mac ibook keeps crashing- is it just too old???

[Minitoots]

My Dad's got a mac ibook (I'm not sure which model but it is about 7 years old now, and he says it keeps crashing and cutting out when he goes online. He lives out of London and I'm visiting soon so if anyone has any suggestions, I can have a look for him, or bring it back to get looked at locally.

When my brother saw it recently, he emptied the cache and cookies and trash and did a utilities check which said there wasn't anything wrong with it.the broadband connection seems ok.

Dad only uses the laptop for going online for emailing and looking at art galleries websites.

He also occasionally uses photoshop so I plan to get rid of any big files he may have lurking on it...

Any advice on what else we can do, or whether you could do, or is it just too old to bother with now?

[GinaG3]

It maximum operating system on a ibook I believe is Panther (OS X 10.3.9), this system is old and will show signs of a lot of lag. Since Panthers release in 2003 there has been another 5 operating systems released by Apple, not including one due later this year. With each release comes more problems for people using the older versions, a near 10 year old operating system is going to be very difficult to put up with. The computer itself is probably fine, I have Apples upwards of 11 years old that still run but the operating systems disallow you to do anything.

I'm currently running two MacBooks one released in 2004, and one released in 2009, both are capable of and are in fact running the latest operating systems with ease although the 2004 model has had a lot of upgrades to its internal hardware to up the speed. You may be best looking on eBay for a 2004+ model, sometimes you can pick them up for phenomenally cheap prices as people now want macbook pro and air but I find the standard macbook and even the earlier models very resilient and extremely reliable. My 4 year old has the 2004 one, its been dropped, its had stuff spilled on it, and its still going strong bar the screen just getting loose over the last year but it still hasn't fallen off despite her boisterousness and hitting it in frustration.

We upgraded the 2004 from Panther after significant lag and 'beach ball' issues and since then its been amazing. No quibbles here. Now its been my 2009 model that 'beach balls' and requires a force quit on occasions but it needs some hardware tweaks.

[ianr]

Does the screen display turn off and the fan turn on when the machine freezes? If so it might just be an occurrence (though rather a late occurring one) of an inherent known fault in some old ibooks: http://macintoshhowto.com/hardware/how-do-i-get-my-broken-g4-ibook-fixed.html/comment-page-1, of which those are said to be the symptoms.

Does it have some way of displaying motherboard /processor temperatures? Machines will shut down if overheating, perhaps because of a fan that's failing or needs a bit of cleaning out with eg compressed air.

Software problems, including those caused by a new version of some application, can also cause crashes.

Are there system or application log files? They might contain a relevant warning or error report.

[Minitoots]

I'll check all that when I go to see him, thanks Ian. Very helpful

[susyp]

i know nothing about technology but our mac kept crashing as it wasn't holding its charge - it basically needs a new battery so now we just have to keep it plugged in all the time - has he tried that - sure it's more complicated than that but thought it was worth a mention! It's probably slightly newer than 2004 and the battery has died despite not being used for work or anything.

susypx

[Minitoots]

I've checked with him and the screen display doesnt turn off and the fan doesn't turn on when the machine freezes, and the battery seems ok. He said it's usually when he tried to go online onto Safari that he gets the 'spinning wheel of death/ spinning beachball'. Sometimes it stops after 10 minutes or so and at other times he has to shut it down, wait and start again later.... Does that give any more clues as to what might help remedy it?

[GinaG3]

I do strongly suggest its the operating system but you can try the following. If you get him to go to the apple and click about the this mac what does the spec say. Is it running its standard RAM, I'd highly recommend over 1GB of RAM. Its possibly well under this.

Disable Java if its running, it may stop the beach ball. Find Java through spotlight, open it and disable by unticking the appropriate box.

Go into disk utility and verify the hard disk and repair the preferences. FINDER > GO > UTILITIES > DISK UTILITY > CLICK HD > VERIFY DISK see if anything needs done there.

You can also empty all the cache and history files, empty icons folder HARD DRIVE > USERS > HOME > THE USER > LIBRARY > SAFARI > ICONS (remember to empty the trash!)

[Minitoots]

That sounds good advice Gina - I'll get him to try all that.