Author Topic: missing my dad - need some Mac help!  (Read 14651 times)

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« on: May 01, 2009, 03:36:52 AM »
my apple mac oracle, font of all knowledge, my dad, george has gone away on holiday. so i am begging for help from his buddies at tech survivors. my apple mac keeps freezing. i don't know why or how to rectify it other than by shutting the whole thing down and restarting. it doesn't solve the problem but only allows me to work for another 10 20 30 mins before it freezes again. any help appreciated cause george won't be back from globetrotting for another week.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2009, 06:21:09 AM by kbeartx »

Offline Highmac

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2009, 04:29:45 AM »
First of all, welcome, George's son - can we call you BG for short? smile.gif

Can you give us a bit more info about your Mac - model (e.g. Powerbook, iMac G5), operating system (Tiger 10.4 Leopard 10.5, ) and if the freeze happens with any recognisable pattern, maybe with usually the same program running? That could help someone who recognises the problem from their own experience to provide some answers.... hopefully, before a week passes biggrin.gif  



Neil
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15in MacBook Pro (2010), (ex-Snow Leopard); now OS10.13.6 (High Sierra); 500GB Solid-State SATA drive; 4GB memory.

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2009, 11:42:54 AM »
QUOTE(Highmac @ May 1 2009, 10:29 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
First of all, welcome, George's son - can we call you BG for short? :)Can you give us a bit more info about your Mac - model (e.g. Powerbook, iMac G5), operating system (Tiger 10.4 Leopard 10.5, ) and if the freeze happens with any recognisable pattern, maybe with usually the same program running? That could help someone who recognises the problem from their own experience to provide some answers.... hopefully, before a week passes biggrin.gif
yes you can call me BG, but i am of the female variety, george's daughter. first of all thankyou for responding to my sos. as you may have guessed i am somewhat of a beginner when it comes to Apple, but a keen learner. I  am sure that the system i have is powermac G4 with OS X. there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the system freezing other than it mostly occurs when i am on the net, using BT broadband. it does however freeze when using other programmes such as word. The mouse cursor freezes and the colour wheel appears. i hope this may be of some help to solving the problem. many thanks BG

Offline chriskleeman

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2009, 01:08:28 PM »
Hi BG!!! Although now that we know you're George's daughter, you may want to rethink that nickname! toothgrin.gif

First, welcome to TS! welcome.gif

We still need a little more information about your computer... what exact model Mac is it, which version of X are you using, how much RAM, any peripheral equipment connected, anything special about it that might help us figure out what's happening. Thinking.gif

Thanks,

Chris K
« Last Edit: May 01, 2009, 01:10:47 PM by chriskleeman »
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Offline kimmer

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2009, 01:21:13 PM »
Hi, BG. Nice to have you here.

Which OSX? In the upper left hand corner of your monitor you'll see a little Apple. Click on that and from the drop down menu select About This Mac. That will tell you which OS you are running (10.3, 10.4, 10.5). That will help. You also see listed your Processor and Memory. You can take a screen capture and post it here, or type the info yourself.

To screen capture: with the info window open hold down these 3 keys at the same time:
Shift / Command (has the apple logo on it) / 4 (from above the letters, not on the numeric keypad).

You'll see your mouse turn into a faint cursor. Click, hold and drag that around the info window and you'll hear the sound of a camera snapshot. On your desktop a "PNG" or a "PDF" file will appear (depends on how your system is set up).

To post the PNG or PDF to here ... open a reply window and scroll down just a bit and you'll see Manage Current Attachments and below that a Browse button. Click the Browse button. Navigate to your desktop in the window that opens, select the document and click the Open button. Next to the Browse button in your reply window you'll see your file name. Now click the UPLOAD button. Once it is uploaded you need to "manage" it. Click on the Manage menu and on the left you should see a symbol with a green plus sign. Click on that and it will attach your pic to your post.

[attachment=1356:Picture_1.png]

Then we'll have a better idea what you are running system wise and can track the problem down from there.

Unless someone smarter than me (and there are plenty of them around here) biggrin.gif comes along and knows what the solution is right off the top of their head.



PS: I like BG ... as in Beegie Adair. Great female jazz pianist.

Offline Paddy

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2009, 01:22:20 PM »
BG - Welcome!

To give us the info, click on the Apple symbol in the top bar and then select "About this Mac" - you'll see the exact version of OS X listed there; we need that. Then click on the "More Info" button and you should get the "Hardware Overview" (if it doesn't open on that window, click on the "Hardware" heading in the left hand column.) Copy and paste that info here. It will look something like this:

Model Name:   Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:   MacPro3,1
  Processor Name:   Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:   2.8 GHz
  Number Of Processors:   1
  Total Number Of Cores:   4
  L2 Cache:   12 MB
  Memory:   6 GB
  Bus Speed:   1.6 GHz
  Boot ROM Version:   MP31.006C.B05
  SMC Version:   1.25f4

Then we'll probably get you to do some basic trouble shooting, like repairing permissions etc., perhaps moving on to posting crash logs.

