Sandpoint Macs - Troubleshoot Yout Mac

AppleGuide is a help program that you can find by looking under the "?" in the upper right corner of the screen (or the Help menu in OS8 and OS9). Lots of useful information about the Macintosh is stored here and it will actually show you how to do many things! Even the help balloons are sometimes useful in learning a new program.

Almost always it's a software problem. Computers usually "crash" or "freeze" because they received confusing instructions from the programs they are running. Many of these problems arise because of conflicts of interest between the various Extensions and Control Panels. Sometimes a program will have a line of code which instructs the computer to do something "illegal" or incomprehensible- this is when we refer to a program as having a "bug". Bugs often cannot be fixed until a new version of the program comes out, or sometimes a small bug fix or "patch". New software may crash because it expects too much from older, more primitive hardware. Old software may crash because it doesn't recognize more advanced hardware or chip designs. Many newer programs like Microsoft Word and Netscape are memory hogs and they may crash if you don't give them enough RAM. So there is no single reason for problems. The best thing you can do is to methodically try to define the problem so it can be isolated and dealt with.

When your machine boots up, a number of icons march across the bottom of your screen from left to right. Computer crashes during startup are usually due to conflicts among these Extensions and Control Panels. You should restart the computer while holding down the shift key. This will disable all optional extensions and control panels. If the machine now boots up successfully, then it is likely that you were having an "INIT conflict". Then you can selectively turn them back on using Apple's Extensions Manager to try to uncover the conflict. If it's installed, Extension Manager's control panel can be automatically called up on startup by holding down the space bar during startup, or can be accessed through the Control Panels. Put a checkmark next to all items you want to load on startup. Did you recently install some new piece of software? It could be the culprit, or it might have created a conflict with something that was previously installed and working fine. Try removing anything installed just before the problem arose (hardware and/or software) and see if the problem disappears.

1) Try to quit from the "hung" program using a "force quit" (command-option-escape), and then save your work in other open applications (if possible) and restart the computer. Some problems go away and never return after a restart.

2) If #1 won't work, press the "reset" button to reboot the computer. Unfortunately, location varies. On the latest model Macs with USB (the colorful ones), only the reset switch (a small button with a triangle on it) will restart the machine after a crash because the keyboard and mouse are disabled by the crash. On iMacs, the reset switch is on the right side. On towers, it's on the front face. On PowerBooks, it's on the back. (For beige, pre-USB Macs, see #3)

3) If #1 won't work, restart the whole computer using a "soft-boot" (command-control-reset). Reset is the triangular button at top right of the keyboard. It is also the Power On key on some models. (Note: This will only work on beige, pre-USB Macs.

4) If #2 or 3 won't work, restart the computer using the power switch or by pulling the plug. That always works (except on a laptop; in the case of extreme crashes on a laptop, you might need to remove the battery. See your owner's manual).

What does it mean if there is a blinking icon in the top right corner of my screen?

The computer is trying to get your attention! Click and hold on the icon for the Application menu in the top right corner of the screen. When the menu appears, select the application with the diamond next to its name, and a message from the computer should appear. Read the message and take appropriate actions.

What should I do if a program gives me a message that it is "out of memory"?

1) To see how much RAM you have, and how it is being allocated, go to the Finder using the Application menu (see above) and then look under the Apple menu (top left corner of the screen) for "About this Computer". (Note: Most new computers are sold without enough memory (RAM). Modern computers like Power Macintoshes and Pentiums are memory hogs; the system software alone can consume 20 or more MB!). I'd recommend 64 minimum,128 Megabytes for a bit of breathing room, and 256 or more for the "Power User".

2) Quit from any programs you are not currently using to free up more space (Check the application menu to see what programs are active by clicking and holding down on the computer icon in the top right corner of the screen). Note: A program may be running (and taking up memory) even if it has no open windows. Try File/New to open a window, or File/Quit to exit the program. Windows users often think they have quit a Mac program just by closing the window. On Macs, the program stays open even when all windows are closed.

3) If you have memory to spare, you can try allocating more memory to the problematic program. First, save your work and quit the program. (This setting cannot be changed while the application is running.) Find the program icon and click on it once with your mouse. Now hit the keyboard buttons "command" (the letterIi for info), or choose File/Get Info. A window will open telling you how much memory the program has been told to use. You can increase this allocation by typing in larger numbers in the "preferred" box.

What should I do if a program that used to work reliably now crashes repeatedly?

Take note of what the computer was doing when it crashed (Were you printing, starting up a program?). See if it is repeatable. Can you re-create the conditions before the crash and make it crash again? This may help you to isolate the problem. Sometimes throwing away the program's preference file (buried in the preferences folder of the system folder) fixes the problem. Alternatively, you might want to remove and then reinstall the application from the original diskettes or CD.

What should I do if the date and time are incorrect (1904?) and the monitor is displaying in black and white?

