Powerbook G4 Crashes immediately after boot

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,237
53
91
Replaced the power connector and dvd drive for a customer. It was working fine but had OS X 10.3. Did a clean install of OS X Leopard, left it on all day and when I got to registration part it crashed. Restarted and completed the install. After a few minutes though I got a kernel panic. Now every time I boot into the OS it either freezes, gets a kernal panic, or I get the message that says to turn the computer off by holding the power button.

The fan isn't spinning so maybe it has died or the connection got damaged? I let it cool down for a while but it still crashes right away. The install disc crashes now too. Thought it could also be the ram so I took out the stick and all that is left is the internal ram so if that went bad I guess the mobo is fubar. :-/
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
If you can dig out an old Apple Hardware Diagnostics disc you can give that a shot.
 
Feb 25, 2011
16,776
1,466
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It's overheating. Could be loose chips on the motherboard.

Should be able to find a temp control program that will let you speed to fans up manually. If the fan's dead, you can replace it.

But for a Powerbook G4... yeesh.

I have one of these. With 4GB of RAM and an SSD, it's a sweet little knockaround laptop.
 

Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,237
53
91
It's overheating. Could be loose chips on the motherboard.

Should be able to find a temp control program that will let you speed to fans up manually. If the fan's dead, you can replace it.

But for a Powerbook G4... yeesh.

I have one of these. With 4GB of RAM and an SSD, it's a sweet little knockaround laptop.

That's what I originally thought. Problem is it crashes before I can run any type of diagnostic software. It quickly crashes from a cold boot as well so I'm thinking the onboard ram is bad. :/