Kernel Panic? More like Major Pain in the Ass...

Did you add extra RAM to the machine? We’re running five dozen 15" machines at the school I teach at, and RAM has been the #1 reason why machines start kernel panicking.

Neil · www · 4 years, 11 months ago

No, it’s just got the original 512 Mb chip that shipped with the PB. Dodgy RAM was definitely a consideration though. Most of the kernel panics I read about on the web resulted from corrupted memory.

Phil · 4 years, 11 months ago

happened to my iBook too, but using Jag. Completely lost all HD without warning, and had to start from scrath. Good job it was only for demo purposes! Ah well at least its not like my PC running XP, which tends to crash at lest 5 applications every day now.. the joy of windows updates..

gray · www · 4 years, 11 months ago

A friend of mine does SCO Unix support. According to him a kernel panic in SCO means a hardware failure/glitch (it says as much in SCO’s support knowledgebase) - or at least that’s the first thing to look for. I wonder if that generalization applies to all Unixes. Perhaps Panther is less tolerant of an underlying hardware issue you’ve had for a long time or a hardware component has just coincidentally failed shortly after installing Panther (my bet since you ran fine with Panther for a week).

purple · 4 years, 11 months ago

Well things just took a strange turn last night. After leaving it alone for a day (I couldn’t look it in the eye), I booted it up out of curiosity. Lo and behold, it didn’t crash and continued it’s startup sequence in normal fashion. Once logged in, the only glitch I could find was that Airport had stopped working (it was reading no card installed).

Anyway, the DHL man is still coming to take it back - I’d prefer it to be checked out thoroughly in case it happens again.

Strange that, 48 hours after I packed it away, it should come back to life.

Phil · 4 years, 11 months ago

A friend of mine does SCO Unix support. According to him a kernel panic in SCO means a hardware failure/glitch (it says as much in SCO’s support knowledgebase) - or at least that’s the first thing to look for. I wonder if that generalization applies to all Unixes. Perhaps Panther is less tolerant of an underlying hardware issue you’ve had for a long time or a hardware component has just coincidentally failed shortly after installing Panther (my bet since you ran fine with Panther for a week).

purple · 4 years, 11 months ago

Never get that problem with Windows :-). It nevers crashes.

A very stable platform.

N O T !!!!!

Berb Brown · 4 years, 11 months ago

yeah. sounds like a hardware problem, else you shouldn’t have had to send it back to apple. so, darwin may not be to blame here.

dcx · 4 years, 10 months ago

Since upgrading my 10.2.8 on both my Cube G4/450 (576MB RAM) and my TiBook G4/400 (640Mb RAM) to 10.3 roughly two weeks ago, life turns to be very bad! In total on both systems I encountered nothing less than 23!!!!!!!!! kernel panics! :((( Not even updating to 10.3.1 could solve this desasterous behaviour!

Although I gladly can admit Panther is an enormous performance boost, and ExposÈ rather rocks! :))

As for Megascrap, pardon me: Microsoft Windows, well if you never start it up, it most probably never will crash! ;-)

Martin Hein · 4 years, 10 months ago

I’m running 10.2.6 on a G4 Quicksilver. I just had over a month of kernel panics and spent many hours with apple care to solve the problem. They started out every few days and gradually became intolerable. Finally took it in to Apple reseller and he has had it for two weeks. After 36 hours of hardware testing everything checked out (including the extra RAM). Then he did 10 hours of software testing and found "some weirdness". It has now run 24 hours without any panics but we are waiting a few more days to see if it is stable. In essence, very little was done to the machine....
I think Apple needs to seriously address this problem. I am a loyal Mac user from day one (1984) and have never had such problems.

Sally Williams · 4 years, 10 months ago

After removing, i.e. manually uninstalling Norton SystemWorks 2.0 for MacOS X, Panther seems to be quite stable, at least for one and a half day I didn’t encounter any kernel panics any more!

Phew!

Martin Hein · 4 years, 10 months ago

I installed 512 Mb RAM and 80 GB harddisk to my IMac G3, 400 MHz and installed Panther from scratch to it. I encountered 10-20 kernel panics in about 2 months, also some weird behaviour from some MS applications like WORD and I.E. (stalling, quitting abruptly). Information tells me to look for hardware causes or third party kernel extensions. So I switched the RAM modules in their slots and threw away a third party extension I had installed. Things do look just a little better. I did not encounter a kernel panic, but applications stalling, i.e. I.E., still occurs.

