Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I think Microsoft made my iBook

J

JohnnyCanuck

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 26, 2003
8
0
My Mac has been crashing several times daily. Programs will randomly crash a minimum of 10 times a day. Sometimes everything just freezes without any indication as to what's happening, but more often than not, I get the following message:

"You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart Button"

You can see what the screen looks like at the following site:

http://www.mexicanwater.com/my_mac_sucks.jpg

I've restarted several times. I've reinstalled Panther several times. Nothing works.

I've been a big Mac preacher for a long while, but this makes me want to think twice before saying, "OS X is more stable than Windows"

I'm running Panther (a legitimate copy I purchased) on an iBook G3 500MHZ.

I have not experienced any crashes on my G3 400 Indigo iMac.

Anybody else have a similar problem or know what the F@#* is going on?
 
thanks, but it looks like i'm not covered. i have the original ibook of the white series.. it's probably about 2.5 to 3 years old or so. maybe older. i'm not good with time.
 
JohnnyCanuck said:
My Mac has been crashing several times daily. Programs will randomly crash a minimum of 10 times a day. Sometimes everything just freezes without any indication as to what's happening, but more often than not, I get the following message:

"You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart Button"

You can see what the screen looks like at the following site:

http://www.mexicanwater.com/my_mac_sucks.jpg

I've restarted several times. I've reinstalled Panther several times. Nothing works.

I've been a big Mac preacher for a long while, but this makes me want to think twice before saying, "OS X is more stable than Windows"

I'm running Panther (a legitimate copy I purchased) on an iBook G3 500MHZ.

I have not experienced any crashes on my G3 400 Indigo iMac.

Anybody else have a similar problem or know what the F@#* is going on?
Click to expand...

double-post much?
 
Duff-Man says...have you added any ram to the iBook by any chance? Ram that is not "up to spec" is another known cause of many kernel panics...oh yeah!
 
Unless you've installed some really weird 3rd-party kernel extensions KPs are usually caused by some kind of hardware problem. I'd recommend running a thorough test from the "Apple Hardware Test" CD, and see if that helps.

Also, like Duff-Man said, try removing any extra RAM you've added.
 
Have it looked at NOW. Get it fixed.

JohnnyCanuck said:
I've been a big Mac preacher for a long while, but this makes me want to think twice before saying, "OS X is more stable than Windows"

I'm running Panther (a legitimate copy I purchased) on an iBook G3 500MHZ.

I have not experienced any crashes on my G3 400 Indigo iMac.

Anybody else have a similar problem or know what the F@#* is going on?
Click to expand...

Johnny- What you're getting is called a kernal panic. Sometimes kernal panics can fill up your screen with annoying black and white text and crash your computer like that, but you're getting one of Apple's "friendly" kernal panics. I know what you're going through because I had similar problems with my iBook G3 600Mhz (Late 2001).

My advice? Send it in to a repair place now before it gets worse.

My iBook started kernal panicking at least once every three days about a year ago. I thought it was annoying, but I let it ride, all it meant was I had to deal with a restart every three days, and I'm a pretty lazy person.
So anyway, it lived like that for six months. I noticed every time it crashed, the whole computer overheated, and the hard drive would make strange clicking sounds. Well, a few months later, the clicking got worse. Now it was starting to make a scarier sound, kind of like it was self-destructing. Plus, my battery had completely gone out. Unplugged, I had about five minutes to use my computer before it would shut down. I couldn't risk losing all my data, and I couldn't stand having a teathered laptop, so the next time I was near an Apple store I brought it in.

Three weeks later, I got my computer back. They had replaced the motherboard and the hard drive, but had not replaced my battery. Instead they included a kind note telling me about how I would need to spend $120 more then the $350 I had already spent fixing it, to get a new battery.

Plus, the idiots had lost my power cord, so I was stuck without a working computer for another week.

Anyway, the point is, I believe all these problems (even the battery and hard drive problems) came from my faulty motherboard. When it was overheating, (the overheating happened suspiciously close to the location of the logic board by the way) not only was it destroying itself and causing itself to crash, it was also destroying my hard drive and my battery by poorly managing its own power (power management shuts down in a kernal panic).

Get it fixed now.

And before anyone asks, yes, my computer was mysteriously left off the list of those eligible for free repairs to logic boards.

Personally, I believe that Apple only acknowledged a small portion of the problem to avoid having to pay off everyone with the problem. Pretty crappy if you ask me...

And no, bad RAM was NOT the cause of my problem, it started way before I installed any third party RAM and Apple's technicians found no problems with my RAM, and now that they have fixed it I have not had one kernal panic with the same RAM installed.

It may be the cause of yours however.
 
There are three major causes of kernel panics that I know of (listed from most to least common):
1. A hardware problem, like bad RAM
2. Ill-behaving third-party kernel extensions
3. Corrupt Power Manager settings

To diagnose the first cause, run the Apple Hardware Test.
For the second cause, removing programs that install these things (like Norton Utilities) is the method to use.
The third and least likely cause is also the most difficult to diagnose and correct. I don't know how to determine if this is causing the problem, but a Power Management Unit reset will correct this problem. Instructions for PowerBook and iBook users can be found on Apple's web site. (Those who own a desktop Mac, like an iMac, eMac, or PowerMac, don't have it so easy. Resetting the PMU for these Macs requires opening the computer.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back