My Crashing G4,need Advice From Mac Pros Options

[E rouge]

Hello. I am new to the mac sceen and I need some advice. My mac, since I got it , has been crashing. It crashes by freezing up, and I wont be able to do anything. on my windows machine, if something frooze , I would hit CTRL>ALT>DELETE and I could close the program that frooze. not so on my mac. When it freezes, I have to pressthe power button for a couple of seconds and reboot.

I have 867 mhz g4
1 GB DDR ram
running OS 9


Is there any buttons that I can press to shut down a program or help with my system freezes?

I dont know what it is. Someone said that to uninstall a program, just through that program folder in the trash. but what about the items in the extention folder? Is there any programs some mac gurs can recommend to keep my hard drivers in good shape?

I have no idea how a mac runs, I do however, have much knoweldge on computers in general, and on windows machines and the way they operate. windows hard drives can either be in FAT32 or NTFS. FAT32 fragments alot and is used in apps like windows 98, ME... it can also be used in XP, but NTFS is so much better, as it does not defragment much, and if and when XP does crash, it doesnt go through the long process of checking the disk for errors.

Has anyone else had this? System freezes? What apps do you recommend for keeping my system in good shape. does OS 9 or X come with a built in defrag program? How do I format a hard drive on a mac? if i wanted to put a hard drive from my windows machine onto my mac, how do I defrag my hard drive?

Last but not least, does anyone have an web links to sites that show how macs run. I want to read up on infomation about macs and their system. And the diffrences between OS 9 and X, and how to fix system freezes. i know its a long listm but I am a complete noobie on my mac, and want to read and learn. thanks, ERICK

[Levon River]

You are exhibiting classic signs of one of two prime suspects:

1) Extension conflicts, or,

2) Insufficient memory assigned to whatever you're running at the time of the freeze. Some genius once said something I can't remember but along the lines of 90% (or some high percentage) of Mac lock-ups come from insufficient memory. You need to get Info on the programs and check their memory allocation, and crank 'er up, at least for the ones that are bombing out on you.

If it's extension conflicts, the classic debug routine is to do everything by halves, contrary to whatcher granny told you.

You start with the basic Apple-only pre-configured set of extensions in extensions manager. If everything goes along swimmingly (and it should) you add back into the active Extensions folder (from the Extensions Disabled folder) HALF of those extensions that are disabled and restart. If everything is still hunky-dory, you know the offending little bugger is still in the Disabled half. If not, you take back out half of what you just added, and continue narrowing it down that way. It won't take too long to isolate the little troublemaker and show 'im the trash can.

Good luck. Let us know...