To me the main problem with kernel panics is, that the cause of it is so vague. I don’t no know where to start looking. I do think there is work to do for Apple, here.

Joep Steeman · 4 years, 8 months ago

I got the dreaded kernel panic today. I have owned my G4 iBook for 3 weeks. One week after I got it I installed a 512MB stick. Today, two weeks after RAM upgrade, it bombs. iBook won’t start from CD. Called Apple tech, they said it was the RAM. I took out the RAM. Still won’t work. BUT THEN...

I have successfully restarted my computer while holding down the P, R, Option and Control Keys (Zapping the P-RAM?) Not sure why this works, but it does. Nothing like finding a solution without knowing why it’s a solution. My computer goes into the shop regardless.

Marcus Jenkyn · 4 years, 8 months ago

Bought G4 1.25 mHz with 512 ram last night.
Installed ProTools mBox.

Kernel Panic when I try to save the first session, which is required before you actually start to work on a session.

Uninstalled Pro Tools and reinstalled. Same thing happens each time.

In addition, Stickies (which I’ll probably never use anyway) don’t collapse and expand when clicking the upper right icon on the title bar. Instead, it makes the stickie snap to a different location on the screen. That’s not supposed to happen so wondering if I got a lemon not an apple. REALLY PISSED...This was a top of the line 15" PowerBook. Damn.

marcia · 4 years, 8 months ago

my iBook G4 is 3 months old. i have experienced 3 kernal panics - all in my mail program. a veil comes over the page and a darker window instructs me to shut down and restart my computer. not terrible - but this should not happen. any ideas how to correct?

jagadamba · 4 years, 8 months ago

I sympathize with everyone here. I have exactly the same problem as Marcia..stickys don’t work then Pro Tools generates a Kernel panic when opening and saving a new session. I had also just purchased a brand new 15" PowerBook which cost alot of hard earned greenbacks. This is a really disappointing and frustrating experience because this was my big move from an ever crashing pc to the supposedly glamorous and ‘superior’ world of Mac stability and usability. I haven’t even had the machine 24 hours and it is back in the shop!

BEaR · 4 years, 8 months ago

As a mac engineer for a authorized service center i encounter kernel Panics in large volumes from imacs and G4 Graphites to the nice swanky G5 dual. only a small percentage of the problems are down to the hardware and the majority of these are as said before additional Ram. but as much as it pains me to say it i thinks it is down to the programming of Panther. And as for bill gates and his Microshonk Windows he can keep it, it never has or will hold a light to Apple Macs, down to one simple thing people want performance and stability for their computers and macs are far better at providing this.

All i can say (and i know it isn’t much compensation) give it a while the updates will start filtering through and Panther Kernel Panics will become a thing of the past and put macs on top where they belong.

Ben R
Apple engineer
Rapid Group
ben@rapidgroup.net

Ben R · 4 years, 8 months ago

I just got a new 1.25GHZ G4 and immediately loaded it up with 2 Gigs of RAM. In the last few weeks I’ve been getting 5-20 kernel panics per day. Mostly with the new Macromedia MX 2004 apps. I’m also running the adobe cs suite and having similar problems.

Ben Symon · 4 years, 8 months ago

OK. I bought a Powerbook G4 500 MHz off of ebay awhile ago. It was working fine for about 2-3 weeks then all of a sudden, kernal panics every hour! Didn’t know what to do...tried clean installing Panther again, it has errors and can’t install! I am stuck! I installed Mac OS 9.2 and it seems to work ok. But it freezes and stuff A LOT. I don’t know why Panther can’t install! I have tried installing Mac OS X 10.3, 10.2 and 10.1 They all have stopped while they were installing saying there is an error. Anybody...can you help? Thanks!

