Unstable Osx

[Tomaz]

I've had problems with an unstable system for quite some time now, since I messed around with the system quite abit since I bought my PB, I decided to reinstall everything from scatch. So the only progs running in the background are:
Launchbar 4
Palm Desktop background and Transport Monitor (newest versions)
Calenderclock 1.0
Microsoft AU Deamon (Office 2004, updated)
iCalAlarmScheduler (don't know if that was installed by me?)

Anyway, my system is still unstable, which means I had iTunes, iPhoto, Firefox and Bittorrent crash several times in the last 2 weeks, and I had 1 major crash of the system (while using Firefox, suddenly the screen turned grey saying that I'll have to reboot my system).
Anyone know what that could be? Is maybe one of my programs running in the background known to make Osx unstable?
ANother thing that could be of importance is that I was always using my airport express when something crashed (firefox, bittorrent->internet, iTunes->streaming music, iPhoto->print). Could maybe the airport express crash applications??

Thanks a lot for your help!

 

[robbieduncan]

Have you added any RAM to the system? If you have access to other RAM have you tried swapping your RAM out (or if you have 2 sticks of RAM have you tried using only one then the other)? Continual crashes could be caused by a failure in a single it on a single DIMM!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I've had problems with an unstable system for quite some time now, since I messed around with the system quite abit since I bought my PB, I decided to reinstall everything from scatch. So the only progs running in the background are:
Launchbar 4
Palm Desktop background and Transport Monitor (newest versions)
Calenderclock 1.0
Microsoft AU Deamon (Office 2004, updated)
iCalAlarmScheduler (don't know if that was installed by me?)

Anyway, my system is still unstable, which means I had iTunes, iPhoto, Firefox and Bittorrent crash several times in the last 2 weeks, and I had 1 major crash of the system (while using Firefox, suddenly the screen turned grey saying that I'll have to reboot my system).
Anyone know what that could be? Is maybe one of my programs running in the background known to make Osx unstable?
ANother thing that could be of importance is that I was always using my airport express when something crashed (firefox, bittorrent->internet, iTunes->streaming music, iPhoto->print). Could maybe the airport express crash applications??

Thanks a lot for your help!

iCalAlarmScheduler is a component of Apple's iCal software, so it should be safe. Palm Desktop Background and Microsoft AU Daemon shouldn't be causing trouble either. Calendarclock sounds harmless to me. I don't know what software program Transport Monitor is associated with, and it sounds highly suspicious. Launchbar is less likely to be causing the problem, but it's still possible (I'm not familiar with it). I wouldn't suspect AirPort Express as a source of trouble unless you use one of the Mac wireless network sniffers (Kismac, MacStumbler, etc.).

 

[Tomaz]

Nope, haven't added any RAM. It's the 2x512MB it came with. Wouldn't a RAM failure crash the whole system or could it also just crash single applications ?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Nope, haven't added any RAM. It's the 2x512MB it came with. Wouldn't a RAM failure crash the whole system or could it also just crash single applications ?

Intermittently bad RAM would cause exactly the symptoms you describe: application crashes (when a piece of RAM assigned to a user application goes bad) and system crashes (when the failing RAM area belongs to a system application).

 

[Tomaz]

iCalAlarmScheduler is a component of Apple's iCal software, so it should be safe. Palm Desktop Background and Microsoft AU Daemon shouldn't be causing trouble either. Calendarclock sounds harmless to me. I don't know what software program Transport Monitor is associated with, and it sounds highly suspicious. Launchbar is less likely to be causing the problem, but it's still possible (I'm not familiar with it). I wouldn't suspect AirPort Express as a source of trouble unless you use one of the Mac wireless network sniffers (Kismac, MacStumbler, etc.).

Transport Monitor is part of the Palm software. A freind of mine has Lauchbar installed and has no problems whatsoever. I don't use any network sniffers...

 

[Tomaz]

Intermittently bad RAM would cause exactly the symptoms you describe: application crashes (when a piece of RAM assigned to a user application goes bad) and system crashes (when the failing RAM area belongs to a system application).

I don't like that.....


But thanks for the help!

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Transport Monitor is part of the Palm software. A freind of mine has Lauchbar installed and has no problems whatsoever. I don't use any network sniffers...

I'd suspect a hardware issue first, then - like RAM. See my earlier post regarding this topic in this thread.

EDIT: Seems I was too slow - Tomaz already replied. Oh well.

 

[LEgregius]

I would agree that the problem is very likely RAM. Powerbooks all come with a hardware diagnostic CD. I would boot from that and run the check to see. Also, when you reistalled, did you reformat? You could have a corrupt drive, or ever possibly a drive that is starting to fail. I had a laptop drive that worked but had started to fail. The effect was that applications would crash because reads would fail and then the OS would crash occasionally for the same reason. Oddly, the drive never got corrupted. That problem was not detected by the diagnostic CD; however, when I tried to run a disk check, it would take forever and the drive would make odd noises.

 

[Tomaz]

I'd suspect a hardware issue first, then - like RAM. See my earlier post regarding this topic in this thread.

EDIT: Seems I was too slow - Tomaz already replied. Oh well.

How can I check that? Any programs that check RAM for errors?

EDIT: my question is answered by the post above, I was too slow.

 

[Tomaz]

I just had it again!!!!
I the screen went black and lines of text scrolled down saying stuff like

Exception state (sv=0.......)
........



and then:

Kernel version:
darwin Kernel version 7.7.0:
Sun Nov 7 16.06.51 PST 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.9.5.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

Memory Access exception (1,0,0)
ethernet MAC address: 00:........
ip adress 10......

Waiting for remote debugger connection

?????????????????

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I just had it again!!!!
I the screen went black and lines of text scrolled down saying stuff like

Exception state (sv=0.......)
........



and then:

Kernel version:
darwin Kernel version 7.7.0:
Sun Nov 7 16.06.51 PST 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.9.5.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

Memory Access exception (1,0,0)
ethernet MAC address: 00:........
ip adress 10......

Waiting for remote debugger connection

?????????????????

I've gotten that screen before. In my case, my power manager settings were corrupted. A quick visit to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store and a PMU reset later, the constant crashing and freezing stopped - and it hasn't crashed since. (I did get two freezes on the login screen - but I know what I did to cause those.)

 

[Tomaz]

I've gotten that screen before. In my case, my power manager settings were corrupted. A quick visit to the Genius Bar at my local Apple Store and a PMU reset later, the constant crashing and freezing stopped - and it hasn't crashed since. (I did get two freezes on the login screen - but I know what I did to cause those.)

Well, that sounds more promising.. only problem is that the next genius bar from here is in London, UK... ;-)

 

[LEgregius]

There are instructions for resetting the power management unit for powerbooks in the support area of the apple web site. I'd give you a direct link, but I don't exactly what model you have.

 

[Tomaz]

There are instructions for resetting the power management unit for powerbooks in the support area of the apple web site. I'd give you a direct link, but I don't exactly what model you have.

I've found it, thanks (shift, ctrl, alt, on/off-button)
Just tried it, hope that works. Thanks a lot everyone.

 

[jeremy.king]

Make sure you run the daily/weekly/monthly cron jobs. Use MacJanitor if you must.

Also see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/89736/

If problems persist, call Apple.