Your computer needs a new internal battery. All* Macs from the SE to the G3 (except PowerBooks) take the same one. You can get one at Radio Shack (Oh! No!) or eBatts.com. It's a 3.6 volt lithium long life battery. A dead battery can also prevent some models from starting up, so it's a good first thing to try if your computer "plays dead".

* Well, there were also a handful of short-lived Performa models and Mac clones with a weird battery.

Short Term - If you have no memory to spare (and no time or money), you can turn on "Virtual memory". Choose the control panel for Memory from the Apple menu (under the Control Panels sub-menu). This allows you to raise the amount of memory your computer has by using the hard drive as fake RAM. Basically the computer stores parts of the programs it is running to the hard drive instead of keeping them in RAM. You must restart the computer for these changes to take effect. The cost to this strategy is reduced performance.

Long Term - You should buy more memory. During the fall of 2001, RAM was very cheap. Now in early 2002, the prices are rising. However, the price of memory fluctuates daily so watch the prices and shop around before you buy. Check the Price Watch page for the latest prices. How do you know what kind of memory is right for your machine? Check at RamJet, an Apple Authorized Reseller. At the top of RamJet's home page is a jump menu with a list of Macintosh models, which will take you to the page for the RAM for your machine.

Usually not, but there are a number of Anti-virus packages that can put your mind at ease. The most troublesome Mac viruses these days are the Word and Excel Macro viruses. There are hundreds of strains, and they can jump platforms without difficulty. Sluggish performance or frequent crashes in previously stable Microsoft programs are typical virus symptoms.

There is an invisible file on the Mac called the "desktop database" which keeps track of where files are stored and what their icons look like. It is recommended that you rebuild the desktop about once a month in order to keep this file up to date. On startup, hold down the Command and Option keys simultaneously until a dialog box appears. It will ask if you want to "rebuild the desktop". Say OK, and it will do it for you. This will usually fix your generic icons.

Easy. Just restore it from the latest backup. What? You don't have a backup? Well, now you've learned a valuable lesson. Disk utilities repair the directory structure of disks but not damaged files themselves. It is very difficult to recover data from a corrupted file; usually it must be deleted and recreated. You can try using ResEdit or Norton's Disk Editor to recover data, but the odds usually aren't good.

In the case of a damaged disk, it's often the loss of the directory structure of the disk that causes the biggest problems. It's as though the library's card catalog has been stolen, thereby rendering all of the books useless because there's no way to find them. First run Apple's free Disk First Aid. Recent versions are quite good but also, importantly, it is very safe (occasionally a disk repair program can make things worse if it encounters serious problems!). Disk First Aid can also be used regularly for preventative maintenance to keep small problems from growing into big ones. A new and more powerful disk repair program is Disk Warrior. It fixes severe problems in an innovative way, by rebuilding the damaged disk directory piece by piece. Disk repair programs can often do a better job if they are installed before the problem arises. This is particularly true of Disk Warrior. Occasionally a combination of programs can fix a problem that was unfixable by one alone, so it's a good idea to have several tools available when (not if) disaster strikes. Norton Utilities and Tech Tool Pro are good fall-backs.

If a floppy has given you trouble, reformat it. If reformatting encounters any problems, throw it away. It isn't worth trusting. If a hard disk fails repeatedly, do a low-level format and update the hard disk drivers with Apple's Drive Setup utility. If it's an external SCSI device, see below. If it continues to be unreliable, replace it.

What should I do if I've accidentally deleted an important file, and I don't have a backup?

When you delete a file from the computer, you aren't really erasing it. You are just telling the computer that it's ok to overwrite the space that the file took up. Therefore a deleted file may still be there, and can sometimes be recovered! When trying to un-delete, it is important to try to recover your data as soon as possible after deletion, since the chance that the file has been overwritten (and therefore permanently lost) increases with time. Norton Utilities is a good program for "unerasing" deleted files. Norton's unerase function works best if you use it to catalog your drive regularly with its "FileSaver" utility. Avoid installing any programs or saving any files to the drive until after you have attempted the recovery. Norton also has a "Wipe Info" function which can erase files so that they cannot be recovered with an Unerase utility. This is an effective way to destroy confidential documents.

Under ordinary circumstances, your Mac will try to boot from devices in this order: 1) internal floppy (if it has one), 2) hard disk, 3) CD-ROM drive, 4) and finally any bootable external device. Inserting a bootable floppy (such as Apple's Disk Tools) during startup will cause the system to boot up from floppy instead of the hard disk. To force the computer to boot from the internal CD-ROM drive (such as the Apple system software CD), hold down the "C" key during startup. To bypass the internal hard drive and boot from an external device, hold down the Command-Option-Shift and Delete keys simultaneously. You can also set the preferred startup device with the "Startup Disk" control panel so that a particular device will be selected on restart. On recent Macs, you can force it to "net boot" by holding down the "N" key, but this will only work if you have a net boot server.