Chris Christensen · 4 years, 8 months ago

Listen guys - you sound like a bunch of twits trying to convince yourselves how much more stable OSX is then WinXP. Do you realize this whole thread is discussing how unstable your operating system is?! I am a software developer who does A LOT of work on both Linux and WinXP platforms. I push my WinXP pretty hard and have never experienced a single Kernel Panic experience. Meanwhile, I am looking through this forum trying to get some answers cuz my girlfriend’s overpriced (3000 dollar) g4 powerbook that decided to kernel panic today for *no apparent reason*. Stop trying to convince yourselves of your OS' superiority - the Mac community is another lame cult of technology just like die hard Windows fan community.

Dan

dan · 4 years, 8 months ago

Dan, Mac OS X is hella more stable then Windows XP. There are only a few Macs in the world which has kernel panics and there are good reasons too. Look around the web for forums like this about XP. OS X is so much better than XP will ever be. Macs rule. Pcs suck.

Chris Christensen · 4 years, 8 months ago

Meanwhile her machine continues to kernel panic - no new software installed - no new hardware installed - all that’s been done on the machine in the past 2 weeks is web surfing. chris - you sound like some loser sports nut trying to convince himself of how great his team is. i personally don’t care what OS i use so long as it serves my development purposes. frankly the most stable OS i have used has been Linux.

ps - the 50 dollar charge to talk to a ‘real’ apple technical support person who simply determined that the machine is worthy of being shipped back to Apple for repair is also inexcusable. i would love to hear your justification for that!

dan

dan · 4 years, 8 months ago

dan. Your girlfriend is an idiot. If she’d have opted for the 3 year extended warranty "apple care" there would be no $50 charge. Also... if she had a boyfriend who understood how Mac OS X worked she may not have to send it back at all and you wouldn’t have to bother us with your pseudo credentials. I am an IT professional supporting over 400 macintoshes with a team of only 3 people (1 full 2 partime) and my brother for a firm completely saturated with XP and a team of full time guys. Guess who has time to take extended lunch breaks. Excuse me but lunch calls boy.

awyeah · 4 years, 7 months ago

Okay people, this isn’t the place to start an Apple/MS/Linux flame war. If you’ve had experiences of kernel panics on Panther, please share your experiences here, but any inflammatory or off-topic posts will be removed and commenting will be disabled. Cheers!

Phil · www · 4 years, 7 months ago

Yes Dan, if you would like to start some kind of OS superiority argument go elsewhere. The operating systems all have their faults, Apple has kernel panic, but try maintaining a large network on Windows. There is no superior operating system, it all depends on what you are doing with your computer. Dan, I wouldn’t have expected kernel panic on Windows since it is not UN*X based. Apple has been far more dissapointing on the hardware end of things, they need to boot motorola and pick up IBM. I am also running a Linux box, so I have experience there too.

As far as my kernel panic issues, I am experiencing kernel panic every day, so many changes happened to my computer at the same time, however, so I am having a hard time figuring out the cause. I have kernel panic most often during or after my computer goes to sleep, but it doesn’t happen all the time. I never experienced kernel panic with Jaguar, however, not a single crash until I installed Panther. It could also be the memory I freshly installed. My mother is also having kernel panic problems, but I have not yet been able to get any information from her other than:
"It tells me to restart my computer... sometimes..."
I’ll report back here if I figure it out. Apple really needs to get their act together, if it weren’t for the god like networking capabilities of OS X and the video editing, I might have already left them.

Necromantik · 4 years, 7 months ago

I acquired Alsoft Diskwarrior about a week ago, to rebuild my directories. As a result of the numerous kernel panics, they were in disorder. After that, clean beautiful disk partitions and no kernel panic since then (keep my fingers crossed). It’s not a bargain, but worth the money. It’s certainly worth trying for Chris running Diskwarrior before trying to clean install Panther.

Joep Steeman · 4 years, 7 months ago

It was probably repartitioning that did it... not Diskwarrior, but one never really knows. I talked to an Apple Specialist who focuses on Drive problems and this is what he said.

Sometimes the boot partition goes goofy and you have to wipe the drive and reinstall. If you run disk utility and it gives you errors relating to libraries, nodes, leaves, etc. that it can’t fix then instead of running Diskwarrior to fix the symptom you will want to reparition so you get a fresh boot partition.

