[Ham-Mac] Puzzling error on my G5

[Steve Hellyer]

Hi Rob,

I am not saying this is the problem but a good place to start.  Could  
be a server error too. Apple uses quite a large server structure and  
could just simply be a problem with one file/server out of the dozens  
at their end.  It happens, not often, but it happens.

Software installations can alter permissions wrongly or AC power was  
removed while computer was running are two possible situations. Is  
your computer on a UPS with USB signal cable?  I would never run a  
computer without one.  Power is like oxygen to a computer. Plus they  
only cost about 50 bucks these days.

Problem could be caused by something fairly rare where a particle  
from space passes through RAM or Hard drive and change a bit (O  
becomes a 1). One of the reasons we use ECC (Extended Error  
Correcting) RAM in servers especially server clusters performing  
complex calculations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_parity
Ahhh the wonderful mysteries of the universe we still don't understand!

Now personal computers are not typically not designed for EEC RAM as  
it's more costly and generally slower. Consumers (us) generally want  
faster and cheaper. Typically we are unwilling to pay for something  
we may or may not encounter and besides if we can fix easily with  
boot from a DVD and checking the system. It's a smaller price to pay.

Just thought of another possible thing to check.... If you have your  
firewall turned on, turn it off for a test and see if that helps.  
Sometimes a prefs file can get corrupted for previous reasons and  
your firewall is now blocking something you don't really want  
blocked.  Turning it off, re-selecting settings for firewall, and  
then turn it back on usually does the trick by replacing that prefs  
file.

I would not panic about it. One error does not make it "so out of  
whack".  If I read your email correctly all other aspects of the  
computer seem to be running well.  If you open up your console or  
system log you'll likely have a record of what the specifics of the  
error were. However it's usually not a requirement unless you're  
interested in finding out the root cause of the problem.

Nothing in the whole is perfect... except apparently my XYL. ;-)

Hope this helps!

73
Steve
VA3SPH


On 31-Aug-06, at 9:13 AM, McClure, Rob K wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
> I'll give this a shot when I get home from work.
>
> Do you know what causes this error?  My G5 isn't used very much, at
> least not until I decide to install Echomac on it.
>
> If it is a permissions problem, how could they get so out of whack  
> on a
> machine that's only turned on once or twice a week for about 30  
> minutes
> at a time?
>
> 73, Rob KC5RET