(I trust the rest of you will walk BG through this - I'm not likely to be back for the rest of the day, being knee-deep in Yearbook production and visiting my Dad in rehab hospital etc. etc.)
« Last Edit: May 01, 2009, 01:23:42 PM by Paddy »
"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That'll do them in." ~Author unknown •iMac 5K, 27" 3.6Ghz i9 (2019) • 16" M1 MBP(2021) • 9.7" iPad Pro • iPhone 13

Offline RNKIII

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2009, 02:04:36 PM »
Pretty sure George passed on his "Igloo" G4 to her and had installed either Tiger(10.4) or Leopard(10.5) before passing it on. (If I remember what George told me correctly).

And as far as 'stuff' hanging off of it... I think only a USB printer and maybe a FW external HD. (Not sure of the latter).   This was jut to be for 'basic' internet and mail as I recall.


Bob K.   rnkiii


Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to
use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

Offline Highmac

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2009, 02:09:54 PM »
Sorry, BG - my bad for making assumptions!

Kimmer and Paddy (who are both also ladies) make a great double act - and between them and the other experts here, hopefully you'll soon be up and running.

By the way, how is your computer linked to the internet? Wirelessly? Or cable to router and phone point? All these things help. And we're always gentle,  because we remember how we all had to learn in the first place smile.gif

I'm off for the evening now, but there will be plenty of help around.
Neil
MacMini (2018) OS10.14.6 (Mojave). Monitor: LG 27in 4K Ultra HD LED.
15in MacBook Pro (Mid 2014) OS10.13.4 (High Sierra);
15in MacBook Pro (2010), (ex-Snow Leopard); now OS10.13.6 (High Sierra); 500GB Solid-State SATA drive; 4GB memory.

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2009, 02:42:00 PM »
wow thanks for the response.
Machine name powermac G4
Machine name powermac 3.6
CPU type power pc G4(2.1)
Mac OS X 10.4.11
processor Dual 1GHz powerPC G4 1MB L3 cache per processor
memory 1.5GB DDr SDRAM
Start up disc maxtor 80GB

internet connection via BT router


Hope thats helpful
BG

Offline kimmer

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #9 on: May 01, 2009, 08:58:33 PM »
A couple more questions, BG.

How much space is available on your hard drive?
What browser are you using to access the Internet?

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #10 on: May 02, 2009, 02:40:04 AM »
using bt yahoo browser and unsure how to find out how much space on hard drive!

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #11 on: May 02, 2009, 02:40:04 AM »
using bt yahoo browser and unsure how to find out how much space on hard drive!

Offline Highmac

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« Reply #12 on: May 02, 2009, 05:47:20 AM »
OK - go to the icon for your hard drive - usually in top right corner; click just once, so that it highlights, but doesn't open. Press keys Apple-I and a new window will open with information about size of hard drive and how much space is available. I'm on a PC at present so can't do a screen shot sad.gif

Here's a link worth adding to your browser bookmarks - BT Internet service status. Worth checking if you're having trouble actually getting on to the internet. It will tell you if there are problems on your particular phone exchange.
Neil
MacMini (2018) OS10.14.6 (Mojave). Monitor: LG 27in 4K Ultra HD LED.
15in MacBook Pro (Mid 2014) OS10.13.4 (High Sierra);
15in MacBook Pro (2010), (ex-Snow Leopard); now OS10.13.6 (High Sierra); 500GB Solid-State SATA drive; 4GB memory.

Offline pauline

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missing my dad - need some Mac help!
« Reply #13 on: May 02, 2009, 06:54:21 AM »
i don't seem to have an icon for the hard drive or i'm just a bit dim and don't know what 1'm looking for. . i have done all the checks on my bt broadband and the speed and connection are all ok.would the hard drive info bee in 'about this mac"
Hardware Overview:

  Machine Name:   Power Mac G4
  Machine Model:   PowerMac3,6
  CPU Type:   PowerPC G4  (2.1)
  Number Of CPUs:   2
  CPU Speed:   1 GHz
  L2 Cache (per CPU):   256 KB
  L3 Cache (per CPU):   1 MB
  Memory:   1.5 GB
  Bus Speed:   167 MHz
  Boot ROM Version:   4.4.8f2
  Serial Number:   CK239JZBNLR

« Last Edit: May 02, 2009, 07:02:41 AM by be gentle just learning »

Offline Paddy

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« Reply #14 on: May 02, 2009, 07:57:05 AM »
BG, in the Finder, click on "New Finder Window" and your hard drive should appear in that list somewhere. It will be under Devices. In mine, "iDisk" is first - even though I don't use it, and after that it lists all my hard drives (I have 6...you'll probably only have one, though if it's partitioned, it will show as two or more)

You can also access HD information via About this Mac. Under the Hardware Overview, the next item is probably "ATA" - click on that and you should see your hard drive information, along with info on your optical drive (CDRW/DVD etc).
"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That'll do them in." ~Author unknown •iMac 5K, 27" 3.6Ghz i9 (2019) • 16" M1 MBP(2021) • 9.7" iPad Pro • iPhone 13