In order to clear the boot partition you MUST repartition the drive... not just initialize or zero out. If the computers firmware is up-to-date and the drive is clean your machine should be okay.

awyeah · 4 years, 7 months ago

Hey awyeah, can you just repartition a second drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to move your current boot drive to the new one, or do you have to do a completely new install? And what’s to stop the new drive from starting to create kernel panics?

Jeff Jones · 4 years, 7 months ago

Bought a 17" 1.33GHZ Powerbook last week. Have stopped counting the number of Kernel panics... It had OSX Panther already installed by the suppier, as I’ve asked for more RAM. But the hardware check doesn’t seem to find anything bad.

Using my old G3 500Mhz Powerbook again..

Where to start?

salted herring · 4 years, 7 months ago

If it’s a new PB you can call up Apple and they’ll take it back in for repair. It may take a week or so, but they’ll fix it.

Phil · www · 4 years, 7 months ago

Happy to find you guys. My kernel panics on my iMac flat screen started five months after I installed extra RAM. Seems like too long...I use it all the time, everyday, exect that it finally lived for so long in the Kernel’s grasp that I had to let it go to the shop. new logic board now...24 hrs. later and the Kernal is back in my life. Running 10.2.8. Also, what may be of note, when surfing sites with lots of graphics- yahoo or gap, target...many graphics were only visible after I waved the curser over them. This happened long before and after the new RAM, happens now too. I feel your pain. Let’s keep comparing notes because Apple is not finding any good answers for me.

mary · 4 years, 7 months ago

The best thing in the whole world to do to rule out system errors causing a kernel panic. It takes time, but fixing a problem as deep as a KP is :

-make sure no peripherals are plugged into your computer with exception to a firewire drive or the like.
-backup your info
-Remove all 3rd party RAM and zap the current PRAMS 3 times.
-partition the drive (this is the only way to wipe out the boot -parition, merely formatting, wiping, or zeroing won’t get rid of the partition) You should repartition the drive back to only 1 partition, because 10.3 likes running on only one.
-reinstall 10.3 and update to 10.3.3
-go to energy saver and set everything to never
-don’t install peripheral drivers and run on a "skinny" system for a while. Install only essential programs for email, word processing... just nothing with drivers.
- if you do experience a kernel panic after all of this or experience (or sometimes you experience it while booting from the install disk) it is most likely a HW prob. 3rd party RAM, bad CD Drivers, and goofed up logic boards are usually the culprit. Smartmedia cards, digital cameras, scanners, specialty printers, etc. are known to cause them as well.

You just have to go step by step to see when it’s happening.

I’ve successfully fixed 3 old G4s with this procedure.

awyeah · 4 years, 6 months ago

I’m reading all these HORROR STORIES! Wow!

I found this site in hopes of figuring out whether to buy a G4 or a new G5. I have an older G3 266 and it’s showing signs of wanting to die. I thought I’d get a new computer, but a colleague of mine in the graphic design industry told me his horror story about Panther and his new G4 desktop (not sure which model). That worried me, and I found another G4 user who as soon as he upgraded to Panther started having problems.

As I read here, I’ve not seen anyone commenting on Panter being used on a G5...maybe I missed it? Can anyone tell me if the G5 works better without kernel panics and such than any previous model?

(BTW...I’d never even heard of a kernel panic before this. I’m not totally technically inept, but I’ve had literally NO problems ever with my G4...on OS9 right now. But for no good reason it’s suddenly running really slowly...no new hardware or software for at least 6 months or more...but still a noticeable slowdown.)

Thanks for any help on the topic.

Beth · www · 4 years, 5 months ago

had my ibook G3 for a year now....had the logic board repalced in nov/dec ..they didn’t have the problem fixed yet..so they repalced it with another faulty part...without telling me....3 months later....same happens...vertical lines on screen....then i start getting kernel panics.....been off and on since.....on day it’ll work for a bit.....the next it won’t....the first time the logic board went..the tech support at apple didnt even tell me how to get my data off...i only found out that on start up i can use T to enable Target mode....via Firewire.....good to know....now......anyway, they’ve been a pain in the ass to deal with...and only recently have i got anywhere,....but now i’m wondering...this was all happening in Jaguar..do i have to look forward to this in Panther?....does anything running these OS’s get messed up?....eMac’s?
..jsut haven’t heard anyone comment on one yet....(...bummed apple user...)

ps · www · 4 years, 5 months ago

Iíve been programming since 1969 (IBM 1620) and a Mac user since 1984. So I have some experience with computers, ergo, the following ìlessons learnedî is not from a novice but from someone that has made many many mistakes (though not all his fault and is not satisfied with "if it works after rebooting, then there is no problem anymore" answers).

