Emac freezing constantly

I have a 2yr old 1.25 GHz PPC G4 Emac - until a week or so ago I was running 10.4.5 – now I'm running 10.4.7 (I updated it automatically through Software Update).

The last week I have noticed my mac freezing more and more often (it's used at home, but gets heavy use). It started once a day, now it's every few minutes.

When I say "freeze", I mean that there's not usually any spinning ball, I can move my mouse, but can't click on any other application (freeze not just related to one single app) and I can't force quit either. Mac Mail even went all pixelated-scramble on me this morning.

I've Optimised my system using Onyx, and managed to download and install the OSX 10.4.7 combo update... I thought all was fixed until I crashed a short while ago. I haven't downloaded any additional software since upgrading my system last week.

Anyone else heard of this problem?

Please help me, I'm going absolutely nuts!

since you say eMac, you should look at this, probably not related, but you should just confirm that's not it

have you tried a repair permissions, go to Disk Utility and repair the drive, my guess is something is corrupted and that might fix it

I completely forgot about disk utility! thanks for the reminder...

When I verified the disk, the following report came up:

Verifying volume “georgie emac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Illegal name
Illegal name
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
ired.",1)
georgie emac
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
* * *
Won't let me "repair disk"... does this mean I have to transfer all of my data off my computer, wipe the whole thing and start again?

I've been doing a lot of research, and have discovered that this problem is KNOWN to Apple, and occurs when the caps leak onto the motherboard of emacs with certain serial numbers.

To check out another thread that goes into much detail about the problems I - and many others - have been facing, see:
http://discussion.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2728928#2728928

To see the Apple Support thread on the Apple Australia website:
http://www.apple.com/au/support/emac/repairextensionprogram/

I truly believe this explains all the problems that have quickly snowballed, forcing me to copy all the data off my drive (while I'm still able to) - I will be ringing Apple first thing tomorrow morning and get them to fix the prob.

Fingers crossed this is sorted out quickly!

Yep, a lot of problems arised from G4 based products. eMac G4s, Sawtooth PowerMac G4s, and iBook G4s all had a lot of problems, specifically related to the logic board. IIRC, if you have a certain serial number which Apple has identified, they'll fix it for free, right?

Yeah, because it's a known defect, Apple is fixing problem for free (covered by the Repair Extension program) - but this particular freebie repair only lasts until the mac is 3yrs old.

If someone else gets the same prob with a computer from the same "bad batch" but the prob doesn't rear its ugly head for over 3 years, it's not covered.

Odd, most of them do go past 3 years, as a matter of fact, I saw one for the eMac not to long ago that went even after past the 3 year period. Strange.