OS X 10.3 Fatal Crash

[lastofthebarons]

Apologies if this has been aired before but I can't find a reference. I'm running OS X 10.3.3 on an iMac 333Mhz with 288MB it was pretty stable tho' obviously not as speedy as a more up to date machine. It is at least faster than 10.2 and I have scrapped OS 9 as I have no use for it.

I have started getting the following. The screen greys and a multilanguage notice comes up with the power button imposed in the middle and with the following message in English:-

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

Pressing the Power button has no effect but pressing Restart does.

Why is it doing this? It was a one off but is now happening with greater frequency. The only thing that comes to mind is that perhaps the battery needs replacing but other than that I am toally at a loss. Some help would be appreciated.

 

[grabberslasher]

This is a kernel panic. It's usually very rare on Mac OS X. What hardware/software have you got installed?

 

[Fukui]

Apologies if this has been aired before but I can't find a reference. I'm running OS X 10.3.3 on an iMac 333Mhz with 288MB it was pretty stable tho' obviously not as speedy as a more up to date machine. It is at least faster than 10.2 and I have scrapped OS 9 as I have no use for it.

I have started getting the following. The screen greys and a multilanguage notice comes up with the power button imposed in the middle and with the following message in English:-

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

Pressing the Power button has no effect but pressing Restart does.

Why is it doing this? It was a one off but is now happening with greater frequency. The only thing that comes to mind is that perhaps the battery needs replacing but other than that I am toally at a loss. Some help would be appreciated.

Have you got all the firmware updates for the iMac?
If after updating the firmware, and you extra RAM disappears, then it was most
likely bad RAM.

 

[N10248]

I somtimes get this too - very annoying. i think it is network hardware / software related in my case as its happened a couple of times while i've had a windows network share mounted and its also happened at startup twice when i've had a device connected to the LAN port.

Bye

 

[mkrishnan]

I've only gotten one so far (in six months). Kid you not, it was caused by Brittney Spears! Happened exactly on the last beat of "Baby One More Time." That'll teach me to buy something like that from iTunes on a whim!

There's a faq:

http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html

On this topic...I'm glad I only got the one. I use sidetrack which is a potential culprit, according to this faq.

 

[janey]

bleh, kernel panics can go to hell
i keep getting them on my powerbook, an average of two a day
so i need to reinstall OS X soon
I doubt its sidetrack...i have virtually the same software installed on both my iBook and my PowerBook, including sidetrack, and only my pb is giving me tons of trouble, especially when I plug in my iPod or any other firewire drive.

 

[Rod Rod]

bleh, kernel panics can go to hell
i keep getting them on my powerbook, an average of two a day
so i need to reinstall OS X soon
I doubt its sidetrack...i have virtually the same software installed on both my iBook and my PowerBook, including sidetrack, and only my pb is giving me tons of trouble, especially when I plug in my iPod or any other firewire drive.

I had TONS of KPs on my previous PowerBook. it turned out the culprit was a loose Airport Extreme card. once that was securely seated, there were no more KPs.

lastofthebarons, as Fukui said it may be bad RAM... and if you have an Airport card, I'd double-check that it's connected solidly.

 

[angelneo]

I have a couple of this before. It came when I was connected to another OS 7 mac via Appletalk and when that OS 7 goes down. It will bring down my connected OS X as well.

 

[IJ Reilly]

In my experience, very few kernel panics are software related. The main causes:

1. Bad RAM
2. Something physically loose (Airport card, USB or FW plug).

The diagnostic process should be fairly obvious, but one thing hardly anyone thinks to do before pushing the panic button is run the Apple Hardware Test CD.

Oh, and don't forget to run fsck or some other disk repair after every hard restart. You'll almost always have cause some directory damage.

 

[keysersoze]

I had many kernel panics on my old iBook G4 800... eventually it just didn't even start up. Turned out the motherboard was shot. Good luck!

 

[mkrishnan]

I had many kernel panics on my old iBook G4 800... eventually it just didn't even start up. Turned out the motherboard was shot. Good luck!