I have a B&W 300 MHz G3 with 512 MB of RAM, running 9.2.2 or something older usually (no OS X installed). Two days ago I installed Panther (OS 10.3) without any problems. Yesterday I was in 9.2.2 when an application (Toast 5) hung the computer and used the reset switch on the front of the case to recover. The boot process automatically ran Disk First Aid because I did an improper shutdown. When I was back in control (as much as an OS will allow), I decided to run Toast in Panther. Well, I was quite surprise to get this odd screen with the last line that read: ìpanic: We are hanging here...î! Even though Iíve worked with the SunOS (a version of UNIX) and familiar with the works of Douglas Adams, a Mac user and BTW, whose movie Iíve just learned today is still being filmed, this was not familiar territory and very different from the first time I saw a GUI window box with a bowling bowl bomb appear on my tiny B&W screen with a button that said ìOKî (NO. It is NOT ok to crash and then tell me nothing as to why I crashed).

Anyway, as this happened to me around midnight, I only tried for 4 hours to solve the problem but gave up at 4AM and went to bed. When I got to work and had access to the WWW, I did a google and discovered that I had a ìkernel panicî and that there were many reasons, including HW that it can happen. Well, I didnít change any HW. So what happened in my situation? After some thought, much of it in the background, I decided that the 9.2.2 Disk First Aid did something ìbadî (a technical term) to Panther. So I was preparing to send a log file to Appleís discussion board to see if they had seen this before and knew of a solution. But as I was still hours away from returning home to attempt to recover the ì/Library/Logs/panic.logî, my background processor had more time to cogitate and during an interesting presentation of the challenges of building and programming robots to play soccer (American for football) in international competition, it occurred to me that while I was in 9.2.2, I had created 2 new folders at the root level of the HD, one for all the OS X files, and one for pre X. And then I moved the files and folders/directories to the appropriate destinations. No problem as the OS keeps track of file locations and links when theyíre moved, not like that Micro$oft stuff. Well, guess what? OS X and OS 9.2.2 must keep track of them in different ways and places because once I was able to boot into a non OS X state and put the files in the OS X folder back at the root level, Panther was purring. When I experimented and put those files back into the OS X folder while in Panther, the reboot was uneventful. So, the lesson learned here and I didnít find any mention of this while researching ìkernel panicî: kernel panic can occur when one or more important files (I did not try to determine which file(s) were the culprit(s)) are corrupted and/or not where OS X expects to find them, as in my case. I hope that this helps someone else in the future and they donít go shipping their Mac off or blaming the OS when it is really operator error, no matter how much experience the operator has.

barubin · 4 years, 5 months ago

II think it is important to add to my earlier comments/confession, that my attempts to boot with the install CD were a complete failure. The original post mentions that on his Mac it caused another KP (we’re not talking "kitchen patrol" here) when he used an install DVD, while I got what looked like a first grader’s art/video representing that the Mac was looking for somewhere to boot from (I donít know why it couldnít boot from the CD. I was holding down the ìCî key and it booted fine to perform the install.). Just thought I’d mention it so to be thorough and answer those know it alls that were questioning my IQ because I didnít mention that I tried the install CD.

It is times like these that I REALLY miss being able to boot from a floppy or an external SCSI device, removable or not (yeah, I know that if I had a NEW Mac, I could even boot from an iPod, if I had one).

barubin · 4 years, 5 months ago

I have been traveling for the last few weeks and I have been having 2-5 kernel panics a day. I suspected that it was a piece of my ram and replaced it when I got home. I have had no problems since then.
Shawn
Powerbook G3 lombard
Powerlogix blue chip 533 g4 card
(originally) 512mb Ram
(since panther 10.3.3) 320mb ram

Shawn · 4 years, 5 months ago

Last Panic: Sunday, 4/25/04

I discovered Sunday that there is an issue with Superdrives and panics. If you leave a CD or DVD in the drive when you are not using it "under certain conditions", the SuperDrive can cause a panic. While this phenomenon has been formally associated with the Poineer DVR 106, it seems logical that it may occur with the 104 and 105 (your Apple factory Superdrives).

