Intel Power Mac Kernel Panic

Hi members,

I keeping getting kernel panic attacks and have to keep rebooting my machine. I am very very new to the mac osx and have not got a clue why it is doing it and how to stop it. I have done some researching on the internet and followed the instructions as to where a log file is created, but there does not seem to be any logs created.

The first time it happened I was running the following apps:

Itunes 7
Mail
Mac Messenger
Paralls Desktop (Windows Server 2003)

I restarted my machine, checked the crash log folder - nothing. It then happened again, this time I was not running any programs, again on restart no logs created.

I would be most grateful for any assistance. I do have applecare, but need to know if this is the correct time to use it

Thanks in advance.

Wayne

Usually this is caused by bad RAM. Have you added any recently? If not, I'd take it to the Apple store and have them take a look.

this exact thing happend on my macbook pro. try to archive and install mac os x or if that doesnt work try a clean install (which deletes your hd). i did a archive and install and a clean install and it still didnt work. so i called apple care and it ended up being a memory problem so i deleted all my hd for nothing! so just run a harware test using the mac os x install disk (hold command d during starup) and see if somthing is wrong with yout harware or just repair your disk with disk utility on your installation disk. these two should fix it. if these two dont work or if u have a hardware problem take it to a mac techno and get it fixed!

u beat me to it schweb! plus i did a much more informative approach! (could just do an archiev and isntall to fix it?)

thanks for the quick responses guys.

Ok I have run the following

Mac hardware test (hold down the d key) - no problems with memory
TechTool Deluxe - No problems at all either.

I did upgrade my memory when I bought the mac, but with none of the test reporting memory issues I am a little scepticle that it is this, plus there has been no logging of any memory errors.

not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I went into DiskUtil and ran the verify permissions on the main HDD, with the following results:

Verify permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Determining correct file permissions.
Permissions differ on ./Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/InternetUtilities.bundle/Contents/MacOS/InternetUtilities, should be -rw-rw-r-- , they are -rwxrwxr-x

Permissions verification complete
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

Try removing the RAM that you bought and see if it stops. Honestly, most hardware tests for RAM you'll run are crap, especially if you're running them while logged into OS X.

hi schweb,

I will try as you mention, but my issue is this, how will I know if it is the memory that is causing the crash's as nothing is being reported (logged) and there is no consistency with the crash's.

Wayne

Well there are other memory tests you can run (memtest for example) that are more accurate.

But if you remove the memory and the kernel panics stop, then you have your answer.

Personally I wouldn't trust the mac hardware test on the supplied disks. It said my iMac was perfectly ok yet I was getting random kernel panics every few hours.

I used memtest (http://www.memtestosx.org) that supports rebooting and running outside the GUI and performing repeated tests of the entire RAM with different patterns.

If left to run for an hour or two it would eventually fail. I had put in 2 x 1GB modules (Hyperformance RAM from Omni Technologies), turned out I had 1 faulty module and 1 good one. Only memtest should me which one was causing the issues. It can tell you which address was bad but to actually identify the module I had to remove them one at a time until memtest showed all was OK again.

thanks for the link Jem. I set it off running tonight and post my results.

Wayne