System lock up with black&white text, what happend?

[Earendil]

So I'm driving down the road at night with my PB 1.25ghz 15" baby, running Panther 10.3.2 when all of a sudden the music goes out and starts making static noises (music being fed to car by the PB). I look down at my screen and almost wrecked the car because of what I saw. My poor baby had spewed black bars containing white text all over my screen. The computer was locked up. I try and find a place to pull over as my computer keeps yelling for help over my car speakers with this loud "I'm dieing" static. I finally pull over to the side of the road and take a closer look at what the text said. I wish I had had a camera, because I knew I wouldn't remember what all was written. It looked like a diagnostic read out of sorts. The only line I remember was something like "CPU = 0" near the top. There were probably 15 lines of text, ranging in width from 1/4 screen to 3/4.

I did a hard restart and she fired right back up again. What happened to my baby? and how do I keep it from happening again?

Tyler
Earendil

 

[Horrortaxi]

Kernel panic. What made it happen? Probably hardware related--like a hard drive bouncing around in a car? How do you keep it from happening? If you know what causes it, don't do it. Apart from that, they happen when they happen but they're pretty rare.

 

[virividox]

if you added ram that could cause kernel panics

just remove the offending ram and observe if it is the ram get it replaced.

 

[Earendil]

aahh haa, so this is the "kernal panic" I hear of?
I am pretty new to OSX, my previous computer, a bondi iMac, still sits in pre-OSX days.

The system, though not one of the "stock" PB that Apple lists, is one that was modified at Apple.com. I haven't changed/modified/added any hardware whatsoever.

Not saying hardware from apple can't be to fault, but this is the first kernal panic in the 3 and a half months I've had the computer.

The only possible hardware problem I can think of is my PB's tendency to not always wake from sleep. I fear the logic board, but with a small white spot on the screen as well, I'm going to let a few of these problems amount to something that I can stick a finger on, and so point out to Apple when I send it in for the screen. Two birds with one stone and all that.

Could a logic board cause a kernal panic?

Tyler
Earendil

 

[Horrortaxi]

Originally posted by Earendil
Could a logic board cause a kernal panic?

Oh hell yeah! It would probably do some other things too, but it would end up causing kernel panics.

I was only half kidding about the hard drive causing it. If the hard drive can't be read, as might happen if it got a few good hits while running in a moving car, it could cause a kernel panic.