I happen to have a 106, so I tried only inserting media when I needed to. Up to Sunday, I was getting 4-7 panics a day. I have not yet experieniced one since I started my experiment. For 2 days, I kept 25-30 applications open to put stress on system memory–no problems!

If you have a Superdrive, regardless of MAC model, try leaving it empty when you are not using it.

PowerMac G3 450 Yosemite, Rev 2
1 GB RAM
WD Caviar 160 GB 7200 RPM ATA Drive
Pioneer DVR-106D 4X DVD±R/CD-R/RW
OS X, Version 10.2.8

Gary Loftis · 4 years, 5 months ago

Through and through, the most stable system I’ve had is a PM9500 with a Sonnet G3-400 card running 10.2 ... the B&W has started to flake, and the Windows machine is alright. If only the 9500 was faster :-

IK · 4 years, 4 months ago

It’s so interesting to read all of this...Here’s my ‘sob story’: In December, I bought my fiancee and her two teenagers an eMac from our local Apple store. It came with Panther installed; I had them increase the memory and add an Airport Extreme card. The computer replaced a three-year-old EMachines piece of you-know-what, which had constant ‘crash’ problems, spotty performance, etc.

Anyway, we unpack the new eMac, plug it in, link it up to the Airport network, and have four blissful months of bullet-proof OSX performance. AND THEN...about three weeks ago, we had the ‘software update’ window come up, indicating the publication of a security update, some updates to Airport, etc.Well, I dutifully loaded the updates, restarted the computer...and...well, our ‘blissful’ eMac experience came crashing down upon us!!! Since that day, it’s been ‘kernel panic a-go-go’...everything from plugging/unplugging USB cables (peripherals we’ve been using since day 1) to plugging in headphones (really) to sliding the keyboard tray in too swiftly which jostles the desk upon which the eMac sits. Oh, by the way, as with one of the contributors to this discussion, the Airport card went missing (in the ‘mind’ of the eMac) after one of the kernel panics about 10 days into this nightmare.

Yes, we have AppleCare...yes, I’ve been on the phone with them several times and they are very cordial and are doing their best to be helpful...but, in the end, they say: "reinitialize your hard drive, start from scratch." It’s so odd...I reload the System, reinstall software, see some overall stability for a few days, then it’s back to the kernel panics. The Apple folks tell me it may be something weird with the logic board...but then they say that it may be a third-party driver. When I tell them that it all started with a Panther security update, they just let the comment pass as if it hasn’t been said...

Just so you know, I’m not a novice to Macs: I bought my first Mac in 1985 (a Mac XL–a converted ‘Lisa’ with a meg of RAM and a 10 meg HD!!) I’ve owned 11 Macs and have been loyal through OS changes and insane hardware prices. Although there have been a couple of times when I’ve sworn to take an axe to my Mac, I’ve been pleased overall. I must say, however, that this is the first time I’ve experienced (and have been almost nauseated at reading the narrative here) such a ‘mysterious’ series of problems that seem to be completely unaddressed by Apple.

As I read these stories, there seems to be little or no commonality...except for the fact that most of us are seeing these problems within Panther...At some point, Apple needs to deal with us forthrightly. We do our part, paying more than 90% of the rest of the world for computer hardware...we are willing to do so because Apple has more innovative, more stable, more user-friendly hardware and software. It’s a fair bargain; worth the price of my G4 Powerbook (and the two iMacs and one eMac in the lives of my kids/stepkids). But it’s time to address this...someone, somewhere, has a ‘bead’ on where the screw-up is...It’s time to ‘fess up’ and provide some sort of relief. When I see my fiancee’s kids roll their eyes because they got a kernel panic while swiveling the freaking eMac screen an inch to the right, all the pretty, bubbly buttons and ‘i’ apps are meaningless.

Sigh...

