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The Kernel Panicking G5 Power Mac

Jaffa Cake

Jaffa Cake

macrumors Core
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
19,801
9
The City of Culture, Englandshire
Lately, one of our work machines has regularly started to suffer kernel panics a couple of times a day. Spec wise it's a 1.8GHz dual processor G5 Power Mac, running 10.5.8.

I've tried swapping out the RAM to no avail, and tried a different hard drive as the start up disk – neither worked, and the panics continue. There doesn't seem to be a particular pattern to what's causing them – they've occurred when installing software, when working in various apps, composing emails, even when the screen saver comes on.

The panics always have this appearance, rather than the more fancy 'You need to restart your computer' in multiple languages version...

poorly_mac.jpg

While I'm quite happy swapping components around with my little screwdriver, I'll freely admit that decoding all that information is a little beyond my expertise – would any of MacRumors' brightest minds be able to take a look and tell me if there's anything in there that would indicate where the problem lies, and and possible ways to resolve it?

Ta muchly,
Jaffa
 
I'm not an expert in deciphering code, but I am thinking it may be a memory problem with the GPU. I only say that because it looks a lot like memory addresses in the stack and the fact that it states "frame not mapped or invalid." I have to assume that the word frame is indicating an issue with the GPU.

Or the logic board is failing. Being that you've already swapped out the main system RAM and HDD. There's not much else to look at in the way of replaceable hardware.
 
I think reseating the processors may help, but then again that's probably far from the issue (just something to try if all else fails, can fix issues I've read). There's always clearing the PRAM, but that probably isn't the issue either.


I think the issue IS the video card as the guy above me pointed out, I'd try reseating it, or actually, just replacing it.

Any updates?
 
Tucom said:
Any updates?
Click to expand...
I'll be taking a good look at the machine when I'm back in on Monday – I was hoping to do so Friday but was a tad stacked out. :eek:

Thanks for the pointers, chaps – I'll check the graphics card first, in fact I might even swap it with one of our spare Macs and see if that helps.

It might be worthwhile me double checking the RAM too – as I say, I swapped the sticks with those from a spare but that's the chance that one of the replacements might be duff too.

I'll let you know how I get on.
 
Sorry about the lack of updates guys – work's been stacked out so my 'fiddling with Macs' time has been limited, and I was off for a week as well. :p

In any case, as discussed I tried swapping the graphics card out and also I tried a fresh set of RAM too – and the problem still persisted. After a fair bit of further fiddling nothing, so I think it's fair assumption the problem lies deeper.

The good news is though that this and issues with another machine (plus a bit of gentle nagging ;)) have led to our creative director biting the bullet and getting a shiny new Mac in, which is splendid news for me – as I'm not spending time messing about with computer innards and can actually do some design stuff – and also my colleague who is getting a much speedier (and hopefully more reliable) machine.

None the less, thanks for your advice chaps – it's much appreciated.
 
Bummer Jaffa...I had the same kind of KP happen to my heavily upgraded PowerMac G4 several times. I eventually traced the problem to overheating (I was running a big fancy video card and overclocked CPU). After installing an extra case fan the problem went away.

Occasionally the problem can crop up due to dusty innards (or so I'm told), so an air compressor/vaccum treatment to blast and/or suck the dust out could be in order.

At any rate, getting a new machine is the best possible solution! :D
 
Lord Blackadder said:
Occasionally the problem can crop up due to dusty innards (or so I'm told), so an air compressor/vaccum treatment to blast and/or suck the dust out could be in order.
Click to expand...
It was a bit dusty inside but I gave it a good clean on the off chance, your Lordship – I used some of the temperature monitoring widgets to check out the internal conditions as well but nothing out of the ordinary there.

Anyway, my colleague is happy how it turned out and I'm equally happy my ear isn't getting chewed off. :p
 
Ah, looks like you have everything under control then. Carry on! :)

If a new machine is on the way, perhaps you'll end up with CS5? It's pretty nice. (I'm spoiled for software at work, though I am restricted to Windows)
 
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