What in the World is a Kernel Panic?

[Digital Skunk]

So... umm Yeah... I hear a lot about kernel panics and this and that... so what is a kernel and why does it panic so much causing all these problems?

[notjustjay]

Some light reading for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106227
http://www.index-site.com/kernelpanic.html

[whippet]

kernal panics are apples version of windows crashes. since changing to apple i have never had so many crashes. sometimes 4 a day. they have replaced the logic board, repaired a faulting ram module, i have reinstalled osx twice and nothing has helped. i have a 3 year old Imac G5. now my powerbook has started the same thing though not as often. goodluck, as I have decided the reboot is the easiest. gets to stressful

[synth3tik]

Whippet has issues that most of us are not going to experience. Usually you will not have to worry about a Kernel Panic. What makes a Kernel Panic so much worse then a software crash (that the OS can deal with) is that a Kernel Panic is a hardware issue, Like Whippet's logic Board with is the usual suspect. It's good to know what a kernel panic is and how to recover from it, but if one is going to happen, it's going to happen. Sometimes it requires service, but for me any kernel panic I have had never warranted any service. They are not something that you will need to worry about.

[slughead]

kernal panics are apples version of windows crashes. since changing to apple i have never had so many crashes. sometimes 4 a day. they have replaced the logic board, repaired a faulting ram module, i have reinstalled osx twice and nothing has helped. i have a 3 year old Imac G5. now my powerbook has started the same thing though not as often. goodluck, as I have decided the reboot is the easiest. gets to stressful

I never trusted the iMac G5.

The intel procs I trust, however.

[synth3tik]

I never trusted the iMac G5.

The intel procs I trust, however.

I had 1 kernel panic on my PowerMac g4 in the 5 years I owned it. I have had my Mac Pro for 9 months now and have at 3. Not saying that I don't love my Mac Pro, but unless the panic is coming directly from the processor, your still just as likely to get one.

[tribe3]

I had a bunch on a Titanium 667MHz long ago. It ended up being an Apple mouse causing them.

My wife's iMac G5 started one day to have them often and it was the Hard drive that was match point. I could hardly backup some stuff before it died.

With a Mac Pro 2.66 I had one but I think it was because I migrated from a MacBook Pro with a lot of old stuff and PPC apps.

Now the official answer to your question is here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106227

Bests

[fairnymph]

I've owned and used many macs since 1990, and only had one kernel panic ever, on a Performa. I don't recall the cause, but it wasn't a recurring problem.

[DoFoT9]

kernal panics are apples version of windows crashes. since changing to apple i have never had so many crashes. sometimes 4 a day. they have replaced the logic board, repaired a faulting ram module, i have reinstalled osx twice and nothing has helped. i have a 3 year old Imac G5. now my powerbook has started the same thing though not as often. goodluck, as I have decided the reboot is the easiest. gets to stressful

farout thats so many!!! on my g3 imac dv i have never had any crashes, my 1.25ghz ibook havent had any, and on my mbp have had 2 since october.

kernal panics can be both hardware and software related? am i correct in this assumption/

[slughead]

I had 1 kernel panic on my PowerMac g4 in the 5 years I owned it. I have had my Mac Pro for 9 months now and have at 3. Not saying that I don't love my Mac Pro, but unless the panic is coming directly from the processor, your still just as likely to get one.

I meant to refer to the motherboard as the problem.

I really just never trusted the iMac G5's mobo, the intel mobos are usually much more tested before they get into a mac.

[Angrist]

I've had my fair share of KPs .... but as far as I can remember, every single one of them has been tracked to bad hardware.

Common culprits are:
Bad RAM (Can be intermittent and hard to trace)
loose cables
Ready-to-die hard drive
Overheating video card (don't run a fanless card in a G4 while it's open for an extended time, oops)

[chadi]

This is my first mac, I used it with no additional hardware for the first week I had it and I had 0 problems.

Then I started to add my additional hardware, the Kernel Panic's I get are from unplugging my firewire sound card (M-Audio Project I/O Mix) while the mac is in sleep mode and then resuming it.

If I can't put my macbook to sleep and take it out of sleep without restarting it completely every time...that's a major hassle. So I'm currently living with the risk when I do this. At least I'm aware.

Nothing really to do with Intel or PPC or anything in particular...just 3rd party drive/hardware in my case.

YMMV

[Dark Dragoon]

I had a few Kernel panics on my G4 Mac Mini due to problems with a M-Audio Transit USB sound card.

As for my Mac Pro, at one point I was getting 7 or 8 a day for a couple of weeks. The logs seemed to indicate it was a RAM problem, but I didn't believe it so I reinstalled the OS instead. Now it's been running flawlessly for the last three months.

[Papajohn56]

I've owned and used many macs since 1990, and only had one kernel panic ever, on a Performa. I don't recall the cause, but it wasn't a recurring problem.

If it was a Performa, then it wasn't a kernel panic. Kernel panics apply to OSX since it's a *NIX. You probably had a bomb, which was the classic equivalent.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Macosbomb.png

[sg447]

For the first time in two years, my powerbook g4 (15", 1.5Ghz) suffered a kernel panic last night. I turned it off as soon as the message appeared and now every time I turn it on I get the same message before the OS starts loading. I did install an aftermarket RAM module - but no luck even after taking it out. Any idea what is going on?

