Help with "You need to restart your computer"

[AngryMan]

Hi guys,
I take it you are all familiar with this irritating message :
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button ... or press the Restart button.

Here's the situation : I was watching my favorite Sitcom when all of a sudden, the screen went flaky (I could still make out what was on the screen though) and the computer froze. I forced it to shutdown. When I restarted it, I saw the usual Apple Logo with the loading circle underneath, but they too were a bit flaky. There are wave-like distorted flaky grey lines above the apple, and the loading circle isn't crisp either. Then after a few seconds, the same message appears : Not the classical grey screen with the 4 language "You need to " ... message. It's grey, with flaky black stripes.

So I've been through it all : Zap the PR ram or whatever, change the RAM, etc. It won't even let me boot from a CD. I inserted the Install CD1, and held down the C key for it to boot from the CD : nothing, it boots as if nothing happened. Then, I restarted holding down the "Alt" key, specifically selected the CD drive, and then again nothing. The apple logo shows, and then the error screen.

What can it be ? From what I've read, this must be a hardware issue since it won't let me boot from a CD and since there are those flakes, I take it my graphic card is fried.

Can you confirm this, or is there another explanation ?

 

[Mackilroy]

That's a kernel panic. Unfortunately, beyond telling you what the problem is I don't know how to fix it. Good luck!

 

[mulo]

post the panic log.

 

[noire anqa]

Can you start in TD? (Target Disk Mode > hold down T at startup).

If you can, access your HD from another Mac and post the panic logs, in 10.6 they're located in in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports, in 10.2 - 10.5 they're in /Library/Logs/PanicReporter

 

[AngryMan]

Can you start in TD? (Target Disk Mode > hold down T at startup).

If you can, access your HD from another Mac and post the panic logs, in 10.6 they're located in in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports, in 10.2 - 10.5 they're in /Library/Logs/PanicReporter

Thanks for the feedback.
I cannot start in TD either. There's a big white Circle with three blocks around it hovering on my screen when I try to.

I cannot post the panic log..

 

[mulo]

I cannot post the panic log..

take the hard drive out, plug into another mac as an external drive?

 

[noire anqa]

Thanks for the feedback.
I cannot start in TD either. There's a big white Circle with three blocks around it hovering on my screen when I try to.

I cannot post the panic log..

No problem,

That sounds like TD Mode to me .. TD mode essentially turns your computer into a giant firewire external hard drive. You then need to plug it into another mac via the firewire port in order to read the contents of the drive.

does it look like this? if so thats TD mode!

it sounds like your graphics card is messed up so it might look like a distorted version of that.

Assuming that you did actually get it into TD mode > you now need to connect the computer to another mac via a firewire cable. A drive should subsequently mount on the desktop. If a drive doesn't mount then open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility.app) and see if a firewire device is listed in the left hand side. Try repairing it if it is listed.

Once you get it to mount > navigate to the panic logs directory i gave earlier and post them - remember to use the code tags when you post logs!