Dave Ponce · 4 years, 4 months ago

Oh my god... I really do no unterstand what is happening to me. I have kernel panics all the time and it is really not funny. I have a PowerBook G4 and everything was goign cool until...the ominous "kernel panic" the first time i wasnt scared but now i am downright confused. I went to Apples website to see if they had a solutions but nothin concrete mentioned. I cant even start my computer without it have a kernel panic. I am American but living in France for a year (foreign exchange student) who really need a fix.
HELP

Ben · 4 years, 4 months ago

Kernel Panic: Had my first 1 month ago after going to Panther+Combo update. Booted from NSW disc, backed up data, wiped boot disc, reinstalled Jag to 10.2.6, but with Classic envir. on separate disc (prolly not best idea). All fine 'til last night, kernel panic after trying to start ProToolsFree in Classic (again, bad idea). NSW & DiskWarriorRE to the rescue (kind of) - HOWEVER, ominous clicking from the IBM drive, where Classic runs from, wondering if the HW-SW relationship mentioned in other posts is manifesting? I’ve never (knock on wood, stroke rabbit’s foot) had a drive fail before but think this might be the case. All seemed ok this morning but think I will switch out the IBM.

HW: G4 867 Quicksilver; 60 GB Maxtor [boot]; 60 GB IBM Deskstar
OS 10.2.6

Kerry Kugelman · 4 years, 4 months ago

Thanks to Awyeah for specific stratagies for the fix.

I will try Disc Warrior first. I had a local tech guy here reccomend it over Norton, (Which he said does more damage than good when there is a problem). Had to order it.

FYI
My biggest concern at first was getting to my desktop to save info. I did all the mentions in the book, to no avail. Couldn’t get past the Kernal screen.

I thought it was my "hardware problem". My fancy flatscreen. Not the Apple One. Command+option+A+V worked-fora while.

Finally, the last thing that worked was " o" on startup....with the startup disc in the drive. Forward arrow got me to os 10

I haven’t turned it off yet. Going to do the aformentioned afer I retreive my data.

neal

computernovicethatcalledeveryonetalkedtoappleguysatbestbuyanddidthegooglethingtofigurethingsoutwhyisapplesouietaboutthis....

neal nickel · www · 4 years, 4 months ago

Seriously, guys, try leaving your Superdrive empty at shutdown. After 8 solid months of multiple daily panics, my G3-450 has been absolutely bulletproof for over a month, even running several lprograms simultaneously.

gloftis · 4 years, 4 months ago

Jezuz! i’m -as we say in my country- with the ass in my hands!
I was just updating a G3 powerbook of a frien’s friend and i got it.
I tink the problem was to make several updates at the same time without restarting. (dunno...)

It was running 9.04 and i got it to 9.2.2 and OS X 1.2.2 and it was working fine. But then i was taking it to X.1.5 and after finishing it booted to the nice classic com icon and stalked there with this "panic: we’re hanging her..."
Fuck 'em all
It finally booted with "C" from a OS CD and started installing the base system but..
it happend again
the installer has unexpacted quit. (erro 0)
press the return key to restat the computer...

please. gimme a hand..
indanoise@yahoo.es

danielsan · 4 years, 4 months ago

Ben... please see my posting froma couple months ago.

awyeah · 4 years, 4 months ago

Neal and and Kerry:

Neal, if you have another computer hold down "T" at startup and plug it into the other computer via firewire. It will mount the disk as a volume and you can save your data on the other computer’s HD.

Kerry: The deskstar is actually known as the "Deathstar" which fail at an alarming rate. They made the platters out of metal instead of a silicon based material. Metal expands and contracts when heated and cooled there for the arm and head of the drive where out quickly try to compensate. Most likely your drive is failing (which may explain your kernel panics). Backup and buy a new one.

awyeah · 4 years, 4 months ago

I just thought I would add my $.02 worth. I have a couple machines, one G4 400Mhz PowerBook with 1GB of RAM on which I started experiencing the dreaded kernel panics on. The following steps were tried but still had problems:

1. Reinstalled OS X 10.3.4 from scratch. Backed up user folder and tried dropping the whole folder in complete. Still panics.
2. Tried using DiskWarrior. Nothing.
3. Tried creating a brand new user. Still Panics.

