rasio@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Frederic A. Rasio) (05/15/91)
I am having a very weird hardware problem with a Mac II. The symptoms vary, but are typically as follows. After several days, sometimes even a couple of weeks with no trouble, I start getting frequent crashes. These can be anything from the cursor freezing to the screen going crazy. Once I even saw the lights on my modem start blinking at random! Very often, but not always, I am unable to reboot immediately after a crash. Either the Mac freezes again during the booting sequence, or it gives me the chimes. Sometimes, instead of the chimes, it makes a very weird, distorted kind of noise. Usually, if I come back a few hours later or the next morning, things go back to normal for a while. This has been happening for 6 months now, and I can't detect any correlation between these crashes and anything else. Three times I've brought this Mac to an authorized Apple dealer for inspection (a different person each time) and they found absolutely nothing wrong with it. The third time was last week, and this time I told the technician -- after he'd run the usual diagnostic software and found nothing again -- to just let the Mac run all the time and wait for a crash. It's now been almost a week and still nothing... It seems that the problem magically disappears whenever I move the Mac away from home. However, I don't see what could be wrong with its usual environment: it's in a relatively cool room, with little dust, no direct sunlight, etc... If anyone has any idea on what the cause of this problem could be, PLEASE tell me! I am really desperate now... There are a few things that I am pretty sure are NOT causing the problem. The hard disk: used to be an external DataFrame XP30, was replaced by an internal Q210 and this didn't change anything. The RAM chips: they were all replaced by new ones a few months ago (Of course I originally thought a bad SIMM was the problem, but this didn't help either). Virus or INIT problem: disinfectant doesn't see anything and I've often tried rebooting without any INIT. Current system configuration: Mac II (3 yrs old), 8 Megs, system 6.0.7, internal Quantum 210 drive, Apple RGB monitor, HP Deskwriter on serial cable, modem; no other peripheral or upgrade. Thanks in advance for any suggestion. Fred Rasio rasio@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu