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Just got my first "Gray Screen." Should I be worried?

mrat93

mrat93

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2006
2,354
3,421
I've had my aluminum iMac since September 2007. Never had to take it in for repairs or anything. Today, while streaming a flash movie online (that I own, but can't find) from a site full of Flash advertisements, gray shaded the screen, and I got the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen.

Should I be worried about this, or did it just happen because of the overload of Flash that my iMac was processing? Thanks guys.
 
Could be. Could be any number of things. If it only happens once in a rare while, then just reboot and move on. If it starts to happen a lot, then you've got a problem.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
I would be. I haven't seen a kernel panic in years and they're usually related to hardware failure.

Is everything up to date?
Click to expand...

I just upgraded from 10.6.3 to 10.6.4. I've been using the computer for an hour or so now. No problems whatsoever.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
I would be. I haven't seen a kernel panic in years and they're usually related to hardware failure.

Is everything up to date?
Click to expand...

facepalm.jpg

OP, don't listen to this guy. If anything, I'd just check permissions on the OS. Most likely, you're fine.
 
soley said:
facepalm.jpg

OP, don't listen to this guy. If anything, I'd just check permissions on the OS. Most likely, you're fine.
Click to expand...

You say I deserve a facepalm, but you tell the OP to check permissions? Permissions issues would be a ridiculous and extremely unlikely cause of a kernel panic.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
You say I deserve a facepalm, but you tell the OP to check permissions? Permissions issues would be a ridiculous and extremely unlikely cause of a kernel panic.
Click to expand...

I agree with Jimbo on this one. Kernel panics are almost always hardware (bad Ram, logic board, etc.) related.
 
I haven't seen a Kernel panic on 2-3 years, on either my MacBook or Hackintosh. I remember an issue about four years back I had with a PowerBook with a loose internal Airport card that would Kernel Panic if you jolted it...

It's usually a hardware problem, but occasionally software. If software, a permissions repair usually fixes it.
 
dirt farmer said:
I agree with Jimbo on this one. Kernel panics are almost always hardware (bad Ram, logic board, etc.) related.
Click to expand...

Bad drivers are hardware-related, since they run the hardware, but that doesn't mean it's bad hardware.

I concur that repairing permissions isn't going to do anything to help with kernel panics. I also concur that it happening once isn't a bad sign. If it happens several more times this week, that's really bad.
 
mrat93 said:
I've had my aluminum iMac since September 2007. Never had to take it in for repairs or anything. Today, while streaming a flash movie online (that I own, but can't find) from a site full of Flash advertisements, gray shaded the screen, and I got the dreaded "You need to restart your computer" screen.

Should I be worried about this, or did it just happen because of the overload of Flash that my iMac was processing? Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

On my MacBook Pro, I used to get very regular kernel panics. If I watched a long Flash movie, I was almost guaranteed to get one - I believe it was due to overheating problems.

I wiped & reinstalled it (upgrading to 10.6 in the process) and things improved a lot. I still got one kernel panic while watching a movie, so I bought a USB cooling pad to see if that made a difference. After trying that, I haven't had a single kernel panic since.

I would reckon many kernel panics are hardware related, either overheating or a problem with faulty, or incorrectly seated RAM.
 
Detrius said:
Bad drivers are hardware-related, since they run the hardware, but that doesn't mean it's bad hardware.

I concur that repairing permissions isn't going to do anything to help with kernel panics. I also concur that it happening once isn't a bad sign. If it happens several more times this week, that's really bad.
Click to expand...

A kernel panic happens when, as the name implies, the OS kernel gets into an error state that it has no idea what to do. Usually the software is designed to handle error states, but in modern multi-threaded systems with varieties of hardware configurations, occasionally, things happen.

To use a vehicle analogy, a kernel panic is the equivalent of having a car accident. Sometimes, there's no real explanation other than, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too many cars to keep track of, one of them made a mistake, you weren't able to correct for it -- boom.

On the other hand, if you get in your car and find that you are crashing it twice a week, then it's time to stop and ask what's going on. Maybe you have a stuck accelerator pedal, or faulty brakes, or some other hardware issue.
 
notjustjay said:
A kernel panic happens when, as the name implies, the OS kernel gets into an error state that it has no idea what to do. Usually the software is designed to handle error states, but in modern multi-threaded systems with varieties of hardware configurations, occasionally, things happen.

To use a vehicle analogy, a kernel panic is the equivalent of having a car accident. Sometimes, there's no real explanation other than, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too many cars to keep track of, one of them made a mistake, you weren't able to correct for it -- boom.

On the other hand, if you get in your car and find that you are crashing it twice a week, then it's time to stop and ask what's going on. Maybe you have a stuck accelerator pedal, or faulty brakes, or some other hardware issue.
Click to expand...

Or you're a bad driver. ;)
 
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