iBook G4 freezing and crashing

[diehli]

Okay, before I take this thing into the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store, I wanna see if any of the people here have any clue WTF is going on.

The last three days my Apple has had problems with freezing and crashing. There seem to be three different things that cause this.

First, when opening up the iBook from sleep, it will open to the black screen of death (BSOD). Holding the power button will turn it off and another press of the button gets it going again, but a forced restart (ctrl+cmd+power) doesn't do anything. I have not unplugged or plugged in ANY USB or Firewire devices during sleep when this happens.

Second, when I am scrolling a webpage, the screen will freeze (no mouse movement, nothing). The forced restart will take me to the BSOD, but then I have to hold down the power button to get it to turn off and press it again to get it to start.

Finally, sometimes I'll just be sitting here reading a post someplace, and the screen will dim and a box saying "You must restart your computer. Either hold down the power button or press the restart button to do so" (or something to that affect) will come up.

To say I'm completely befuddled is an understatement. Nothing really precipitated this. I've not downloaded any new programs recently (like within the last four days) or done anything special with my computer.

Several weeks ago, I did start using this Safari style sheet, which simply blocks ads from appearing: http://www.floppymoose.com/userContent.css . I quit using it yesterday morning and still had several crashes yesterday.

Also, I've downloaded some video and audio files. I don't know if someone has figured out how to piggyback viruses for Macs onto those, but I doubt it.

As far as the other specifics are concerned, my 'puter has a 60G hard-drive, 1GHz processor, 512M of RAM, is wirelessly connected to the Internet and is running OS 10.3.7 with all updates. Yesterday morning I repaired the permissions, erased the caches (and immediately restarted), prebound the system, and ran all the cron scripts, and, as I said, still had several crashes.

So... any suggestions?

[Merlin Orr]

PM sent!

[outerlimits]

well, you've done all the right things (repair permissions, dump cache's, etc). is your ibook plugged in? if it's a dual usb, check yer battery. exact same thing happened to my wife's ibook. once the battery starts going, it doesn't matter whether it's plugged in to the power adapter or not.

[Merlin Orr]

well, you've done all the right things (repair permissions, dump cache's, etc).  is your ibook plugged in?  if it's a dual usb, check yer battery.  exact same thing happened to my wife's ibook.  once the battery starts going, it doesn't matter whether it's plugged in to the power adapter or not.

A little more constructive than my suggestions, Eh, Go Rilla?

[diehli]

Yeah, Dual USB. How would I go about checking my battery?

The battery seems like a potential culprit. I just plugged the thing into power when it was closed and sleeping and it woke up. I then opened it up, saw the standard screen images, then the screen went blank and it went back to sleep. Hitting the space bar woke it up again. The bloody thing's possessed or sumpin'.

[diehli]

well, you've done all the right things (repair permissions, dump cache's, etc).  is your ibook plugged in?  if it's a dual usb, check yer battery.  exact same thing happened to my wife's ibook.  once the battery starts going, it doesn't matter whether it's plugged in to the power adapter or not.

A little more constructive than my suggestions, Eh, Go Rilla?

Ever so slightly.

Bastige.

[outerlimits]

Yeah, Dual USB. How would I go about checking my battery?

The battery seems like a potential culprit. I just plugged the thing into power when it was closed and sleeping and it woke up. I then opened it up, saw the standard screen images, then the screen went blank and it went back to sleep. Hitting the space bar woke it up again. The bloody thing's possessed or sumpin'.

really no way to tell. in my wife's case, the battery would charge to 99% or so, then go down to less than 15% after about an hour of use. even shows all 4 green lights on the bottom of the battery. i found this out on the apple discussion boards. is it the original battery?

[lynn jones]

take a close look on the back...does it say microsoft anywhere?

[Merlin Orr]

take a close look on the back...does it say microsoft anywhere?

Bwahahahaha! Now youv'e gone and done it!

[diehli]

Just got back from grocery shopping (always fun... even moreso on Christmas Eve), opened the iBook, and the trackpad wasn't working... no mouse movement, but I could get other things to go. I restarted... no mouse movement. I shutdown, pulled the battery, started it up, and things are "normal." I'll see if it crashes again later today. Whatever the case, this thing is going to Apple.

[George]

PM sent

[diehli]

Well...

George, with his infinite knowledge of all things Mac, was able to get me back up and running.

As far as I can tell, the issues were brought on by... get ready for this... discharging a build-up of static electricity into the computer. Evidently it's not a good idea.

I didn't know I had done it the first time, but after things were up and running smoothly again I managed to discharge in/on it and the screen went wonky and after a restart things were wonky as described earlier again. Ran through the procedure that George had given me and things are good again and have been all week.

Go figure... pumping electricity through your computer in a way that's not intended is a bad thing.