Powermac G4 randomly shutting down (corrected)

[Derick Centeno]

Hi Jackson:
You are probably as aware as anyone else of Apple's plans to move away 
from the PPC; implementing this plan as soon as next year.

This puts everyone (or it should) into a re-evaluation of what one is 
using the PPC for and does one really one to continue along with PPC 
systems.  Of course, YDL will remain a PPC Linux OS, but as Apple's OS 
will not be there anymore some projects like Mac On Linux will be 
immediately affected and quickly cease to be.  Likewise OpenOffice.org 
for OS X running on PPC is likely to become an increasingly niche 
project for the same reason.

To answer your question in general any card closer to the current 
year's version is "better" than what originally came with the older 
computer model one has.  But what about the system bus?  That isn't 
changing, and so why invest in any card if the data flow isn't 
efficient or of practical use in current terms?  It really depends on 
what is using one's computer for.  But as the Mac is NOT the future as 
far as PPC systems, then one has to look at Genesi 
(http://genesi.pegasosppc.com/), and what Genesi offers is not 
terrible.  It is actually pretty decent, inexpensive together with a 
modern bus, and video card.

Best wishes....

On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:00 PM, Jackson Jones wrote:

> Thanks for the suggestions. I had thought about overheating. I know 
> Apple has some weird cooling parameters for its machines and it is 
> possible that Linux may not have that stuff completely covered 
> (considering Apple is not the most open of companies). The random 
> shutdowns seemed to happen more frequently with the newer YDL-2.6.12.2 
> kernel on www.ppckernel.org/specialized.php, so I reverted back to the 
> stock 2.6.10-1.
>
> I work in a very good environment for computers. It is well cooled and 
> not humid. The power is fine. The same configuration runs on a 12" 
> Powerbook without any random shutdown issues.
>
> The Display has trouble waking up, so I keep it on (KDE -> Control 
> Center->Periphnerals->Display set it to never and save). I also have 
> an Apple version of a Radeon 8500, is that card better supported than 
> the Geforce 2 MX that came with the machine?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jackson