Is this a kernel panic???

[Invizzible]

My mom's iMac (FP 800Mhz) has twice now done something scary that I've never heard of before. She said suddenly a black window opens up with text that is scrolling at an insane speed. The window gets bigger until it fills up the entire screen (the text keeps scrolling, never stops) and at the same time the desktop moves up to the top of the screen and eventually disappears, with the dock being the last part of it that's visible. She says the text appears to be a combination of numbers, symbols, and words but it's going so fast she couldn't read any of it except the word "unix".

The first time it did this, it was after she hit the space bar to wake it up from sleep. The second time she was in the middle of doing something on the computer but can't remember what. I was recently home and installed 256 MB of RAM that I got from OWC. I have lots of experience installing RAM, so I'm pretty sure there's no problem with the installation. Could this be intermittenly defective RAM? It sounds to me like suddenly a unix window is opening, but I don't know much about that stuff or what could cause it.

The only other thing I changed when I was home was I unplugged the mouse from the iMac's rear USB port and plugged it into the side port on the keyboard.

 

[cb911]

you could try taking that RAM out, or changing around the mouse, but i dont' think the mouse would be the problem.

another thing you could try is to run the hardware test CD that should have come with the Mac. that might pick up the RAM if it's faulty, but i'm not sure about that.

when you say a 'window' opens up, do you mean that there's just a black section the width of the screen starting at the bottom that pushes the desktop off the top of the screen? that i could understand, but a window would be odd i think.

best to try and recreate the problem yourself, and let us know how it goes.

you could also try the usual repair permissions etc, but i doubt that will have anything to do with this.

best of luck.

 

[Invizzible]

Unfortunately, she lives a couple thousand miles away from me, so I don't have access to the computer. She says the 'window' (which is like a black page with scrolling text) starts in the upper left side of the screen and gets bigger until it fills the entire screen. At the same time it's growing, the desktop is moving up until it disappears. So no, it doesn't sound like the black 'page' is visually pushing the desktop off the screen. I've already suggested she run the hardware test CD, and am waiting to hear back about that. I also suggested it might be the RAM, but I've never heard of RAM causing a problem like this before, so I was hoping someone else has seen this happen. It's very weird. I've never heard of anything like this before.

 

[yellow]

Here's the Apple Support page on kernel panics, with visual examples and possible fixes:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106227

 

[cb911]

thanks for that link. now that i remember, that is what i meant to describe, not a black section coming up from the bottom.

i also never realised that the multi-language warning was a kernel panic.

 

[GeeYouEye]

I've never heard of the Desktop scrolling up during a kernel panic, just getting covered by the error.

 

[jerkypnut]

I've seen it.

This happened to me once, almost a month ago.

This is a link to the thread I started at the time, but I didn't get much helpful advice:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/86394/

Thankfully, it hasn't recurred, and I've had only one kernal panic dialogue (the first in my PB's one-year life) since.


You've not alone.
Good luck.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

This happened to me once, almost a month ago.

This is a link to the thread I started at the time, but I didn't get much helpful advice:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/86394/

Thankfully, it hasn't recurred, and I've had only one kernal panic dialogue (the first in my PB's one-year life) since.


You've not alone.
Good luck.

I got this error too, way back in February 2004 when I got my iMac (and it had Mac OS X 10.3.1 on it). After taking it in to the Apple Store, the folks at the Genius Bar reset the PMU, and it never came back - nor have I gotten KPs for some other reason since then.

 

[Invizzible]

What's the 'PMU', and how do I reset it? Is that the same thing as zapping the PRAM?

 

[yellow]

What's the 'PMU', and how do I reset it? Is that the same thing as zapping the PRAM?

Power Management Unit. It's also refered to as CUDA on Desktops. It is similar to zapping the PRAM, but more complete. Search the Apple Support website for resetting the PMU/CUDA on your particular Mac.

http://www.apple.com/support/