in I sleep it again, inserts the drive, it wakes up and I
login and copy my files, eject the drive, sleeps it again, remove the
drive and now the machine plays dead again. Another forced restart and
everything is normal.
Now, what conclusions are the to make here? I couldn't find much in the
system log.
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