[elfmund]

i have a PowerMac G4 400mhz AGP Graphics machine and it is acting pretty strange..

at first i had 2 * 256mb 133mhz memory chips installed and i received at least one kernel panic every day .... then my friend pointed out that i might need a firmware upgrade for my mac.. i downloaded that, but my firmware was up to date..

next i tried to see if this kernel panic was related to anything in particular (i.e. processes being run and so forth) but this turns out to be totally random..

since my motherboard runs at 100mhz i suspected it of not being happy with some generic 133mhz ram chips so i borrowed 4 100mhz chips (3 * 128 and 1 * 128) and installed them about 5 days ago... since then, everything had ran very smoothly and i thought i had found the problem

but.... tonight.. i had exactly the same problem.. a kernel panic which to my best knowledge is linked to memory access (at least this was stated in the panic log)

does anyone have a clue what this might be ??
is it the motherboard ?
is it the ram slots ?
is it the ram (very unlikely)

please help me... i have only been a mac user for some 2 weeks and i really want to make the switch permanent.. any help is appreciated!!

thank you ..
Hordur

[reader50]

could you post the panic log?

[elfmund]

i'm having trouble finding it...

[reader50]

/Library/Logs/panic.log

[elfmund]

i have four items in this Logs folder

Crashreporter (folder)
Directory Service (folder)
AppleFileService (folder)
Software update.log

not a sign of a log called panic.log

???

[reader50]

It sounds like you are running 10.1.x or earlier ... the paniclog prints on screen, and is not saved. Starting with 10.2.0, you get a "please reboot the computer" message on screen, and the log is saved to /Library/Logs/panic.log

kernel panics are caused either by OS bugs, or by hardware issues. Apple keeps fixing more OS bugs ... but 10.1.x should be pretty stable. If you are running 10.0.x, update quickly. 10.0.x was glitchy, and most current software does not support it anymore.

Hardware issues can include bad motherboards or bad CPU cards, but they are much more often one of several minor items. Loose cables, incompatible peripherals (USB or PCI), dusty motherboards, RAM or PCI cards not fully seated. Did you plug RAM into a slot that has sat open a long time, and accumulated dust? If so, reseating the RAM usually fixes this.

[schalliol]

What RAM is it? On a G4/450 (PCI Graphics) I installed some PC133 RAM that caused kernel panics, but worked great in my 733 with the PC133 support for the units. See this post: http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=141981

[G4ME]

i have stuck 133 in my dual 500 (100mhz bus) and had a few KP the first couple weeks but after that none. weired though

[schalliol]

Interesting. It likely has to do with the density of the chips. If the chips are double sided, they'll probably work.