G4 Dual 500MHz Kernel Panic

Hello everybody, I recently recieved a Power Mac from a friend going to college, who didn't need it anymore. It originally had Panther (10.3.9) on it, and I wanted to upgrade to Leopard. I have a retail DVD of Leopard ready to install, but I tried to boot to it by holding down option, and clicking the disc, but it kernel panics. I don't have any vital information on here, and I got it for free, but I really want to get this working. The DVD drive works, as I can read music and watch videos and stuff. It has 512 mb of ram, which I can upgrade if needed. It has a 256mb and a 128mb stick from Apple, and a 3rd party 128mb stick. Original (I think) 20GB hard drive, which is decent, for now.

I tried booting to target disk mode, to connect to my Intel iMac, but it won't enter TDM either. I then took the hard drive out, and stuck it in my external HD enclosure, and reformatted it on the iMac, and installed Leopard. It was successful, but I forgot that it was a PPC, and I selected GUID partition table instead of Apple partition map. It installed fine under GPT, but when I reformatted to APM, and it won't install from the iMac. So I put the Leopard disk into my iBook G4, and it installed until it said "Install Failed" at the end. Tomorrow I'm going to try to reinstall Leopard again, and see if it will work, but it takes a while since the laptop is slow.

Anyways, either I have a hardware problem, or I screwed something up. Some help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Ben.

500MHz G4 is probably out of spec for Leopard - see here Mac OS X 10.5 - Technical Specifications

Intel machines will not do as you ask for a PPC machine. Run Tiger Os X.4 or stick to Panther.

Apple recommends a minimum of an 867mhz processor to install 10.5 Leopard.

I do not have personal experience with trying to install Leopard on a Macintosh slower than 867mhz (I do have some older/slower Mac's if should want to experiment).

So I'm not 100% sure if this minimum of an 867mhz processor means that Leopard "will not install at all"...or if it means that if you do install 10.5 is will just run very slow on older/slower machines.

As already stated...I would also recommend not going any higher than 10.4.11 "Tiger".

- Nick

Okay, I'll install Tiger, but there' still the problem that it kernel panics whenever I try to boot to the optical drive, and it won't enter Target Disk Mode either, so I can't install anything from the computer. Would a faulty optical drive be the cause for kernel panics?
I can take a picture of the kernel panic if it helps.

ben_0614 said:

Okay, I'll install Tiger, but there' still the problem that it kernel panics whenever I try to boot to the optical drive, and it won't enter Target Disk Mode either, so I can't install anything from the computer. Would a faulty optical drive be the cause for kernel panics?
I can take a picture of the kernel panic if it helps.

Click to expand...

More info = more help!;D

Here, that's the best I can make with the camera from the 3GS.
I get that every time I try to boot to the optical drive, and now every time I boot to the hard drive.

Single user mode doesn't work, target disk mode doesn't work, I can get to open firmware and resetting the nvram, but it doesn't help.

ben_0614 said:

Here, that's the best I can make with the camera from the 3GS.
I get that every time I try to boot to the optical drive, and now every time I boot to the hard drive.

Click to expand...

Wow...the 3GS takes a pretty darn nice photo!

Yeah...the kernel panic you have looks pretty much like most kernel panics.

Usually the first place to start is remove all of the ram...then one at a time install a stick of ram, then try to boot the computer. Once you find 1 stick that works good, then insert the 2nd stick...if it works fine...my guess is the 3rd stick is bad.

But don't go from one stick to the next stick in like 30 seconds. If you are successful in booting the computer with just one stick of ram installed..then let the computer run for like 30-60 minutes to see if it is stable (no kernel panics)...then proceed to the next stick..etc.

If you individually try all three sticks of ram...and you get a kernel panic from each & every one...then it's got to be something else possibly the video card.

Try doing the ram test first...then let's see if that fixes the problem.

Remember to stay static free...you don't want to be touching things inside the computer with a static charge on you.

Also, make sure the ram is well seated in the ram slots as you install them, and don't touch the gold colored "pins" on the ram sticks with your fingers.

Good luck,

- Nick

And if all of Nick's advice fails, maybe HDD is failing. To boot from an install DVD you pop it in the drive, reboot and simply hold down the 'C' button agter the chimes until you see the gear wheel starting.

Here are some other suggestions for kernel panics:-

About "You need to restart your computer" (kernel panic) messages

Check out the Isolating Issues link.

I tried inserting a stick of RAM at the same time, didn't work. Holding down the C button while booting doesn't work, nor does holding down option. I'm going to try with another DVD drive, and a video card, and see what happens.

What's weird is that I can insert another hard drive with OS 9 installed and it will boot to that. However, I have no way of installing OS X on my other hard drive. Maybe I'll try to insert the OS 9 HD and try to boot to the dvd drive again. I have nothing plugged in the back beside a USB mouse/keyboard (new aluminum one), monitor, and a power cable.

I have seen many G4's that would boot and run OS9 without issue but with 10.3 and up got a KP every time.

One I will never forget was my G4 Yikes 350Mhz Power Mac. I tried everything from 20 sticks of RAM, new hard drive, CD/DVD roms, video card. It would boot to OS9 fine and even Jaguar 10.2 but pop in an OSX 10.3 or 10.4 CD and KP before it got very far into the boot.