What do I do if my computer won't boot up? (Accompanied by blinking ? or a blinking folder icon)

This generally means that your System Software is damaged. Boot up from the Disk Tools floppy disk or from your System Software CD. The CD's default installation is to do an "Easy Install" which puts new software on top of old and preserves your custom settings and third party extensions. If that doesn't work, choose the Clean Install option. This will install entirely new system software, leaving the old system in a deactivated "previous system folder". Be sure to move preference files, browser bookmarks, e-mail folder and any third party extensions from the old system folder. On recent models such as the iMac, you have the option of doing a System Restore, and you will be asked whether you want to wipe the hard drive and return things to the factory settings or to install over the damaged system files leaving your data in place.

What do I do if the computer is behaving very badly and I've tried everything above?

Zap the P-RAM by restarting the computer while holding down the Command-Option, P and R keys simultaneously. Do this several times. This resets to factory settings a variety of preferences that are normally maintained by the battery. Unfortunately, this seldom helps. It may be time to call in the experts. (Us!)

Use SCSIProbe to scan the SCSI bus and detect devices. Here are the basic rules of Mac SCSI: Any SCSI device that you wish to use with your Mac should be powered on before the computer starts up. When you connect/disconnect devices you should first shutdown and power off all SCSI devices. Every SCSI device must have a unique address (ID #) for each SCSI bus. Most beige Macintosh computers have one SCSI bus. ID numbers must be in the range 0 through 7 (the Macintosh is 7); the internal boot hard drive is set at the factory to ID 0 and the internal CD-ROM drive is set to ID 3. An Iomega Zip drive can only use ID 5 or 6. Termination must be correctly set. The end of the SCSI chain must be terminated. If you add external devices, you simply need to terminate the device physically furthest along the chain from the computer (Termination ON for last device, OFF for all others). Active termination is required for Fast and Ultra SCSI, and desirable for regular SCSI as well. It is important to use good quality cabling and not to exceed the limit of 6 meters (19.6 feet) for regular SCSI. Fast and Ultra require much shorter distances. Most SCSI devices need a software driver (often a control panel and/or extension) that is installed on the computer when the device is first configured. The driver provides instructions to the computer on how to access the device. It is important that the driver be compatible with the computer and version of Mac OS you have. The company that distributes or publishes the software can provide compatibility information.

On any recent Mac, use the Apple System Profiler (under the Apple menu) to see if the device/component is visible to the computer. If not, it might be dead. In addition to repairing disks, Tech Tool Pro does some hardware diagnostics. If you suspect a particular hardware component, first check the connections. Even internal components sometimes become unseated, particularly after a move. You could try removing the suspicious component (in the case of a RAM module or floppy drive, for example) and see if the problem disappears. Better yet, if you have spare parts (or additional machines of the same type), you can try exchanging pieces between a "good" and "bad" machine and see if the problem moves with the part. Do this one piece at a time or you won't know which one it was. Sometimes floppy and CD-ROM drives that don't read disks just need a good cleaning. Buy a cleaning kit and/or try blowing the dust out of a malfunctioning drive. Shine a flashlight inside of a malfunctioning floppy drive to look for loose objects. Sometimes floppy disks leave their shutters inside the drive. If you need to remove an object from inside the drive, unplug your computer and then try using tweezers. If that fails, you may need to disassemble the drive. Try a low level format on a malfunctioning hard drive before you give it up for dead. Monitors are almost never worth fixing, and they can hold an electrical charge (even while unplugged!) for a very long time (months?), so keep out!

On a Mac, disks are normally ejected automatically. If they get stuck, you can try to eject them manually. Although the Mac has no external manual eject button, there is a tiny hole, usually* on the lower right front of the drive. Straighten out a sturdy paperclip and push it into the hole to trigger the eject mechanism. Don't force it. It should come out fairly easily if it's going to come out at all. It is best to restart the machine after a manual eject because the computer doesn't know what's in the drive.

If your computer has OS9 or newer and you have Internet access, use the Software Update control panel to automatically keep you current. It's slow but, if you set it to update your machine overnight, it works while you sleep and it's done in the morning.

The lack of Mac stuff in retail computer stores contributes to the misconception that there's little software and hardware for the Mac. There's a ton of Mac stuff out there if you know where to look. For the bargain hunter, go to http://www.deal-mac.com. The best mail order and Internet places to shop for Mac stuff are the Apple Online Store, Outpost, MacWarehouse, MacZone, MacConnection, ClubMac and MacMall. If you want to see the stuff in person before you buy, try your local Sears, Circuit City, Fry's Electronics, CompUSA or your university computer store. A word of warning though...the sales people in the retail stores generally don't know much about Macs, so take their advice with a grain of salt.

OK, this is off topic but here are a few recommendations...Check out MacDesktops and the Icon Factory for starters! For games, go to Mac Gamers Ledge. For digital cameras, check out the Digital Camera Resource Page. Links from these sites should get you lots more. Finally, try hunting for Mac shareware. There's great stuff out there!