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From everything I've read, I have a suspicion that the problem is related to your hard drive. KPs when accessing certain portions of your hard drive, KPs when attempting to repair permissions and repair the disk, and KPs when the OS is attempting it's post-boot preen.

So, the problem could be a totally corrupted file system. This is something that DiskWarrior or TechToolPro can help fix. You could also back everything up, reformat the disk (I suggest zeroing out all data), and then reinstalling.

Or, the problem could be with the hard drive itself, which is something you should invest the time to send/bring it to Apple to have your disk replaced.

This is all just my opinion of course..
 
IJ Reilly said:
Whoa, doggie! Here we go with the big cannons again.

Don't just reseat the RAM, remove whatever RAM you can.

After that, try resetting the PMU. (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=14449)

And before I wiped the drive and reinstalled OSX, I'd either (1) try an archive and install, which at least preserves your user directories, or (2) [gasp!] bringing the PB into an authorized repair shop.

I'm still about 95% certain you've got a hardware problem that will not be fixed by reinstalling.

I only had apple stock ram, if I remove it I can't boot. So I re-seated it. I don't want to archive install due to the fact I upgraded from jag to panther. It is time to clear everything and start new. If this doesn't work I have already talked to apple care and they will take my computer in for repair.

:)
 
yellow said:
From everything I've read, I have a suspicion that the problem is related to your hard drive. KPs when accessing certain portions of your hard drive, KPs when attempting to repair permissions and repair the disk, and KPs when the OS is attempting it's post-boot preen.

So, the problem could be a totally corrupted file system. This is something that DiskWarrior or TechToolPro can help fix. You could also back everything up, reformat the disk (I suggest zeroing out all data), and then reinstalling.

Or, the problem could be with the hard drive itself, which is something you should invest the time to send/bring it to Apple to have your disk replaced.

This is all just my opinion of course..

Thanks man, I think you nailed it on the head. I felt it was time to clean it so I have zero'd all the data and am installing it right now. Hopefully this works, if not maybe it's my HD ... :(
 
MrSugar said:
Thanks man, I think you nailed it on the head. I felt it was time to clean it so I have zero'd all the data and am installing it right now. Hopefully this works, if not maybe it's my HD ... :(

Looks bad, I tried install with 2 different disks still no go. Box for applecare and HD replacement will be here today.
 
MrSugar said:
I re-seated the memory, then booted off panther and ran a disk repair followed by a repair permissions. The first time I repaired permissions it kp'd with text all over the screen but after running a disk repair repairing the permissions worked.

So then I attempted to boot up, it went to a blue screen with the spinning gray cirlce then to a black log on screen for the Darwin console. After trying to log in and not being able to it went back to booting up.

I got to the normal OSX login screen, got into OSX .. so I am a bit cautious, I play around and try things out. Seems fine, however, then I open up my hard drive and attempt to browse to certain directories -- the finder freaks out -- bugs out and re-launches the finder, over and over very quickly.

After another reboot it starts up fine, no odd login screen. I get to the desktop and start trying to go to the same directories as before in the finder. This time after browsing through a couple of them it kernel panics on me... I do a hard re-boot. Now in the middle of booting up, when it is still on the white screen with the apple and spinning gray cirlce is kp's.

Now I put in the hardware test CD .... I will let you know how it goes.


I love my Macs, and I love how perfect and stable they have been up until this point. But I have to say it worries me now that I have seen the bad side of what can happen (until now it has been like living in a dream world I thought would never end). I realize that it could have been something I installed or ran, or perhaps not and some hardware has failed (I will find out soon) either way I guess it's just frustrating and kind of nerve wrecking. Of course in comparison, I have done things like this on windows soooo many countless times it makes me sick.

anyway, again thanks for the help

I don't know... It sounds like a software problem to me. I would suggest backing everything up and doing a clean install. If this fails, send it to Apple :(.

edit: I see you already did that. Well, I guess that means it's Hardware :(
 
MrSugar said:
I only had apple stock ram, if I remove it I can't boot. So I re-seated it. I don't want to archive install due to the fact I upgraded from jag to panther. It is time to clear everything and start new. If this doesn't work I have already talked to apple care and they will take my computer in for repair.