One day I got suspicious and it was the Cache chips on the CPU card! New G4 CPU (the first one with pins like a G3) and the issue was gone forever! That was one strange issue and had me stumped as nothing worked.

My KP was totally different than your pic as far as what it reported.

Tried another video card, same thing, tried another DVD drive, same thing.

The thing was, it was running Panther fine when I got it, I forgot to do a backup when trying to upgrade to Leopard. Now it won't boot to the optical drive, even if I insert a tiger disc in.

Not sure if this has been suggested, but have you tried zapping the PRAM? A lot of not booting from the CDROM for me was fixed that way.

Does the Powermac have a DVD drive as most Tiger installers are on a DVD. Also I have found some brands of DVD/CD Rom Drives will not boot on a older Power Mac.

Try the PRAM reset by holding down Command+Option+P+R right after the startup sound. Keep those 4 keys down till you hear 2 more startup sounds then let go. It's worked for me on a few PM G4's.

I was going to suggest a new PRAM battery as well, since it is an 8+ year old Mac.

But I don't think I've seen a kernel panic issue associated with a dead PRAM battery.

Still could give it a try.

- Nick

dtravis7 said:

Not sure if this has been suggested, but have you tried zapping the PRAM? A lot of not booting from the CDROM for me was fixed that way.

Does the Powermac have a DVD drive as most Tiger installers are on a DVD. Also I have found some brands of DVD/CD Rom Drives will not boot on a older Power Mac.

Try the PRAM reset by holding down Command+Option+P+R right after the startup sound. Keep those 4 keys down till you hear 2 more startup sounds then let go. It's worked for me on a few PM G4's.

Click to expand...

Yeah, tried zapping the PRAM a few days ago, to no avail.
It came with a DVD and a Zip drive. I'm pretty sure it came with the computer from factory too. I know the DVD drive works fine, because I used the drive while Panther was still on there. I also tried another DVD drive from an old Dell, which also detected the disc when holding down option.

So to summarize am I correct that so far you:

- zapped the PRAM
- tried a different hard drive
- tried a different video card
- tried the ram 1 stick at a time
- tried another DVD drive

I think that the one thing that was mentioned previously is...you must be sure that all of the hardware you try is Macintosh compatible. Because as a "general rule"...the older the Mac the less compatible Windows computer hardware is.

I also know that we already mentioned that a dual 500mhz G4 is/was probably not a good candidate to install 10.5 Leopard. Of course too late now.

Finally, you mentioned that the computer was running 10.3.9 Panther fine when you got the computer. Can you tell us approx. how long you "played" around with this computer when it was working fine with 10.3.9 before you tried to install Leopard?

Thanks,

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

So to summarize am I correct that so far you:

- zapped the PRAM
- tried a different hard drive
- tried a different video card
- tried the ram 1 stick at a time
- tried another DVD drive

I think that the one thing that was mentioned previously is...you must be sure that all of the hardware you try is Macintosh compatible. Because as a "general rule"...the older the Mac the less compatible Windows computer hardware is.

I also know that we already mentioned that a dual 500mhz G4 is/was probably not a good candidate to install 10.5 Leopard. Of course too late now.

Finally, you mentioned that the computer was running 10.3.9 Panther fine when you got the computer. Can you tell us approx. how long you "played" around with this computer when it was working fine with 10.3.9 before you tried to install Leopard?

Thanks,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Yes, you are correct.

Well, as far as running on unsupported hardware, I did look into it, and I found several reports of Leopard running successfully on D 500 MHz Power Macs. I just need to find someone with a tower mac that I can stick my HD in and install from then. If it's bootable from that computer, it should work when I put it back in mine.

I played around with 10.3.9 for about 3 or 4 days before I attempted to install anything. I'm pretty sure this computer was used in the graphic arts room at school, and has used this OS since Panther came out. They were recently replaced with Intel iMacs.

ben_0614 said:

Well, as far as running on unsupported hardware, I did look into it, and I found several reports of Leopard running successfully on D 500 MHz Power Macs. I just need to find someone with a tower mac that I can stick my HD in and install from then. If it's bootable from that computer, it should work when I put it back in mine.

I played around with 10.3.9 for about 3 or 4 days before I attempted to install anything. I'm pretty sure this computer was used in the graphic arts room at school, and has used this OS since Panther came out. They were recently replaced with Intel iMacs.

Click to expand...

Yes...I thought that maybe Apple's recommendation of a minimum of a 867mhz processor was a "recommendation" not a limit where the software would not install.

So it sounds like you can install 10.5 on a slower machine...but the question is would it be a "satisfying" experience...or would it be slow.

I have a 500mhz G4 tower with 10.4.11...and it's noticeably slower than my 933 G4 Tower with 10.4.11...of course a lot of that is due to the processor speed...but if I tried to put 10.5 on them...they would probably be even more sluggish...especially the 500mhz machine.

Good to hear you played around with your dual 500mhz G4 for a few days before trying to upgrade the OS...that would definitely indicate that it's a stable machine.

Good luck,

- Nick

And as Nick states you will find Leopard woefully slow, for what it is worth. Best option will be OS X.4 Tiger. You need the black coloured full install DVD and not a silver grey model specific system restore disc.

No doubt Apple built in the 867MHz specs to avoid complaints from users who found it just too slow.