Ahh, even the Mac world moves so quickly that the iBook G4 is already "old." *Sheds a tear for his six-month old iBook...still an infant!*

 

[lastofthebarons]

OS X 10.3 Fatal Crash

Many thanks to all who posted. I have in the meantime installed OS X 10.3.4 and have just enjoyed(?) my first kernel panic with this update. I will now open it all up and try reseating the memory. It shouldn't be down to it not being Apple memory, as it is a Kingston 256MB module addition. Will let you know.

 

[bousozoku]

Many thanks to all who posted. I have in the meantime installed OS X 10.3.4 and have just enjoyed(?) my first kernel panic with this update. I will now open it all up and try reseating the memory. It shouldn't be down to it not being Apple memory, as it is a Kingston 256MB module addition. Will let you know.

I hope it's not from the ValueRAM series. I had a Windows PC re-boot over 30 times one day until we took out the extra RAM.

I've had more kernel panics with 10.3.3 and 10.3.4 in the last couple of months than I had from 10.2.6 to 10.3.2.

 

[mkrishnan]

Oh, just a little BTW. Sidetrack's public beta expired yesterday or the day before so probably everyone using it had to download the new version. Its install will ask you to restart, but if you're an idiot, like me, you'll notice it works right away, and figure, eh, I'll shut down later. And then forget about it. And then put your computer to sleep. When I did this, it completely hung after waking up (screen came up, no key responses except holding down power to shut it off). After re-boot, everything seems A-okay.

So just a warning about the stupid restart thing....

 

[hobbyiest o/a]

need help

Apologies if this has been aired before but I can't find a reference. I'm running OS X 10.3.3 on an iMac 333Mhz with 288MB it was pretty stable tho' obviously not as speedy as a more up to date machine. It is at least faster than 10.2 and I have scrapped OS 9 as I have no use for it.

I have started getting the following. The screen greys and a multilanguage notice comes up with the power button imposed in the middle and with the following message in English:-

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

Pressing the Power button has no effect but pressing Restart does.

Why is it doing this? It was a one off but is now happening with greater frequency. The only thing that comes to mind is that perhaps the battery needs replacing but other than that I am toally at a loss. Some help would be appreciated.

well the thing i've seen is that the macosx realy needs the os9.2.2 installed because it plays a part of the roll of the macosx system so you should reinstall your maxos x with the classics of os9.2.2 and make sure
that your machintosh hd is not conjusted with junk you do'nt need that used lots and lots of bites of memory that you could save time and when you frist setup your system set it for english mode than continuie the insatallaton of your system . do not use mozilla 1.6 on panther it wo'nt work correctly nither you should use this if you use mozilla 1.7 whice has been written in for panther. makes sure you have not installed older programes they will not work and make sure it's compatable with panther as well. good luck.

 

[pyrotoaster]

bleh, kernel panics can go to hell
i keep getting them on my powerbook, an average of two a day
so i need to reinstall OS X soon
I doubt its sidetrack...i have virtually the same software installed on both my iBook and my PowerBook, including sidetrack, and only my pb is giving me tons of trouble, especially when I plug in my iPod or any other firewire drive.

I get a Kernel Panic on my Powerbook everytime the AirPort card dislodges while the machine is on. It's only happened times, but at least now I know the first thing to check when I get a KP.
Of course, when I accidentally dropped my Powerbook onto the kitchen floor, denting the side of the aluminum, it woke up from sleep just fine with absolutely no problem.

 

[thecombatwombat]

I get a Kernel Panic on my Powerbook everytime the AirPort card dislodges while the machine is on. It's only happened times, but at least now I know the first thing to check when I get a KP.
Of course, when I accidentally dropped my Powerbook onto the kitchen floor, denting the side of the aluminum, it woke up from sleep just fine with absolutely no problem.

Heh, similar thing happened to me. Thankfully I didn't drop, it slid down my bed, on my bedspread the whole time, no dents, but it did dislodge the airport card while sleeping.

No kernel panics, but I sure did freak out when I got to work and opened the thing up, and it said I had no airport card.

I'll definitely keep in mind that the thing dislodging while running can cause a kernel panic.