:)

You've got only one RAM stick? As I suggested earlier, even factory-installed RAM can be bad. I had exactly that experience myself, as have a lot of other people, and it caused problems nearly identical to the ones you describe.

Did you reset the PMU? This is the last thing I'd try before shipping the PB back to Apple.

I don't agree with the faulty HD diagnoses. That almost certainly would have turned up in an fsck. And since I've been [ahem] right so far, I'm still betting on either (1) bad RAM or (2) a bad motherboard, with most of my money on the first one, because it is so common and produces exactly the symptoms you describe.
 
IJ Reilly said:
You've got only one RAM stick? As I suggested earlier, even factory-installed RAM can be bad. I had exactly that experience myself, as have a lot of other people, and it caused problems nearly identical to the ones you describe.

Did you reset the PMU? This is the last thing I'd try before shipping the PB back to Apple.

I don't agree with the faulty HD diagnoses. That almost certainly would have turned up in an fsck. And since I've been [ahem] right so far, I'm still betting on either (1) bad RAM or (2) a bad motherboard, with most of my money on the first one, because it is so common and produces exactly the symptoms you describe.

It is odd though because it would panic much more often when accessing the hard disk. When installing files to the hard disk, when repairing it, when browsing it, etc. I suppose the ram could be bad, but considering I have had the PB for over a year with no problems until now, I think there is a higher likelyhood the HD would go bad before RAM, correct?
 
memtest is an excellent utility to check RAM. Let it run for a long time.. LONG time.. I suggest hours and hours. The longer it runs, the more effective the testing output.
 
yellow said:
From everything I've read, I have a suspicion that the problem is related to your hard drive. KPs when accessing certain portions of your hard drive, KPs when attempting to repair permissions and repair the disk, and KPs when the OS is attempting it's post-boot preen.

So, the problem could be a totally corrupted file system. This is something that DiskWarrior or TechToolPro can help fix. You could also back everything up, reformat the disk (I suggest zeroing out all data), and then reinstalling.

Or, the problem could be with the hard drive itself, which is something you should invest the time to send/bring it to Apple to have your disk replaced.

This is all just my opinion of course..

I wish I'd thought of that. :D
 
MrSugar said:
It is odd though because it would panic much more often when accessing the hard disk. When installing files to the hard disk, when repairing it, when browsing it, etc. I suppose the ram could be bad, but considering I have had the PB for over a year with no problems until now, I think there is a higher likelyhood the HD would go bad before RAM, correct?

It's kind of counterintuitive, I realize, but I had "good RAM go bad" in two separate instances, both within the last year. In both cases the Macs would run fine for a time, or for quite a while even, and then KP or freeze. Both times, the RAM was the culprit (in one case, the RAM had been used in the Mac for over three years!). As for disk access, it could very well be that the RAM is being utilized more intensively during this operation. I really have no other theories about this, but it's been reported so often by 10.3 users that I have to believe that something changed in OSX 10.3 to make it more picky about RAM specs. Apple admits nothing of course.

Resetting the PMU is something I'd also try, because it's quick and painless, and can possibly wipe out some sort of corruption in the VRAM-PRAM settings. Apple recommends this as a trouble-shooting technique.

I can suggest one other diagnostic method, but I presume your PB is already winging its way back to Apple.
 
I'm very sorry to have to say this, but it's a bad logic board. All the things you wrote about from the text to reboots to reboots to more reboots happened on my old iBook G4.

And it was the logic board. Send that sick puppy back. :(
 
Well, I do still have it, but I get a box today and will send it back. I went through a bunch of trouble shooting and really think it's worth it to send it in. Thanks for the help though everyone, I will let you know how it goes.
 
MrSugar said:
Well, I do still have it, but I get a box today and will send it back. I went through a bunch of trouble shooting and really think it's worth it to send it in. Thanks for the help though everyone, I will let you know how it goes.

Yes, please do. I'm going to subscribe to this thread and I hope you'll post the answer when you get it.
 
So, I have gotten my powerbook back from Apple. It is working like a charm, no problems and I have all my stuff installed again (thank god for backups).

