[ydl-gen] boot problems--workaround: forcing 'fsck' at boot allows system to boot properly

[Derick Centeno]

Do you mean that you are using memory sticks or memory storage 
accessible via USB devices together with the standard RAM in the 
Lombard?

Your description reminds me of a memory failure problem I and others 
using the current Powerbooks reported a few months back.  As far as I 
was able to discover at the time the problem was faulty memory chips 
AND faulty receptors into which the chips were seated.  Sometimes if 
the chips were seated properly, problems disappeared, but not always.
The shutdown process merely flushes the memory, but the problem itself 
is not removed.  You may need to consider seriously whether paying for 
an engineer to examine your system, repair it and so on is even worth 
the cost.  It may be cheaper and saner to let the system go and move on 
to a current system; at least you could get a current system repaired 
under Apple's warranty.

A hard drive problem would express other symptoms such as not being 
able to boot up at all.  Nothing would work.  However, the presence of 
a partial memory or that the system sees only a portion of the memory 
available indicates a memory problem of the kind described above.

Upgrading the kernel may not help in this situation.  Continuing to use 
G3 systems limits you seriously in regards to available resources to 
rely upon or explore to resolve this kind of problem.  The money issue 
IS a factor the more complex the memory and possible board design 
flaw/problem may reveal itself as being.

IF you are really lucky you could attempt running an version of Norton 
or Micromat products which can analyze that version of Lombard from OS 
9 or OS 8.  You could start there to track down the problem.  From YDL 
you could run a diagnostic from within YDL 3/3.0.1 which is optimized 
for G3.  However what YDL reports will be more intricate and less 
"pretty" than what Norton or Micromat would report.  However, NO 
product can repair what actually may be wrong if the problem lies 
actually in a bad RAM chip, faulty design or board or bad  or improper 
"seating".

Try to seat the memory very firmly and see if these problems remain.  
If the problems remain try borrowing chips which you know work and put 
those in.  If the problems disappear then go ahead buy yourself a new 
set of RAM chips, return those you borrowed of course.  However if the 
problems continue the problem may be the board itself; at that point 
you really have to consider whether sticking with a Lombard is useful 
to what you do as the cost to repair it may be just about the same 
price as a new ibook.

On Oct 9, 2005, at 8:00 PM, andryski wrote:

> I have a PoweBook G3 (Lombard) that reliably boots with 320 MB of 
> memory, but
> hangs while attempting to boot with 512 MB of memory. Besides a memory
> hardware problem (I get similar results with other memory sticks.) and 
> a
> memory recognition problem (/proc/meminfo reveals 512 MB), what other 
> problems
> could be causing this? Note that forcing 'fsck' at boot, via 'shutdown 
> -hF
> now' or 'shutdown -rF now' allows the system to boot/reboot properly. 
> Does
> this indicate a hard drive problem? If so, why does the computer boot 
> fine
> with 320 MB of memory? Would a system re-install help? Would upgrading 
> my
> kernel from 2.4.24-1.ydl.1.1016 to the newest version help? Is there a 
> bug
> with memory, YDL and the Lombard? I thank everybody in advance for any 
> help or
> suggestions.
>
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