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WTF is this? I need to restart my computer?

E

EdSchouten

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 17, 2003
12
0
I was just using my Apple like normal, mounting a SMB-share, checking my mail, using iTunes, blablabla.

My screen got gray (a sort of gray shade went over my screen) with the message that I had to press the restart button or hold the power button.

What does that mean? Is my OS X messed up? :eek:
 
Congrats. You just recieved your first kernel panic. They don't happen often, and all you have to do is restart the machine. OS X is not messed up at all, unless you recieve a large number of these. Then you probably have cause for concern.
 
I have to complain about very much instability. I had to reset my Powerbook almost 10 times in just 5 days :( Fresh install

My System prefrences often hangs for 30 seconds and sometimes I can't launch any program's anymore (mostly after coming out of sleep)
 
Yeah, I was mounting my documents HD from my parents' Windows XP machine :(
 
-EdSchouten

Ok then. I'd say that you should only mount the SMB share when you need it, and disconnect when done.

I've found that the cause of this lies with the Windows machine, they have their quirkyness, and it's a shortcoming in Jaguar that Apple hasn't built the error trapping into server connections yet.

I can reproduce this panic at will. All I have to do is connect to my Win98 machine, and crash it. Bingo, OSX panics.

Let us know if it helps. Frankly, I've never heard anybody - not even developers - panicing as often as you describe. You just could be a record holder. :D
 
Maybe it's better that I reinstall OS X, because I'm really getting nuts :D

In the shops they told me that Apple was very good, stable, etc. and I was lucky that Medal of Honor was released for the system.

Now I have it and MOHAA only runs at 25 FPS and it's not as stable as Windows 95 :eek:
 
PowerBook 12"
G4 867 MHz
640 MB DDR memory
60 GB harddisk
Airport Extreme :eek:
etc. etc. :)
 
well the game part doesn surprise me, but your kernal panics are a problem. usually with that many kernel panics is that your hardware is bad, or your system just needs a fresh install. we all can assure you that that isnt normal. not even panther gave me that many. reinstall os x and see how things work. what powerbook do you have, i want to see if 25fps is normal.

iJon
 
remove and reconnect your airport extreme card. My 12-inch PB had several kernal panics when I first used it. I found that many people were having this problem and it is related to the AE card not being securly connected. If you move the PB in just the right (or wrong) way it causes the problem. There is a thread about this somewhere on MR and another on the Apple Support pages.

Since I tried this fix (about 2 months ago) I havn't had another such incident.
 
this happens if the windows computer you are trying to access has norton firewall running on it. i've seen it many times. the norton program sends out a signal that locks down your computer because it thinks that your unix machine (Mac OS X)may be trying to cause a ruckus on the windows system.

Originally posted by Daveman DeluxeCongrats. You just recieved your first kernel panic. They don't happen often, and all you have to do is restart the machine. OS X is not messed up at all, unless you recieve a large number of these. Then you probably have cause for concern.
Click to expand...

no, this is NOT a kernel panic. a kernel panic looks like a black screen with a little bit of white text at the top that looks like jibberish. (almost DOS prompt-ish)
 
this happened 2 times to me the same day, but since that i haven't had any problems...does it mean i have some bad hardware?
 
Originally posted by mnkeybsness
no, this is NOT a kernel panic. a kernel panic looks like a black screen with a little bit of white text at the top that looks like jibberish. (almost DOS prompt-ish)
Click to expand...

-mnkeybsness

Actually, that was what a panic looked like before Jaguar and the Mach Kernel update. Now it's exactly what EdSchouten describes. The screen dims, with a grey window - more of a mini-screen - in the center, with nicely formatted text that tells you that you need to restart.

