As of today, I"m declaring it. My PowerBook has been seriously acting up of late. It's given me tons of "you need to restart your computer" bs errors lately, with increasing frequency. This is disgusting, and inexcusable, especially from a computer that's designed for professional use. Does anyoneahve any suggestions as to how to fix this? They're completely unpredictable, I'm afraid; I've had them happen trying to load CDs, just surfing the web, to sitting in class taking notes with only Word open. If anyone has suggestions, I'd be overjoyed to hear them; I really, really do not want to sell this computer, and give up. If no one here can help, I'll take it in to Apple if I have to, but I'm not paying them to fix something that's their fault to begin with, like this. And honestly, given the unpredictabilty of the problem, they probably won't even try to fix it.
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Believe it or not, this computer is officially less reliable than my PC.
- Thread starter Meyvn
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Let's rule out a couple of things...
one - have you got third party RAM?
two - how much hard drive space have you got left? More than about 10% of your HD or less?
one - have you got third party RAM?
two - how much hard drive space have you got left? More than about 10% of your HD or less?
Can you pull out the RAM that you put in and check whether the kernel panics still occur?
RAM can be OK for a while and then a Software Update can, occasionally, cause problems. There was someone on the boards who couldn't upgrade to Tiger without pulling out his third party RAM since something didn't like it.
RAM can be OK for a while and then a Software Update can, occasionally, cause problems. There was someone on the boards who couldn't upgrade to Tiger without pulling out his third party RAM since something didn't like it.
Having a mem module go bad after 3 months would not be unheard of. If you did not test it when you first installed, it could have been bad but mangagable and now have degraded further...
You can try Rember, a GUI program for memtest:
http://www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/rember/
You can try Rember, a GUI program for memtest:
http://www.kelleycomputing.net:16080/rember/
Meyvn said:
My original PB config was 2x256 for 512. I replaced one of the 256's for a gig, and 3 months later the gig stick failed, but only half of it. The OS now sees 768mb of ram, and my computer acts REALLY weird. I'm getting the ram replaced soon.
Check to make sure the OS is showing all the ram you think you have. A Memory test doesn't really show any problems with my RAM, because I think the ram is flickering in and out.
Good Luck, and report back to us!
~Tyler
mmmcheese said:
Honestly, that's correct. I would love to believe that there's nothing wrong with my laptop itself (other than being picky about RAM, which I already knew it was), but thus far I've already had so many problems with this Rev. E PB that I'm not expecting the RAM to be the problem.
Meyvn said:
Take out the 3rd party RAM and run it for a few days and see if you still have the problem. If you do, swap the original memory for the 3rd party RAM and run for a few more days. You might be able to isolate it that way.
And as I mentioned before...reinstall the OS...it might seem a bit extreme, but sometimes software can get fouled up and cause weird problems. At worst, you're no better off. At best, it solves your problem.
AHT may pass, the RAM may be bad anyway.
The best way to figure it out is to take it out and use it for some time see if the kernel panic shows up again.
The best way to figure it out is to take it out and use it for some time see if the kernel panic shows up again.
Maybe it is the result of some goofed up scripts.
Try downloading something like this:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10491
Don't know, maybe it helps. Good luck!
Try downloading something like this:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10491
Don't know, maybe it helps. Good luck!
Platform said:Windows solution.....don't go there that fast
Take the RAM out....create a separate user to see if there is any difference...sometimes it can be the user account that is $^&& up
Hence the "after you ruled out memory" memory part!
And I think not reinstalling an OS because you're too "proud" would be really stupid, especially if it turned out to be the problem. ANY system can become corrupt and cause all sorts of weird problems. If you can design a system that is bug free and immune to corruption, you'll basically have a licence to print money...until then, never assume software can't be at fault.
Which is worse...fight with a machine for months and eventually send it to Apple just to have them reinstall the OS and solve your problems...or reinstall it yourself and save yourself a bit of time and frustration?
He is looking for troubleshooting ideas....I am providing some.
Platform said:Windows solution.....don't go there that fast
Take the RAM out....create a separate user to see if there is any difference...sometimes it can be the user account that is $^&& up
Not that reinstalling Mac OS X is a pain. A good windows install + drivers + tweaks + application installs takes a good 20 hours for me. This includes tweaking Windows, manually deleting/uninstalling apps and updating them, creating an OS-safe profile (away from system disk), going through all the dialog boxes in Control Panel and major apps to set up preferences, and then ghosting the disk.
On Mac, it takes about 3 hours, and that already sets me up with the majority of my applications, because of iCal + iLife. And I just move the *.pref file if I feel like I like my settings for a particular app; if I feel it's causing problems, it just gets nixed.
It simply looks good out of the box, includes more out of the box, and runs better out of the box!
Meyvn said:
Which ram test did you do?
I'd recommend running memtest from the command line after a single user boot (command s).
memtest all 10 -L
Run it a number of times, ram problems sometimes don't show up if you only run it once. Start a test like this before you go to bed and let it run all night.
