When simple jobs get stupid ...

[thecomputerguy]

Gotta love job like this.

Go out because this guys Mac running windows XP (bootcamp) is running like crap ... come to find out it's got 1GB of memory and its a 2007 Mac so I tell him his only option is a little clean up and to max out the memory.

I lookup memory on Apple's website to make sure it's compatible ... it is ... bump the memory up to 4GB, windows reads 3GB of it, computer runs much better and leave his office (he's 30 minutes away), make minimal money, couple hours of labor and a little on the RAM.

Few days later I get a call ... the computer is BSOD'ing and rebooting. Remotely install blue screen view, and yes it has just started blue screening. with a:

CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
STOP: 0x000000f4
ntoskrnl.exe

Install HDTune to test the hard drive remotely. Comes out so far after a day and a half of testing 1 bad sector ... test still running and taking a ridiculous amount of time.

Can you run memtest86 on a mac?

I'm thinking I go out there and run memtest or some sort of Mac memory tester and take it from there.

I don't think I can convince this guy that his computer is blue screening because of 1 bad sector, coincidentally after I install brand new memory.

Thoughts?

 

[Brand]

Can you run memtest86 on a mac?

Yes there is a version of Memtest for the Mac.

For the hard drive I would run Spinrite.

 

[mkeathley]

1 bad sector means its a bad hard drive. Yes the memory may be an issue, but he has a bad hard drive. It needs to be replaced.

 

[seedubya]

Yes there is a version of Memtest for the Mac.

For the hard drive I would run Spinrite.

Why Spinrite, specifically?

 

[FremontPC]

What do you see for the actual numbers on the Health tab in HDTune?

Reallocated Sectors
Current Pending Sectors
Offline Uncorrectable

etc.

 

[thecomputerguy]

 

[FremontPC]

Weird result from HDTune. Not seeing any reallocation. Try the SMART tab on Speedfan instead, or boot OSX and use Disk Warrior if you have it? If there are sectors pending reallocation, that would be a problem.

Here's Smart Utility for Mac:

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php


Certainly not ruling out an issue with the ram. Have you tried running with one stick, then the other?

 

[nlinecomputers]

I don't think I can convince this guy that his computer is blue screening because of 1 bad sector, coincidentally after I install brand new memory.

The drive was bad before you got there. His low memory means that he could NOT make much use of his XP setup until you gave him the upgrade. Once he got the upgrade he was able to make use of the system and stress it out. It's a 5 year old mac. Like putting a high horse power engine in an old car that had a weak transmission. For the weak engine that was fine but with the new engine it was too much and you strip it out.

 

[FremontPC]

You could also just stick the old ram back in there and see if you get the same problem.

 

[johnrobert]

If it blue screens shortly after upgrading memory then thats the problem

 

[Brand]

If it blue screens shortly after upgrading memory then thats the problem

Thats not necessarily always the case.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Gotta love job like this.

Go out because this guys Mac running windows XP (bootcamp) is running like crap ... come to find out it's got 1GB of memory and its a 2007 Mac so I tell him his only option is a little clean up and to max out the memory.

Pretty brave assumption knowing relatively little about Macs. I wouldn't even go that far without running diagnostics.

I don't usually bother with Memtest as i have all of the Apple service diags to use. But I know any Intel Mac should boot UBCD4W and run Memest from there. If not, the RAM is common (DDR2 667Mhz). There are still plenty of machines running that type of RAM. Pop the RAM into a test machine and run Memetest. But, 5 year old drive, taking this long for a full read test? I'd suspect the drive is going South. Did you happen to check the back air vent to see if its clogged? That's the air intake for a rather tiny hard drive fan for a full size 3.5" hardrive squeezed in a very confined area sandwiched by a hot power supply, CPU, and display assembly. Pull the drive, back up files immediately instead of torking on the drive testing it while it's still suffocating in that machine. Then test the drive slaved to a bench machine with the manufacturers drive diags.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Pretty brave assumption knowing relatively little about Macs. I wouldn't even go that far without running diagnostics.

I don't usually bother with Memtest as i have all of the Apple service diags to use. But I know any Intel Mac should boot UBCD4W and run Memest from there. If not, the RAM is common (DDR2 667Mhz). There are still plenty of machines running that type of RAM. Pop the RAM into a test machine and run Memetest. But, 5 year old drive, taking this long for a full read test? I'd suspect the drive is going South. Did you happen to check the back air vent to see if its clogged? That's the air intake for a rather tiny hard drive fan for a full size 3.5" hardrive squeezed in a very confined area sandwiched by a hot power supply, CPU, and display assembly. Pull the drive, back up files immediately instead of torking on the drive testing it while it's still suffocating in that machine. Then test the drive slaved to a bench machine with the manufacturers drive diags.

Thank you for your suggestion ... I have backed up all of the data and advised him to look into his extended warranty to see if the drive still may be covered.

 

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Thank you for your suggestion ... I have backed up all of the data and advised him to look into his extended warranty to see if the drive still may be covered.

Your original post said 2007 iMac. Applecare is only 3 years from date of purchase. Well out of warranty. This really could be a fairly simple job judging from your original post. The only thing is it's not what you had originally anticipated. So I guess your competitor gets the business and you wind up looking like you don't know what your doing?