EdSchouten, I'd like to use mnkeybsness's reply as an example as to how many kernal panics you should be seeing: maybe one a year. Your amount is rediculous and highly rare, we'll keep helping you out.
 
yeah pat is right. and its a good thing they did that. many people would really freak out when a bunch of tex would go over their screen. the nice white windows with english is much better.

iJon
 
I had two kernel panics that were only a few days apart. One occurred while logging out of OS X and appeared as the dimmed screen and gray window. The other occurred while waking the system from Sleep and was the white text on a black background. I repaired the permissions on the boot disk and the kernel panics stopped.
 
I now reinstalled Mac OS X, I had a few problems after the installation (because of downgrading from 10.2.6 to 10.2.3) but after downloading the combo update with Mozilla (Safari was malfunctioning) I could reboot and download the updates from the System prefrences.

He's running a bit faster now, especially in games (I get 50-60 FPS @ 1024) :eek:
 
I have also got maybe 3 kernel panics in the past 18 months, using 10.2.3, on a G4 400, 320mb, 60GB+10GB, Combo.

HOWEVER

I work at John Lewis in the UK and I see that the new 12" and 17" Powerbooks do crash and kernel panic on a regular basis. (the 12" in particular) understand that they are used daily by thousands of customers, so their workload is more than most, but they do crash more than all of the other Macs put together. It seems unfortunate, but recent updates have fixed some of the problems so hang on, it seems Apple are working on them. In particular, opening and closing the screen activates sleep mode, and they will kernel panic when they come out of sleep. This does not seem to happen when they are PUT to sleep, only when you close the lid!!!!

Wirewyrm
 
Originally posted by EdSchouten
I now reinstalled Mac OS X, I had a few problems after the installation (because of downgrading from 10.2.6 to 10.2.3) but after downloading the combo update with Mozilla (Safari was malfunctioning) I could reboot and download the updates from the System prefrences.

He's running a bit faster now, especially in games (I get 50-60 FPS @ 1024) :eek:
Click to expand...
why didn't you just use the software update in sysprefs to update?

anyways, it probably was a good idea to reinstall your system after 10 or so kernel panics, but you will more than likely find that if you toy with SMB very often, it's likely to happen again. apple has apparently put a lot of work into SMB in panther, so that should help, but as of now, jag is notoriously bad about SMB sharing. i have all kinds of quirky problems when connecting to my own XP boxes, especially if i turn them off without unmounting my mac from the folders.

just something to deal with eh?
 
Originally posted by Shadowfax
why didn't you just use the software update in sysprefs to update?
Click to expand...
That wasn't possible anymore, I had to download it manually. The update bar stopped around 80% and gave an error :p
 
Originally posted by patrick0brien
-mnkeybsness

Actually, that was what a panic looked like before Jaguar and the Mach Kernel update. Now it's exactly what EdSchouten describes. The screen dims, with a grey window - more of a mini-screen - in the center, with nicely formatted text that tells you that you need to restart.
Click to expand...

well if that is the case, then smb shares like to cause kernel panics.

and why, in jaguar, have i gotten the black screen with white text in the past?
 
Originally posted by mnkeybsness
well if that is the case, then smb shares like to cause kernel panics.

and why, in jaguar, have i gotten the black screen with white text in the past?
Click to expand...
perhaps that's a variant of the KP for when the graphical side of things goes down. who knows? but the grayscaled-dimming thing with the ominous text is a kernel panic as well, and it's well established that SMB will do that to you.
 
I just sent my 12 inch powerbook in to apple today cause of the kernal panic. All i had to was so much as put any pressure on the left side, i mean just breathe on it, and it would crash. Tech guy thing logic board might be screwy there, or somehow something is grounding out. All i know is i had 10 kernal panics in 24 hours with mine. So DONT BE AFRAID TO CALL APPLE! They were super to me and i must say i was pleased with the tech support guy. Hopefully it'll be a good repair too.
 
heh your first kernel panic...congrats!

btw, this is what a kernel panic looks like in jaguar, in panther it's slightly darker and a little different. i get tons. :rolleyes:
 

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