PowerMac G5 kernel panics

[bierce85]

Hey all,

Having some trouble with a G5 I purchased on ebay last week.

I was experiencing crashes [kernel panics] every 20-30 min during medium-light usage [itunes/safari/file transfers simultaneously, etc]. Figured out that it was probably the RAM causing the issues so I removed 2 of the 4 RAM sticks [2 ratty old looking Dell sticks] and the problem seemed to go away. All the stuff that triggered the panics before no longer did, so I thought I was in the clear....

Then I experienced 2 more crashes while transferring files to/fro external drives and using safari simultaneously. This also caused panics before.

So I'm wondering why removing RAM seems to have killed 90% of the crashing but not all of it. Is it possible that the crashes while the bad RAM was installed corrupted some files? That's about all I can think of outside of the two remaining sticks also being bad, or a bad logic board. But it seems kind of unlikely that you'd have both bad RAM and a bad logic board, no?

Any ideas? I'm stumped. Thinking I might purchase some new RAM and reformat again, but that's about all I've got.

Thanks!
-William

 

[bierce85]

also, I should mention I'm running 10.5.8, and oddly the newest security update would not install during software update. dunno if thats related...

 

[haruspex]

there are universal binary builds of Memtest and similar things, use that to see if it's a memory problem.

weird that the update wouldn't install. is your hard drive in okay condition? might want to try a reformat if the RAM and hard drive check out.

 

[bierce85]

I actually bought and installed memtest, but got confused by the directions while trying to run it. After typing in the command he tells you to use, I didn't understand how to go and check in the terminal. That's when I decided to just try pulling the RAM out.

 

[Tucom]

Was this ever fixed? There are so many threads or posts in one giant thread of G5's going down a dark, Kernel-Paniced road and never returning, but it seems the issue lies w/ either the sATA card on the mobo going bad.


Strange thing is they all note that it occurs close than not to when they upgrade to 10.5


Not sure if that's related either and I doubt it, I mean it would be insane for Apple to purposefully nerf their own machines, so I think it's safe to rule that out, yeah?