I have a strange problem with a 500Mhz iBook I bought back in 2001.
I'm running Panther and in trying to fix the problem ramped up the ram to 640 Mb, so the problem is this:
in my system preferences I have the login set to automatically log me in. on occasion (seems to be happening even if i've had the computer off for a few minutes) the start up process takes a really long time (on the order of 10 minutes or so) then i have to physically log in. when this occurs, system preferences will crash whenever i open it and i'll get an error message in iTunes that it can't save a file to the iTunes library even though i'm not actually trying to save anything (i guess the system might be trying to save something). then if i try to shut down, it doesn't, i've let it sit for quite a while (~30 min) just to see that nothing happens. so i do a manual shut down and restart and everything works beautifully: the start up takes ~1 min., i'm automatically logged in, system preferences, iTunes all run perfectly. when i run the disk utility (booting from the cd of course) in either case the repair tool says everything appears to be OK.

I did a clean install of Panther replaced/upgraded my ram, slammed my head against the desk and can't come up with any ideas as to what's wrong and more importantly how to fix it. Has anyoone seen anything like this or have any ideas as to what i should try?