[fairnymph]

My bad Papa, you are correct.

[Luis]

The only kernel panic I have experienced was with my trusty 667 Titanium, and mind that the machine was almost 4 years old then. Ahh the memories...

[SDDave2007]

so far the only kernel panic I've had was in a jar of Orville Redinbackers

[MacMan93]

I used to have Kernal Panics everynow and then with my old G3 400MHZ iMac.

I am 90% sure it was either a heat issue or the HDD.(that computer was one HOT cookie...and sometimes the Hardrive would make some weird noises)

My Mac Mini has been flawless!

[rockworthy]

I had a kernel panic today on my new 24" Imac. I got this message telling me I needed to reboot and it rendered my Imac useless. So I rebooted and after about five minutes the message came back again. I called apple and they had me do disc check and then first aid. First aid failed the first time but worked the second time. When I restarted my computer the message popped up right at startup so first aid actually made the problem worse. We ran an extended hardware test and it came back clean. I was so freaked that I'd loose my sons baby pics. The first tech at apple said I'd loose everything because I'd need to do an erase and install but the second tech said all I had to do was reinstall OSX and I wouldnt loose a thing. The second tech was correct. We still dont know what caused it though.

[tribe3]

I had a kernel panic today on my new 24" Imac. I got this message telling me I needed to reboot and it rendered my Imac useless. So I rebooted and after about five minutes the message came back again. I called apple and they had me do disc check and then first aid. First aid failed the first time but worked the second time. When I restarted my computer the message popped up right at startup so first aid actually made the problem worse. We ran an extended hardware test and it came back clean. I was so freaked that I'd loose my sons baby pics. The first tech at apple said I'd loose everything because I'd need to do an erase and install but the second tech said all I had to do was reinstall OSX and I wouldnt loose a thing. The second tech was correct. We still dont know what caused it though.

If I were you I'd back-up to an external. It could be the HDD about to die... I changed my wife's hard drive for something similar to your case on her iMac G5. Better be safe than sorry

[rockworthy]

If I were you I'd back-up to an external. It could be the HDD about to die... I changed my wife's hard drive for something similar to your case on her iMac G5. Better be safe than sorry

I backed my pics last night to dvd. I know an external hd is the way to go and I've looked at them but none say mac compatible. Is that sometheing I have to look at or are they just plug and play and the box doesnt say so?

[killerrobot]

I backed my pics last night to dvd. I know an external hd is the way to go and I've looked at them but none say mac compatible. Is that sometheing I have to look at or are they just plug and play and the box doesnt say so?

You don't need to look for anything that says mac compatible. It's basically a plug and play as you call it. I would make sure it has USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 and/or 400 and as much disk space as you want (can afford in my case). You plug it in, format it for mac and then it just pops up as an icon on your desktop, much like a CD or DVD would.

@OP, Kernal Panics are Apple's best kept secret.:)

[Mikael]

On another note:

I wish Microsoft would redesign their BSODs to say "Kernel Panic" instead. That way, Mac users would realize that those are almost exclusively related to faulty hardware/device drivers, just as their Mac equivalents... :p When a Windows PC crashes every day, or needs to be reinstalled every week, it's always Gates' software at fault. When a Mac crashes it's always something other than the OS.

Just something I've noticed, frequenting discussion boards on "both sides". :)

[slughead]

Just something I've noticed, frequenting discussion boards on "both sides". :)

MACS DON'T HAVE HARDWARE PROBLEMS!

KERNEL PANICS OCCUR RANDOMLY WHEN YOU'RE BEING TOO PRODUCTIVE AND SHOULD TAKE A BREAK TO GO PLAY SQUASH! IT'S A FEATURE!

Think Different.

[FF_productions]

I got my first kernel panic on my Mac Pro yesterday at about 2 in the morning.

I was surfing the web and chatting on iChat, before I saw my screen just turn grey with the grey screen of death.


I just shut off my Mac Pro, and went to sleep hoping nothing happened because I didn't feel like realizing my Mac Pro was broken until I woke up the next day.

Well I turned it on today and it appears to be working just fine, when I booted up I got a message saying "OSX recovered from serious system error, report it?" (something like that).

I'll ignore this little kernel panic, as I don't know what the hell would have caused it.

[SMM]

kernal panics are apples version of windows crashes. since changing to apple i have never had so many crashes. sometimes 4 a day. they have replaced the logic board, repaired a faulting ram module, i have reinstalled osx twice and nothing has helped. i have a 3 year old Imac G5. now my powerbook has started the same thing though not as often. goodluck, as I have decided the reboot is the easiest. gets to stressful

I would look at the software you have installed. Personally, I have 7 macs. They range from MBs to MPs. Most are Intel, but three are PPC and G4. At work my department manages/supports many more. We do not have kernel panics and that follows the 10.3.0 to 10.4.10 migration path. So, you may have a misbehaving app that is causing your woes (if you have eliminated potential hardware issues).