I just read on this site (and others) that it might be memory modules. I have never had issues and haven’t recently installed any modules so that was last on my list. I had even run the Hardware diagnostics that come with the PB and it said that both modules were fine. But, I have taken out the two modules and switched them around and all seems fine, so far. I will keep you all posted on any other issues.

BTW - I have Panther running on a Dual 2G G5 and have had no issues at all. In fact, it’s running very nicely. In reference to an earlier question.

Dennis · www · 4 years, 3 months ago

I have three G5 Dual 1.25GHZ machines running OSX 10.3.4. All are equally configured and were put into service the same day. Only one of them is having a KP problem. This problem happens repeatedly, within two-five minutes after startup. I disconnected the ethernet cable and the problem did not occur for over two hours. Then I plugged the ethernet cable back in and it KP’d in about three minutes. Are there any ideas on what is causing this? It seems to me to be the computer rather than the network as a whole, though the three are configures using Manual DHCP. No duplicate IP addresses. It definitely seems related to the network, though.

billy · 4 years, 3 months ago

billy
I have exactly the same on my powerbook G4 1.25Ghz
Worked fine for 6 month and then for no apparent reason it stated to kernel panic at the end of the boot (9time on 10 boot) disconnecting ethernet and everything is working fine.
Booting form an other system on a firewire hd doesn’t change anything.
I’m running 10.3.4.
I found this:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106464
and I’m gonna try to reconfigure Network Preferences when I go back home...
I hope this is the solution and that it may help us.
I’ll keep you updated...
bigl00z3

bigl00z3 · www · 4 years, 2 months ago

I’ve an ibook g4, and a almost-daily kernel pannic with Phanter at boot. I think it’s caused by a problem in the filesystem or a HD. I boot using the install cd, and then i run the disk utility and "repair errors". Then all it’s ok.

i’ve a linux (ext3) and a macosx (hfs+) partitions.

May the force be with you...

satch · 4 years ago

Wow...I never even knew what a kernel panic was until today...still don’t, in fact, but at least I know all those crazy and scarey looking messages and numbers which appear unexpectedly every now and then have a name!
I have two eMacs (one 800 & one 1 gig)....few months old apart. The older one has had what I now know are kernel panics. Only three or four over the past couple of months. From what I have read here, I think I will leave well alone unless the problem worsens. So far the other one is running flewlessly (oh, I hope I haven’t just jinxed myself).
For what it is worth, my older Bondi Blue iMac which died just months ago (I’m still in mourning!) used to absolutely HATE it when I plugged in USB Canon scanner. They’d talk - if they had to! Once I turned my back the Bondi Blue would play up until I remembered to unplug the scanner and leave it that way until I needed it!
Funnily enough, plugging in the same scanner could also be reason this eMac does the kernel panic dance occasionally. Amazing coincidence. I don’t use the scanner enough to leave it plugged in....just as well!

However, I might be clutching at straws. Occasionally, the older eMac has been having some strange "slow" attacks - just momentarily - literally - and then all is back to normal. Hmmmmm....

For goodness sake...that’s why I’ve been a loyal Apple person since 1984 (still remember my old IIC)....I don’t like having to worry about WHY or HOW things work....I just expect them to!!!

sue · 3 years, 11 months ago

I have a 15" G4 Powerbook (alu 1Ghz) that’s about 3 months old. I took out the original 245mb stick and put in 1.5 gigs about a month ago. No problem. Panther was running just great.. solid as a rock.

Then I bought a scanner. A Umax Astra, which did NOT include a driver for OSX. Umax ignored all my tech/customer support questions, and simply redirected me to a site where I could purchase SIlverfast SE software for an additional fee (how nice of them to support their customers, compared to, say, Microtek, who offer free downloads of all their software for all their products). Anyway, I got a copy of Silverfast SE and installed that.

Then the problems kicked in. My permissions were all messed up and programs kept crashing. I’ve had a half dozen KP’s since then. I’ve noticed that all of them were when I was working off the battery and surfing wifi via my airport card. The scanner is rarely connected, so it can’t be a hardware issue relating to that.

I’ve also recently downloaded security patches and have been suspicious of those. But since I just found this forum today, I haven’t done any repairs yet. Perhaps tonight.

joefriday · 3 years, 10 months ago