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guest what? - my mac just died on me (slight return)

C

clandestino

no llevar papel
guess what? - my mac just died on me (slight return)

computers hate me.
regular readers of my "my mac just died on me" threads will know that. but up until now they've all died in a fairly simular fashion. getting slower and slower and then....zonk.

this time, there was no warning. this is a comp that only recently had a new hard drive installed, when it went down last time (see threads passim). and it was all going fine. no slowing. all singing, all dancing. everybody's happy.

so, you know, i was just downloading this thing, a piece of software like, and it was all going fine. and i was leaving it to get on with it, and i just needed to get something, so i picked up the laptop to shift it to one side. and boom! screen goes black, machine dead to the world.

could it be a virus that i downloaded? a security device tacked onto the thing by megabucks global inc? what have i done to it now?

thank you
 
Ain't no known OSX viruses. Is the machine actually running i.e. can you hear the HD etc but the screen is just black?
 
no. i've hit the dimmer switch by accident before - f1 isn't it - and it's not that. i've taken out the battery and disconnected it from the mains just to let the battery power down - somewhere in the back of my mind is advice to do this from one of the previous times. i plugged it into the mains, with the battery out and pressed power and force start, and nothing.

it's very strange.
 
Does sound like hardwarefuckage of some sort. I asked because I've had problems with the connection twixt screen and computer myself.

Get yourself down to the Apple Store before the Christmas rush of people saying "why won't my iPod play my WMAs? it's broken!"
 
ok, good news. just put the battery back in, and it's powered up.

the computer clock is set to 01/01/1970 - ie default i think - so some sort of hissy fit clearly occurred that - warning: getting out of my depth here - must have reset the P Ram (is that right?). what could that have been?

anyway, i'll give it a check over and see if it's all ok. but it all seems there.
very strange.
 
by the way, at the picnic with a view months ago, an urbanite i'd never met - golightly i believe - marched up to me and said "Fridge", clearly thinking i was you. very bizarre. still makes a change from people coming up going "hey hello...oh sorry, thought you were Dubversion".
 
Sounds like a fucked display, one of the many problems I had with my PBG4.

How many urban members are mac users? I seem to remember Ed saying the browser logs recorded it as 3%? Because the number of broken mac threads seems to be entirely out of proportion.
 
Orangesanlemons said:
Yes, but 99% of the threads are ianw's. He uses a kryptonite-based hard drive, or something...
Click to expand...

:D :D

i don't know how i do it.
computers break on me all the time, and always have done.
 
tom k&e said:
Sounds like a fucked display, one of the many problems I had with my PBG4.

How many urban members are mac users? I seem to remember Ed saying the browser logs recorded it as 3%? Because the number of broken mac threads seems to be entirely out of proportion.
Click to expand...

People bitch about stuff when it doesn't work, not when it does.
 
ianw said:
the computer clock is set to 01/01/1970 - ie default i think - so some sort of hissy fit clearly occurred that - warning: getting out of my depth here - must have reset the P Ram (is that right?). what could that have been?
Click to expand...

Either that or the little battery inside the computer has died. What model is the Mac...? (Hint: providing all the details you can does make people's lives easier than just saying "My Mac has Died...")
 
jæd said:
Either that or the little battery inside the computer has died. What model is the Mac...? (Hint: providing all the details you can does make people's lives easier than just saying "My Mac has Died...")
Click to expand...


too true, sorry. it's a g3, running on 10.3.9. the hard drive failed towards the start of the year and i had it repaired about two months ago when the g4 that i bought to replace it also failed. so it has a brand new hard drive in it, and has been working fine. and is indeed working fine now. it just seemed to have a minor hissy fit, which was fixed by taking out the battery, allowing it to power down, and then putting the battery back in again. very strange.
 
ianw said:
too true, sorry. it's a g3, running on 10.3.9. the hard drive failed towards the start of the year and i had it repaired about two months ago when the g4 that i bought to replace it also failed. so it has a brand new hard drive in it, and has been working fine. and is indeed working fine now. it just seemed to have a minor hissy fit, which was fixed by taking out the battery, allowing it to power down, and then putting the battery back in again. very strange.
Click to expand...

Out of interest, why are you part of the group of people on U75 who seem opposed to running Tiger...? It runs faster than Panther and has more flashy features. I've got a G3 Ibook and it much quicker on 10.4 than 10.3...
 
ianw said:
i'm not opposed to it...but doesn't it cost money?
Click to expand...

It costs less than £10 per month... Not much to pay for a reliable os thats as cutting edge as they come...? Of course there are "ahem" trial versions available.
 
Agree with jæd

Your PRAM battery is on the way out. It can lead to all sorts of probs on laptops including batteries not charging or discharging properly, dates screwing up, eject button not working and more. Zapping the PRAM can help but you run the risk of draining the PRAM battery in the process so get a replacement asap.
 
richsaint said:
Maybe I should start a 'My Mac's never died on me' thread to address the balance :)
Click to expand...

Mine never has, but NeoOffice sat down on me last night in the middle of a lecture. It's done it once or twice before, but always gave me the option to recover the document. Not last night though - 2 hours of lecture notes gone :mad: :mad:

I think I might have a look at OpenOffice through X11. Will I need to convert my NeoOffice files, or will they come across easily?
 
Jelly said:
Agree with jæd

Your PRAM battery is on the way out. It can lead to all sorts of probs on laptops including batteries not charging or discharging properly, dates screwing up, eject button not working and more. Zapping the PRAM can help but you run the risk of draining the PRAM battery in the process so get a replacement asap.
Click to expand...

ok thanks. i'll look into it.
 
jæd said:
It costs less than £10 per month... Not much to pay for a reliable os thats as cutting edge as they come...? Of course there are "ahem" trial versions available.
Click to expand...

How can an OS cost £10 per month? I was under the impression that you paid £80 for the box and it was yours for life.

:confused:
 
chio said:
How can an OS cost £10 per month? I was under the impression that you paid £80 for the box and it was yours for life.
Click to expand...

Put a £10 note into a box by your bed each month. After a month you can go to the Apple Store and come back with a copy of OS X.
 
arrgghhhh...my mac just died

anyone got a number for someone who fiexs them??

i'm going to get a new one anyway but there's a lot of stuff i ned to retrive from it
 
ibook G4

was just posting some stuff on the net last night and the screen went black

tried to apple/control and then some other combo in the manual but no joy
 
twisted said:
ibook G4

was just posting some stuff on the net last night and the screen went black

tried to apple/control and then some other combo in the manual but no joy
Click to expand...

Have you tried shift-command-power-button...?

At a last resort you can take the hard-disk out and put it in a USB enclosure. But its unlikely you'll be able to put it back together correctly...
 
Bugger. You could try the guys up at MR Systems in Islington, but I don't reckon they'll be cheap. In fact most Apple Certified places ain't going to be.

Sadly I don't know anywhere closer that would be capable of looking at the innards of a laptop. I'm sure there used to be a man who tinkered around with Macs around the Eurolink business centre, but I can't find any details online

Sounds like you've navigated around the Apple support site well, which is my only real other recommendation. There are some genuinely helpful diagnostic bits and pieces on there that have saved me calling out engineers before.
 
cheers guys..will go back to the office and try those though i'm sure i've done just about everything

couple of sites have hinted about taking out the extra memory but that has ben in for a couple of years and i don't really want to start tinkering with the innards

gues i'll bite the bullet and pay some engineer
 
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