 

[Thom_Edwards]

well the thing i've seen is that the macosx realy needs the os9.2.2 installed because it plays a part of the roll of the macosx system so you should reinstall your maxos x with the classics of os9.2.2 and make sure
that your machintosh hd is not conjusted with junk you do'nt need that used lots and lots of bites of memory that you could save time and when you frist setup your system set it for english mode than continuie the insatallaton of your system . do not use mozilla 1.6 on panther it wo'nt work correctly nither you should use this if you use mozilla 1.7 whice has been written in for panther. makes sure you have not installed older programes they will not work and make sure it's compatable with panther as well. good luck.

from where, may i ask, do you get this knowledge? not to sound offensive, but nothing in your post is correct!

i have x installed w/o 9--no problems.

data on the hard drive does not use bytes that would conflict with any operation of the computer except for the hard drive being full. (ok, *maybe* that would mess with the virtual memory/swap, but that would only degrade performance and not cause a kernel panic.)

i can't find one place where he/she mentioned anything about mozilla being installed... i've not heard of it causing panics from anyone else. why are you saying that it will cause a kernel panic? have you done testing with each version of mozilla and os x?

and what older programs should he/she not install? you're saying make sure he has classic installed--i'm guessing those apps that need it are not new. apps that won't run on a newer os (generally) won't install. btw, i've got golive 6, a rather old program running with no problems.

i'm sure you mean well, but i would check facts before you starting spewing incorrect information to someone that is having a problem.


concerning helping the original poster, i wish i knew what to suggest. but since i don't, i will point out what he/she should *not* do.

 

[Makosuke]

Oh, and don't forget to run fsck or some other disk repair after every hard restart. You'll almost always have cause some directory damage.

Actually, I don't think it's necesary to manually run fsck after a hard restart; I'm pretty sure that, as with older versions of the MacOS, OSX runs a disk check on its own after an improper shutdown. It just doesn't tell you that's what it's doing.

I admit I haven't seen this documented anywhere, but after a hard restart both 10.2 and 10.3 sit at the Apple spinner for a lot longer than usual. I've also noticed that if I do a manual fsck right after an improper restart, it'll usually find some problems. If I restart with no fsck, then restart again (properly) and do one, it comes up clean.

Pretty sure this indicates the OS is taking care of things in the background, so you might as well save yourself the time. (I'll also add that with journaling on in 10.3 I've never run into a disk error that wasn't fixed automatically in this way; I can't say the same for journaling-less 10.2.)

As for the original question, I have nothing specific to add (bad RAM or just a bum install of OSX is always the most likely cause of repeated, random crashes) other than that there are a handful of operations that can cause kernel panics. In 10.2, trying to connect to a Windows share using an IP address would cause a panic; in 10.3 certain networking operations in Java cause kernel panics on dual processor machines.

That last one is a HUGE annoyance for me, since I have one and the BitTorrent client Azureus happens to use those operations heavily; pre-2.1.0.0 versions cause a panic about every three days, and the newest versions will panic the computer within a few minutes.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

In my experience, very few kernel panics are software related. The main causes:

1. Bad RAM
2. Something physically loose (Airport card, USB or FW plug).

The diagnostic process should be fairly obvious, but one thing hardly anyone thinks to do before pushing the panic button is run the Apple Hardware Test CD.

Oh, and don't forget to run fsck or some other disk repair after every hard restart. You'll almost always have cause some directory damage.

I got a whole bunch of KPs when I got my iMac G4 (I was getting one every 15 minutes or so). It turned out that the cause was corrupt power manager settings. Once the Apple Store folks reset my iMac's PMU, the KPs stopped; it's been crash-free ever since.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Actually, I don't think it's necesary to manually run fsck after a hard restart; I'm pretty sure that, as with older versions of the MacOS, OSX runs a disk check on its own after an improper shutdown. It just doesn't tell you that's what it's doing.

Running fsck after a hard restart is chicken soup for the Mac. It couldn't hurt. And FWIW, I've yet to see a crashing situation fixed by reinstalling the OS, which is so often suggested and so infrequently necessary. It's always been something in the hardware or firmware.

 

[crees!]

I've only had two situations where I had a kernel panic on my PB. The first happened every time I tried to launch an application that wasn't properly cracked The second was when one of my RAM sticks went bad on me but as soon as that was replaced every thing is fine. My machine is rock solid and I have to say I will NEVER go back to the devilish world of Windows.