Black Screen with Backtrace Exceptions

Running OS X 10.4.11 on PowerMac G3. The system is constantly freezing and I have to restart. Often I get a black screen with a long list of backtrace and exceptions. Can anybody help me fix this?

WebX said:

Running OS X 10.4.11 on PowerMac G3. The system is constantly freezing and I have to restart. Often I get a black screen with a long list of backtrace and exceptions. Can anybody help me fix this?

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Try running the Apple Hardware Test to see if anything is wonky.
The Apple Hardware Test

What appears on your screen? It would be helpful to know exactly what's wrong so that we can be more specific with our advice/suggestions.

There is an extremely long stream of info on a black screen. Below I've listed one portion which differs from the rest:

Backtrace:
0x04DF358C

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies)
com.apple.driver.ndrv.ATY.Rage128.0x4df009c(1.0.2f47)00x4def000
Exception state (sv=0x1D20C780)
PC=0x000AF354; MSR=000081030; DAR=0E02FD000; DSISR=0x42000000; LB=0x000AC134; RI=0x0000B9E0;XCP=0x0000001C (0x700 - Program)

WebX said:

There is an extremely long stream of info on a black screen. Below I've listed one portion which differs from the rest:

Backtrace:
0x04DF358C

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies)
com.apple.driver.ndrv.ATY.Rage128.0x4df009c(1.0.2f47)00x4def000
Exception state (sv=0x1D20C780)
PC=0x000AF354; MSR=000081030; DAR=0E02FD000; DSISR=0x42000000; LB=0x000AC134; RI=0x0000B9E0;XCP=0x0000001C (0x700 - Program)

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And did running the Apple Hardware Test tell you anything?

Post the entire log entry so that we can try to help you determine what caused it. Just paste it into your next reply. And also post any errors you get from the Apple Hardware Test.

I'm typing this on a windows machine. The PowerPC which has the issue doesn't have a way for me to copy and paste the long stream of info that rolls down the screen for about 2 min. before it freezes.

I didn't find the Apple Hardware Test Utility. I don't have the original disks that came with the system. But I did run the repair tool in Disk Utility which found and corrected what errors were on the disk. But the system still freezes.

As far as copying and pasting the screen write, there doesn't seem to be a way to save the screen write which rolls past for about 2 min. before the system freezes.

WebX said:

I didn't find the Apple Hardware Test Utility. I don't have the original disks that came with the system. But I did run the repair tool in Disk Utility which found and corrected what errors were on the disk. But the system still freezes.

As far as copying and pasting the screen write, there doesn't seem to be a way to save the screen write which rolls past for about 2 min. before the system freezes.

Click to expand...

It's possible your hard drive is failing. You should run a more thorough test on it, though I'm hard pressed to recommend something due to the age of your machine. And that brings up another problem... the age of your machine means any of a number of other hardware issues could be in play here. Lacking access to the Apple Hardware Test severely limits the ability to investigate further.

My best suggestion at the moment is to install OS X to an external drive, if available, and see if you can operate normally off of that. If you can, then that should narrow down the problem to the internal hard drive. Disk Utility may have "fixed" some problems (what were they anyway????), but if the drive is failing, then data on those bad sectors is gone regardless, they could have been critical system files, and you will continue to see more bad sectors develop.

If you continue to have issues on a fresh install on a different/new drive, then you have a hardware issue of some sort. Could be bad RAM. Could be the motherboard failing in some way.

EDIT: I almost forgot. The error message you did post in regards to the ATY Rage driver does suggest you may have an issue with the graphics card.