For a while now, my system has frequently crashed (a few times a day). I am using a late 2008 MacBook Pro MB134LL/A with 4 GBs of ram. I have the developer release of Lion 11A390, but this happened at about the same rate when I still had Snow Leopard. This is the type of crash where the gray screen rolls down and it gives you the message in five languages. I'm not sure, but I think that means it's a kernel panic? This happens slightly more frequently when I'm doing something more strenuous to the system, like playing WoW while running iTunes and 3 windows of Chrome, but it doesn't seem to make a big difference. I have repaired permissions, the disk, etc, and it doesn't have anything to do with disk space, I have over half of my drive free and have erased free space. I also have the most recent three console logs available to post, if anyone would like to look at them. Anyone have any info or feedback?
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Frequent System Crashes
- Thread starter aj589
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Since this has been happening before your Lion install, perhaps you should have the machine looked at by an Apple Genius. Or at the vary least look and see what causes the panic and search Google or the Apple forums. Frequent kernel panics should not happen no matter which OS version you are using.
Are you getting the Kernel Panics (yes they are Kernel Panics indeed) when you're on the 9600 or the 6400 graphics card? To check, go to System Preferences and then to Energy Saver. There, at the top, either "Better Battery Life" or "Better Performance" should be selected. The first is the 9400 and the second one is the 9600 respectively.
I often get Kernel Panics (once a week) when using the 9600 (Higher Performance) card under Snow Leopard, so I no longer use it. It's apparently due to nVidia using some bad soldering material that melts in their chips. Unfortunately nVidia often uses poor quality material and there's nothing you can do unless you have Apple care.
If you're running on the 9400, then it is most probably bad RAM. Go to Apple first, but if you want you can remove one of your RAM modules, and see if the crashes still occur. If they do, put back the module and remove the other one, and check again. If that fixes the issue, one of you RAM modules is faulty, buy a new one.
You can also run the Apple Hardware Test, though it did not show problems for me even though I clearly have them.
I often get Kernel Panics (once a week) when using the 9600 (Higher Performance) card under Snow Leopard, so I no longer use it. It's apparently due to nVidia using some bad soldering material that melts in their chips. Unfortunately nVidia often uses poor quality material and there's nothing you can do unless you have Apple care.
If you're running on the 9400, then it is most probably bad RAM. Go to Apple first, but if you want you can remove one of your RAM modules, and see if the crashes still occur. If they do, put back the module and remove the other one, and check again. If that fixes the issue, one of you RAM modules is faulty, buy a new one.
You can also run the Apple Hardware Test, though it did not show problems for me even though I clearly have them.