G4 Overheating

Just hangs - 4 or 5 times a day...

[Serio]

Anybody have a problem with their Mac overheating? It just hangs after an hour or two and when I restart the internal fans go mad for a minute or two.

Currently running with the side open and a desktop fan playing straight onto its internals - not the ideal solution :-(

[microcars]

when did this start?

did you do an OS update?

first thing I would do is remove ALL extra RAM and run it like that (yeah it will run slow). If nothing "hangs" then you can be pretty sure the RAM is the problem. Then try replacing RAM one stick at a time to try to isolate which one is the culprit.

I have a similar issue after upgrading from OS 10.2.8 to 10.3.8, apparently the latest ver. of Panther is pretty picky about RAM.

[Serio]

Thanks for that - I'll give it a try.

[lZakl]

Does it by any chance have an upgraded processor in it? I know that with some of the older G4's they had problems with the material used between the 'upgraded' PCU and the heatsink. Some people would use the original gasket, and it would cause heat problems with the PC. If you DO have an upgraded chip, you might get a temp program such as "Temperature Monitor - 2.5" and a physical sensor; Check and compare the physical temp with the software reading, this could tell you if the problem is a hardware or software problem. (Both are a good idea to have too, if you do a lot of gaming or processor intensive tasks)

-- Zak

[andy_boyd]

You could check apple.com for firmware updates. I think there was one released that dealt with cooling.