dragon@pawl.rpi.edu (Dragon) (11/08/90)
Has anyone else had any troubles with their systems crashing when they are
left alone for short periods of time? Programs seem to crash into the
monitor for no apparent reason. Any application that uses GS/OS or
ProDOS 16 gives me this problem, especially when dialog windows are open for
more that 10ish seconds without any mouse movement. Games also seem to die
after being left in pause more for more than a minute or so. Has anyone else
run into this annoying bug, and is there a way to get rid of it?
My system:
Rev 01 ROM
GS.OS 5.0.2 (usually)
1.25 meg RAM
Apple SCSI card
Jasmine 70 (or so) meg HD
Thanks in advance for any help/insight.
-D.taob@pnet91.cts.com (Brian Tao) (11/09/90)
Do you have any screen blankers installed as INIT's or desk accessories in your System? Try taking out all the non-Apple INIT's (in your System.Setup folder) and desk accessories and reboot. If the computer doesn't crash anymore, put a few back at a time and reboot. If it starts crashing again, then there is something in the latest batch you put back that is causing your problem. Try to isolate exactly which file is giving you problems. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ | Brian T. Tao | UUCP: torag!pnet91!taob | / \ | University of Toronto | INET: taob@pnet91.cts.com | \ The Apple II / | Scarberia, ON | taob@pro-micol.cts.com | / Lives On!! \ |:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::| \ / | "Computer guru? Someone who got their computer a | /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ | couple of weeks before you did." (Alvin Toffler) |
neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) (11/10/90)
In article <*D$^=0+@rpi.edu> dragon@pawl.rpi.edu (Dragon) writes: >Has anyone else had any troubles with their systems crashing when they are > left alone for short periods of time? Programs seem to crash into the > monitor for no apparent reason. Any application that uses GS/OS or > ProDOS 16 gives me this problem, especially when dialog windows are open for > more that 10ish seconds without any mouse movement. Games also seem to die > after being left in pause more for more than a minute or so. Has anyone else > run into this annoying bug, and is there a way to get rid of it? > Boy, do I remember this one! I spent some weeks trying to figure out why all my GS specific programs were crashing if the ADB line was idle for more than about a minute. The problem turned out to be bad RAM in the second 256kB (i.e. the first populated bank on the RAM card). The annoying thing was that the problems didn't show up on the RAM test because the computer had to be warm, and the keyboard had to be left alone for a minute. I ran the RAM check program about eight times, with no bad chips reported, and then suddenly it showed seven chips bad out of eight on a later run of the program. I replaced them all, of course. Those were the RAM chips which came with my Applied Engineering GS-RAM card. I made it a point to buy only japanese made chips from then on. I've got 1.75MB now, and no more problems. -- Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca Ad astra! | S = k log W cneufeld@{pnet91,pro-micol}.cts.com | Boltzmann's epitaph "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |
jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com (Jeff Jungblut) (11/10/90)
In-Reply-To: message from dragon@pawl.rpi.edu > Has anyone else had any troubles with their systems crashing when they are > left alone for short periods of time? Programs seem to crash into the > monitor for no apparent reason. Any application that uses GS/OS or > ProDOS 16 gives me this problem, especially when dialog windows are open for > more that 10ish seconds without any mouse movement. Games also seem to die > after being left in pause more for more than a minute or so. Has anyone > else eun into this annoying bug, and is there a way to get rid of it? Crashes like that usually indicate a hardware problem. One morning at work I booted GS/OS 5.0.2 into the Finder, just a few minutes after 8am. At around 11:30, it crashed to the monitor. I hadn't touched it after turning it on. Once in a while it locks up if I just let it sit, and it often gives Fatal System Errors 681, 682, 683, and infrequently, 911 when restarting. The self-test always returns System Good, but there's something obviously wrong somewhere. > My system: > Rev 01 ROM > GS.OS 5.0.2 (usually) > 1.25 meg RAM > Apple SCSI card > Jasmine 70 (or so) meg HD The buggy GS I was using: Rev 01 ROM GS.OS 5.0.2 & 5.0.3 1.25 meg RAM Apple UniDisk Conclusion: none. I swapped my GS for another from Tech Support and they had it serviced. I didn't find out what was wrong with it. :-) -- jeff@pro-avalon UUCP: crash!pro-avalon!jeff ARPA: crash!pro-avalon!jeff@nosc.mil INET: jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com
gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) (11/10/90)
In article <1990Nov9.195818.26230@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: >suddenly it showed seven chips bad out of eight ... That's too much of a coincidence to be acausal. There are several causes I could imagine, among them static discharge damage from previous handling of the chips, or a defective memory addressing support chip external to the RAM itself (one of 8 permutations of three bits would be matched by a "stuck" chip controlling those chips).
neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) (11/12/90)
In article <14416@smoke.brl.mil> gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes: >In article <1990Nov9.195818.26230@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: >>suddenly it showed seven chips bad out of eight ... > >That's too much of a coincidence to be acausal. There are several causes >I could imagine, among them static discharge damage from previous handling >of the chips, or a defective memory addressing support chip external to >the RAM itself (one of 8 permutations of three bits would be matched by >a "stuck" chip controlling those chips). Well, from the time I got my AE card and began running ][GS specific applications on it, they were crashing. Usually it began by fouling up the graphics. On _The Bard's Tale_ it would start to scramble the view window shapes, starting with random dots appearing on the view of the city, and progressing to sudden dislocations (bottom half of the shape shifted thirty pixels to the right), then finally just random noise filling the window. Usually around then the computer would click a few times and die completely. Anyway, after I replaced the eight RAM chips, it worked fine. No more problems at all in the three years since then. I doubt that it could be caused by a chip other than one of the RAMs. I just figured that I'd got a bad batch of chips which had been mishandled between TI and AE. After that, though, I recommended to people that they buy their RAM expansions unpopulated. You have a better chance of a quick replacement if the local chip store sold you some bad chips than you do if you have to send it to Texas for a month, and then pick it up after it clears customs. -- Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca Ad astra! | S = k log W cneufeld@{pnet91,pro-micol}.cts.com | Boltzmann's epitaph "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |
alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu (Scott Alfter) (11/12/90)
In article <1990Nov11.125417.16301@helios.physics.utoronto.ca>, neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: >caused by a chip other than one of the RAMs. I just figured that I'd got >a bad batch of chips which had been mishandled between TI and AE. After >that, though, I recommended to people that they buy their RAM expansions >unpopulated. You have a better chance of a quick replacement if the Good luck trying to find empty RAM cards. The first RAM card I tried for my computer was a "Super Expander IIe" sold by a company named Nexo Distribution (or something like that). $59 for an empty card. (I picked up 512K in 256Kx1 100ns RAM chips locally.) It would've been OK if the softswitch to switch banks was in the right place. It was supposed to be a RamWorks-compatible card, but the softswitch to switch banks was at $C071. (A real RamWorks uses $C073 to select 64K banks.) I sent the card back under the money-back guarantee and placed an order with Quality Computers for a real RamWorks III. Smallest configuration available was 256K. Bottom line: if you're interested in brand-name RAM cards, you probably won't be able to find 'em empty. (It would be nice, though, as you pay much more for the factory-installed chips than you'd pay to get your own chips.) About all you can do is get the smallest memory configuration possible. (The RamWorks III, BTW, is supposed to be available in configurations as small as 64K, but I think you can only get that configuration directly from AE; for what they want for direct purchases, you could get 256K elsewhere.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Alfter _/_ / v \ Apple II: Internet: alfter@uns-helios.nevada.edu ( ( the power to be your best! GEnie: S.ALFTER \_^_/ P.S.: I hope they fix our rn soon; replying to messages this way is a feat for trained professionals only. Do not attempt this at home. :-)