Random quits, restarts, and kernel panics, oh my!

[sakasune]

Got my Dual 2.0 G5 about 3 months ago (actually exactly 93 days...3 days out of phone support) and everything was fine and dandy in my world. And one day there was a kernel panic (screen turns gray, gives you the big message in several languages about having to restart). No big deal. And another one, and another. And sometimes the entire interface would lock up except the mouse (can't interact with any applications, and the time doesn't change in the menu bar). I figured out the problem with that was the WindowServer process somehow locked up. I could fix that by getting into the G5 through SSH and to kill the process, it would log me and out and it would be fine.
And now its getting worse, applications are randomly quitting (not coming up with the message that they unexpectedly quit), OS X randomly reboots (I've come back to the login screen 5 times in 24 hours), and as if it's not acting enough like a Windows box - sometimes when applications decided to quit themselves, the window is still on the screen until that part of the screen is updated/refreshed (I never had that on OS X, I thought that was an advantage of Quartz).
My machine is Dual 2.0 G5, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Airport Extreme. This is the latest revision that came out around May. I have done a format/reinstall, but I ran Migration Assistant to import my account, library, and applications. I might try a reinstall again today when I get home from work. This is my plea for help, guys!

 

[robbieduncan]

You probably have some dud hardware, either RAM or graphics card. If you live near an AppleStore take it in for diagnosis. Otherwise the hardware test CD (may be part of the restore disk) might tell you what is wrong.

 

[sakasune]

You probably have some dud hardware, either RAM or graphics card. If you live near an AppleStore take it in for diagnosis. Otherwise the hardware test CD (may be part of the restore disk) might tell you what is wrong.

I was thinking about bringing to the Apple Store but wasn't sure what they could do for me because I can't reproduce the symptoms and they might just run the Hardware Diagnostic disc too. Plus, I would have to drag my heavy G5 through the mall to get to the store...I might just have to do that.

 

[gekko513]

It doesn't sound like a problem with your OS installation, but rather some hardware error.

Do you have a video camera? Maybe you could just set it to record while you work on your Mac and eventually you will have it on tape in case they're not able to reproduce it at the Apple Store.

Since you have 1GB of RAM in your PowerMac, I assume you have 2x512MB sticks. If that's not the case and you have 4x256MB you can isolate if it's a RAM problem by removing one pair (and then the other) and see if you're able to make the problem go away.

 

[stridey]

This might go without saying, but if you don't have backups of your data, now's the time to make them. Like, right now. Worst thing that happens is you don't end up needing them (or is that the best thing?)

 

[sakasune]

gekko, no i don't have a camera, but I think I know someone who might. And it's two 512 sticks, so I can't try that.
stridey, yeah I definitely made a backup when these problems became more frequent. I even backed up my itunes library data and xml files again just to be sure.

 

[sakasune]

Here's the latest, and I think I discovered the problem.
I reformatted and did NOT migrate in my old user files and settings, fresh install. I fired up BitTorrent (the "official" OS X client) and picked up where I left off. I started doing some fresh installations of my applications and I left it. I went to get some food and watch TV. I came back about an hour later and I noticed it froze up again. The clock was stuck at about the time I left. I thought it was sincerely screwed now. I restarted and didn't resume my torrenting, but left it on compressing some video that needed to be done (and that application had been randomly quitting too). When I woke up in the morning it was still fine. I've been running some more stuff while I've been at work, checking on it through VNC like I'm calling the babysitter to check on a child. My G5 seems to be a-ok without BT.

Now I've heard of Azureus having issues with dual-processor G5s, maybe the "official" client has issues too. Does anyone else have issues with any torrent client on a dual-processor G5?