I don't think they replaced the hard drive because it still has the two partitions I made on it when trying to install panther before sending it in to them.

Sadly they didn't say what they did to fix it on the repair sheet, all it refered to was software corruption... which is very odd to me. This is because I tried installing both panther and jaguar, and got the exact same problems on both. I suppose they could have replaced the RAM.

I am happy it is working but after all the toil I went through I wish I knew what they did to get it working.

Anyway, thanks for the help everyone, glad to have my PB working in tip top shape again!! :)
 
MrSugar said:
I am happy it is working but after all the toil I went through I wish I knew what they did to get it working.

Anyway, thanks for the help everyone, glad to have my PB working in tip top shape again!! :)


You can call AppleCare and ask them for a detailed report on what went wrong.

I'm betting it was the logic board.
 
vraxtus said:
You can call AppleCare and ask them for a detailed report on what went wrong.

I'm betting it was the logic board.

I didn't know this, I will call them when I get some time, thanks!
 
vraxtus said:
You can call AppleCare and ask them for a detailed report on what went wrong.

I'm betting it was the logic board.

Probably that or RAM. If you find out, please let us know. In the meantime, it's good to see that you're up and running again!
 
IJ Reilly said:
Probably that or RAM. If you find out, please let us know. In the meantime, it's good to see that you're up and running again!

Yeah, I just got off the phone with support. They replaced the logic board of the computer... crazy. Nice job to those of you who called it.

Thanks again for the great help on this throughout my expirience, it has been great to have a resource like this to turn to! That's why I love the Mac community! :D
 
MrSugar said:
Yeah, I just got off the phone with support. They replaced the logic board of the computer... crazy. Nice job to those of you who called it.

Thanks again for the great help on this throughout my expirience, it has been great to have a resource like this to turn to! That's why I love the Mac community! :D

I do believe I'm being given permission to gloat. :D

Something to remember the next time somebody suggests reinstalling OSX...
 
IJ Reilly said:
I do believe I'm being given permission to gloat. :D

Something to remember the next time somebody suggests reinstalling OSX...

Yes, I just re-read all the posts of this topic. You really did have it nailed down from the beginning, I will think twice next time before I do a full re-install.

However, in this case I felt like I needed to do one anyway, so it was a choice I easily came to.

Thanks again, nice job on being right
 
MrSugar said:
Yes, I just re-read all the posts of this topic. You really did have it nailed down from the beginning, I will think twice next time before I do a full re-install.

However, in this case I felt like I needed to do one anyway, so it was a choice I easily came to.

Thanks again, nice job on being right


Wait... so did I. Where's my credit??? :D

And actually, I was more right on than IJ... his speculation that it was the RAM was not correct...

Told ya it was the logic board :D
 
keysersoze said:
I'm very sorry to have to say this, but it's a bad logic board. All the things you wrote about from the text to reboots to reboots to more reboots happened on my old iBook G4.

And it was the logic board. Send that sick puppy back. :(

Aha! I win! (along with everyone else :) )
 
haha, okay, okay.

You guys all did a great job... I am in eternal debt, and.... will send you free cookies.
 
Kernel Panic At Startup Powerbook G4 17" 1.67 Osx 10.4.11

Kernel Panic At Startup Powerbook G4 17" 1.67 Os X 10.4.11

Good Day

I left my laptop off for 3 months with no baterrie, duo a trip to EU, after trying to turn it on , I could not get pass by the Kernel display,
I did backup my system through firewire as slave HD, I can start the computer holding down shift at startup, but then a few functions wont work, it is just the safe boot.

I re-install my MAC OSX 10.4 then the up date to 10.4.11 but still no lock.

I also try to connect it to the internet via ethernet cable but I guess it is disable.

Still no lock , just try to Reset PRAM and NVRAM and I am still getting the kernel display,
I also reset the PMU and still no lock

but again if I try to turn it on holding shift , the computer start normally on safe boot , and it seems to have no hardware error what so ever.

If anybody has any other ideias I am glad to try..


Many Thanks

rodobrodo@hotmail.com
 
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