crashing osx tiger

[Toby Goodbar]

my mac has been consistetly crashing lately. i think i've pinned down the cause but being a newbie i don't know what ta do about it.

it seems that running bit torrent clients is causing the crash. its the only time i have the problem. i'd been using azureus for awhile then out of the blew one day i got the "restart your computer" message in 5 languages. since then i reinstalled the newest version of azureus. then tried using bitrocket instead which doesn't seem to be AS bad but still crashes me if it doesn't crash itself first!

i scanned the panic.log but don't really understand it being a mac newbie. dloading torrents is pretty much one of the reasons for even having a computer so i'd appreciate any n all help.
i have: powermac g4 2x450mhz osx tiger 10.4.8. my internect connection is broadband achieved through combination of a router and a wireless usb stick from afterthemac.com

here is a section of the panic.log they all seem to be the same:

*********

Wed Nov 1 14:07:05 2006
panic(cpu 1 caller 0x0028D7B4): freeing free mbuf
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 1:
Backtrace:
0x00095138 0x00095650 0x00026898 0x0028D7B4 0x005311C4 0x00562CB0 0x00562F4C 0x0055EB2C
0x0055ED00 0x0044FE90 0x007DA164 0x007DA830 0x007DA8C8 0x007D585C 0x002D0B94 0x002CFA5C
0x000A9314
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.Ralink.driver.RT73(1.1.5)@0x545000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(2.5.6)@0x44d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.0)@0x526000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.7)@0x43b000
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI(2.5.8)@0x7d1000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(2.5.6)@0x44d000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.7)@0x43b000
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily(2.5.6)@0x44d000
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.0)@0x526000
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x1CDB9280)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.0: Fri Sep 8 17:18:57 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.12.6.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC
*********

 

[mad jew]

File sharing is a bitch for the system. Have you tried verifying your hard drive in Disk Utility? It seems to be a read/write error which means the hard drive or the RAM at a guess.

 

[Toby Goodbar]

yea did that mad times only found a permissions problem once and it was with itunes.....

now whats this about RAM ? all the sudden the module just goes bad? don't make much sense.

did that log mean anything ta you?
funny thing is, it was working for almost a month with NO problem. never mind crashing the OS

 

[mad jew]

yea did that mad times only found a permissions problem once and it was with itunes.....

Were you verifying the disk permissions or the disk? Verifying the permissions won't help but I'd be interested to hear what happens when you verify the disk (the option is on the right, rather than the left of Disk Utility).

now whats this about RAM ? all the sudden the module just goes bad? don't make much sense.

Yeah, sticks can go bad pretty randomly. Usually they're triggered by something (system update or file sharing app) but they can act seemingly normally up until this point. Most of the time their problems don't even show up on those memory tester apps.

did that log mean anything ta you?
funny thing is, it was working for almost a month with NO problem. never mind crashing the OS

I'm no expert but the abundance of IOs kinda makes me think it's a read/write problem, and therefore a hard drive or RAM problem. If someone disagrees with me, believe them because I'm not very smart.

 

[iMeowbot]

wireless usb stick from afterthemac.com

…and that, or at least its driver, appears to be the problem:

com.Ralink.driver.RT73(1.1.5)@0x545000

A good step would be to contact afterthemac and/or Ralink to see what the most appropriate (and latest) driver for your dongle is. There is a fairly recent update, not sure it that's for the same chipset as the dongle you have.

 

[Toby Goodbar]

Were you verifying the disk permissions or the disk? Verifying the permissions won't help but I'd be interested to hear what happens when you verify the disk (the option is on the right, rather than the left of Disk Utility).

did both and both checked out fine.

A good step would be to contact afterthemac and/or Ralink to see what the most appropriate (and latest) driver for your dongle is. There is a fairly recent update, not sure it that's for the same chipset as the dongle you have.

did that they're sending me out a tested replacement. i'm gonna check that link out now and try it. are you using the afterthemac product too?

 

[iMeowbot]

did that they're sending me out a tested replacement. i'm gonna check that link out now and try it. are you using the afterthemac product too?

not that particular module, but I've used other USB WiFi dongles with Ralink chipsets (DLink and Belkin) enough to decide that they don't mix well with OS X

 

[Toby Goodbar]

turns out it is the same driver. the first one i bought worked perfectly with no issue and looked like it was a modified dlink product. but the damn puppy ate it i bought a new one and thats when things started acting funny. as long as i stick to internet browsing no problem. even frostwire (p2p app) hasn't given me any problems but bit torrent clients will give me regular kernal panics in as short as 20 minutes or sometimes up to an hour. i thought it was just azureus at first....

anymore advice or things to try?

 

[iMeowbot]

Okay, well if you had an identical unit that worked fine for you other than the little detail that it was eaten, maybe you will be lucky and a replacement will fix up everything. Meanwhile, you could try little things like a different USB port to see if that rearranges memory enough to avoid the conflict, but I think you'll simply need to wait for the new dongle.

 

[Toby Goodbar]

well here's the thing, the new one ISNT identical. its from the same company and still being sold under the same name but they have two distinctively different casings.
i tried a different usb port already. i switched from the 1.1 built in to my 2.0 on the pci card. no change.

you're probly right tho, i'll have to wait for the new dongle. i just figured if it were a dongle problem i wouldn't have a system crash i thought it might be software related so thats why i came here. i really hope this guy didn't cheap out with another company thats gonna have crappy mac drivers.....


looks like the old driver was from RA Link too just FYI

 

[iMeowbot]

You will end up with some version of the same driver no matter what dongle they send, because pretty much all Mac-compatible USB WiFi dongles use Ralink inside.

Even though the kernel log points at a software problem, an attempt to free memory that wasn't allocated, that could still be caused by faulty hardware in the dongle. The driver may have simply been written with the assumption that whatever hardware defect is there wouldn't happen. If you're lucky, the exact same driver won't ever run into that situation with a different (presumably non-defective) example of the same unit.

Then again, the newer dongle could have a slightly newer chipset and the newer driver is simply buggy, in which case you should hand your puppy a soldering iron and a tube of glue, and demand that it reassemble the old one.

 

[Toby Goodbar]

well just ta update for those browsing this over or experiencing problems:

well tha new dongle is in. and it don't work with tha driver installed for tha most recent dongle before that. so i loaded up tha old drivers for tha original one (since this one looked just like it) and NO PROBLEMS everythang is gravy.

so it would ASSUME its tha driver but i have no way to tell. tha original and tha one they sent me now are dlink. tha one that didn't work? not sure. no way ta tell that me know of.

 

[jeremyjames]

It's the driver (I think) Plus, updated link

I've been having the exact same kernel panic. At first I thought it was time machine, so I turned it off. Then I thought it was Firefox 3, so I stopped using for it awhile.

Being a mac newbie, all I could think of was that crashes seemed to happen during heavy wireless networking activity (time machine was accessing my shared folders from my local PCs over the local network)...and then I saw the ralink driver in the crash log, and searched for it, which lead me here.

Anyway, thanks much for the link above to the ralink site. The correct link has changed, it is now: http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Macintosh.html

I downloaded the first option for 10.5. So far so good. I'm on a 8-core Mac Pro, BTW. Hope this is useful. I'll report back if for some reason this doesn't keep working