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]

I also am on a G4 867, and have never experienced any similar problem. The only kernel panic I've seen was when trying to install OS X with the disk sent to me with the computer (it was an open-box sales demo unit), which the vendor somehow got wrong, or was munged, or something--I never bothered to track the whole miserable story down because we had also recently purchased an iMac, so I just tried the disks that came with it and everything went fine.

If what you're experiencing really is a kernel panic, and not symptomatic of the two most likely candidates I described above, you've left my league. I'd say your only option then is to reinstall all your system software, and if *that* don't do the duty, then start stropping that hardware warranty to a fine edge.