Mac OS X forum: G4 dual 1Ghz won't start until 'warm'

I do believe you have posted this to a discussion that you had read prior to the one you seem to be responding to... Look at the post you have replied to... no mention of batteries =)

I believe what you are telling me is that I need to see if my main board is fried. Thing is it starts up after its warm. The symptoms in the article you linked to made no mention of the machine starting when warm, so I am puzzled as to why I would be pursuing this course. Is there something I am missing here? ...or am I assuming too much?

Thanks for helping me understand your response.

I am writing from first hand experience, but if you won't look at the parts I noted, just write so. Then I know not to respond.

bob

If I didn't write it before, the capacitor issue causes machines to hang problems starting cold and to be unstable later. It's affected a wide variety of hardware and its always something to look for. I suspect there are more than 8 capacitors on the board, but you also have a power supply to consider. It ages as well and may not have its full power when cold and even then can buckle under demand.

If you have something you've added since the machine was new that uses power, you can test this issue by unplugging such to reduce the load. Quite often the power supply is replaced...

Bob

Sadly, I keep reading about a hardware issue. The symptom is unlikely to change with your new partition scheme, but it usually takes the machine owner to exhauast all other possibilities before they come back to the hardware issue.

At least you've read this and when it doesn't budge under all the software tinkering you'll know what to do next.

Bob

The issue here (to me) still sounds like a failed piece of hardware. Unfortunately you would have to swap out a motherboard or power supply to see if that's it. Also, any added card would be pulled out and any USB/Firewire cable left unplugged to narrow it down.

The failing capacitor issue doesn't have to visibly show since electrolytic capacitors age and just like your lead-acid car battery have a reduced capacity as the years pass. What a good designer does is to get the company to specify how many years we need the design to last on average. Then the good designer will factor that into the parts size and selection.

This drives the older machine insane that nothing seems to be dead or blown but problems persist in spite of all software reinstalls and more.

Again, such is not unusual but takes some conversing with those that are in the electronics design world to get a handle on the situation.

As to the visual inspections, be sure to look under all the covers (power supply too) and replace any user replacable batteries (PRAM battery) since these are cheap compared to board or power supply replacements.

Happy hunting,

bob

before you do anything, repair permissions!!! You would not believe how many problems this will fix. Do it before and after any updates and/or installations.

Wow! Do you have the system from Hades or what!
The last time I had a problem like this was when a G4(single processor). went bad. (the processor that is) Believe this or not, the time before was a bad battery!
Let's assume that yours are fine. Personally, I would backup all the documents and files that I wanted, onto an external drive or onto the second Hard Drive on the machine. Leave the setting files behind, they may be part of the problem. Reinstall OS X and choose the FORMAT option. Bring that drive and it's OS up to date with software update. I can see no advantage to partitioning either drive. If either drive fails you have lost the lot anyway. OS X can handle all sorts of stuff on the one drive. Install all your applications on the OS X drive and use the second drive for storage and scratch disk.
Don't worry too much about partitioning either of the drives. Partitions on a Mac are not quite like a PC.
Without a good piece of software, I think iPartition is about the only thing that will partition on the fly, (untested by me) you CANNOT change, wipe, format or do anything to a partition on a Mac without destroying the ENTIRE drive.
Let OS X handle the memory management, it knows more than you, or I , do about the subject.
This should work for you. Relax and let OS X take the strain, it does it quite well

It has been a while since I ran MacJanitor, I will try that too, but I seem to recall trying it in the past with no noticeable change.