Mac Experts-Diagnosis needed

[matthew blais]

Well...Once the original OSX (10.2.3) was installed, and without scuzzi adaptor card and airport card it booted up.

I reinstalled the scuzzi and airport cards and got the grey kernal crash screen.

Took out the cards (again) and rebooted, installed the scuzzi drivers, shut down and reinstalled the scuzzi card and it's fine. So far...

I'll tempt adding the airport card back, but before the great crash, the 'puter would not recognize it anyway. It's there but it wasn't.

Am now upgrading the OS to the panther version I have (10.3.9) and see what happens.

I've no idea what actually caused all this, and if it turns out to be the damn airport card I'd be surprised..(not)

Now several hours to reinstall all my software and subsequent upgrade packages...
I may make a buck this week..

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Matt

[JohnnyV]

Great you found the problem. What is the oldest OS the airport card will run under?

[JW Dewdney]

Well... he didn't find the 'problem' but he DID find the solution...! Sometime systems can become a bit unstable just because of a random error. The very biggest culprits under OSX are permissions/preferences. If a small but critical directory gets messed up it can cause a WORLD of hurt. Luckily - in Matthew's case it didn't take a whole lot to fix. The very BEST way to have resolved his problem would have been to pop the cards out and restart in debug mode and repair the permissions. Though I guess just popping the cards out and hitting the CUDA would have probably done it from the sounds of it.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

It's ALWAYS a good idea to run Disk Warrior on all drives periodically.

As a macfanatic, I don't really hate peecees. It's windoze that I detest.

[Ken Lee]

I have read that OS X doesn't ship with utilities that are typically needed by Windows users - such as disk defragmentation - since the underlying OS does a better job with such matters, on its own.

Is that not true ?

[JW Dewdney]

I have read that OS X doesn't ship with utilities that are typically needed by Windows users - such as disk defragmentation - since the underlying OS does a better job with such matters, on its own.

Is that not true ?

This should help... at least in terms of explaining the fragmentation issue.
http://www.itworld.com/Comp/3380/nls...929/index.html

[matthew blais]

What is the oldest OS the airport card will run under?

I don't think it's system but rather processor/computer. Mine is the last G4 made and the only G4 (I believe) that will take an airport extreme card.
Previous models will run the basic airport.

I tried cudo and pram and about all else before removing/replacing scuzzi...

I haven't tried putting the airport card back in yet..

All software installed and moving files around to clean up.

I think (in part) because I had three drives and all three were filled to 95% capacity could have added to problems...

I added 850 gigs so am good for awhile.

I've been down for days mainly getting info off the two internals and setting up externals/cleaning up files...

Why do we save some of this stuff???

What is recommended auto back-up software?

Thanks

Matt

Apple dudes at store said the mac OS "automatically" fixes drive problems on its own...cycles when it's left on or boot up.

Disk utility is all they recommend. FWIW

[Brian Ellis]

It's funny how people never seem to chime in with "get a PC", huh?

Not when the person posting the original message specifically asks that we not do so, or did you miss the last line of the original question here? You might also scroll up a ways and see Jack's message and mine. : - )

[Henry Ambrose]

"I think (in part) because I had three drives and all three were filled to 95% capacity could have added to problems..."

Oh man! don't do that ever again!

When you install your software put the system and your main apps on one drive and then leave that drive mostly empty and keep it that way - no more than 50%-60% full - never, ever, no matter what. Use the other internal for your working files and move them off by job or project as it is finished to your external drives. No auto back up.

And do the following for a clean running Mac:

Get MacJanitor (or similar free programs) and run it often. Unless you leave your machine running 24/7 its not doing its housekeeping work. MacJanitor makes the auto scheduled housekeeping tasks happen which won't get done if you turn it off at night. (you should turn it off at night, IMO) Use Disk Utility to check and repair permissions every couple of weeks or anytime you install something. Disk Warrior would definitely be worth having and running every so often. OSX is rock solid but you have to give it a chance.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Ken,

"I have read that OS X doesn't ship with utilities that are typically needed by Windows users - such as disk defragmentation - since the underlying OS does a better job with such matters, on its own.

Is that not true ?"

Not to light anyone's hair on fire, the short answer is no.

The default install of any version of Windows is designed to degrade over time so you buy a new computer. It is very easy to fix and well worth the effort, a grand total of 4 min.

Reset the virtual memory size ( set min. and max. to the same size (1.5X installed ram)) and reboot. It's even better to put the swap file in the first partition on a second hdd. This works well on all versions of Windows from Win3.11 thru XP Pro x64. Now Windows no longer drops packets of binary junk all over the hard-drive, no more system slow down, only check to defrag every 90 days or longer.