[spcargt]

Yikes! I've had my Dual 867 MDD since late December and haven't had a single problem, until now.

When I purchased it, I also purchased an additional 256mb ram (identical type & specs). I also added a 100GB HD (WD) that i've been using for many months now without any problems on my PC.

Yesterday, I was listening to some music and browsing the web when I was greeted by the grey curtain and a kernel panic message. So, I rebooted my computer. It never made it passed the grey boot up screen.

So, I called Apple Care today and we went through resetting the PMU, Pram and open firmware. This evening, while still experiencing the problems, I tried removing that stick of ram I purchased. Seemed to be ok, but my system hung again. This seems to be happening at random.

I put in the system hardware test CD and everything passed. I put in the OSX CD and did Disk Utility on both my HD's which were verified, repaired and verified again. After continuing to experience this problem I decided to format the system drive (after backing up) and reinstalling OSX. I did this and it hung while Processing Base System during installtion.

Wonderful, eh? Well, I rebooted, disk utility then reinstalled again and it went fine. System was running good now. Did all system updates, firmware, etc. No problems so far. Then, after about 30-45min it hung while importing my music into iTunes (I have over 900 songs). So, I rebooted, emptied Pram, disk utility and then retried importing my music. This time it went fine. And that is where I stand now. One stick of ram less and a fresh install of OSX without any problems right now. Though as I say this I know I'm doomed.

Any ideas guys? Sorry for the long post.

Cliff-notes: System hangs randomly, removed purchased ram and reinstalled system.

Thanks in advance. I don't look forward to carting this 1,000lb beast to an authorized apple reseller.

[Cipher13]

Bad RAM.

Processor might be badly seated, but I doubt it, if it works...

But yeah. Could be either stick.

Try swapping them around. One in, other in, both in, see how it all goes.

[BobK]

I would boot into OS 9 (god forbid) and see if the problem is there or boot off a cd and see what happens. This will tell you for sure if it is the machine or the OS.

[spcargt]

I tried swapping both sticks of ram and even trying different slots. To no avail.

Also, I don't have OS9 (never came with it) and it froze while installing OSX.

[BobK]

There is no such thing as a Mac that does not come w/OS9.
When you reinstalled OSX how did you do it? You may have erased it, one of the disks that came with your computer will contain it.
Try installing it.

[spcargt]

There are a total of 6 install discs. 2 for OSX and 4 for Application Packages.

I booted up with the OSX install disk and used Drive Utility.

I haven't used OS9 at all with this machine, nor has it been installed. Holding down option at boot only shows OSX. The only thing I have is classic.

[Akarso]

it could be your hard drive...the 100gb one you installed. make sure the pin jumpers were set correctly, apple uses cable select so make sure it's in slave cs mode. also find out if you installed the 100gb drive on the right cable. there's two different ones included in the power mac depending on the drive speed, ata/66 and ata/100.

if you still get problems.... then it's either a failing hard drive or bad ram.

[MacFreak]

One other thing to do, that may or may not help, would be to use the disk utility to fix permissions and any bad sectors. I say 'may not' help as kernel panics generally relate to hardware...but I believe there were instances that this resolved some kernel panics. Probably worth a shot (though time consuming). Hopefully you aren't overclocking your cpu or anything like that...

[spcargt]

Nope, not overclocking or anything.

The 100GB is a Western Digital and is installed as a slave to the IBM 60GB. I double checked the jumpers and everything looks right. I've done the verify and repair before but I'll try the permissions. That's one thing I haven't done. Worth a shot.

Before lugging it across campus, I may just remove the 100GB that I put in to see if the problem continues. I would hope that it isn't that HD but who knows at this point.

[Akarso]

have you tried doing a clean re-install of os x?

[normyzo]

Can you try to post the panic log here? Go to the Apple System Profiler, and click the Logs tab, and then look for "Panic Log" and post its contents to this thread.

Dan