[John Doh]

Very naive user here - sorry.

Here's the deal - my dual gig g4 started crashing a couple of weeks ago - right before the end of a major project (in final cut pro).
I got advice online and from friends, so I repaired permissions, disconnected my external drives and so forth. No help. Then I tried re-installing osx. It worked for a little while, then crashed. I've done a couple of hard resets. Again, works a bit, then crashes.

Also, not sure if this is helpful, but I had recently purchased a WD 500gb firewire drive which was working fine but got unplugged accidentally. The crashes started happening sometime after that (the drive still works fine). I also had attempted unsuccessfully to network with my wife's new macbook at around the same time.

Anyway, below is the latest crash message, just after booting up I reached the desktop and then this message came up. FYI - I typed it into my wife's macbook - i tried to not make any typo errors.

Can anyone either help me figure out what's going on, or direct me to the proper forum?

Thank you!

dual gig g4
1 gig apple installed ram
osx3.9

two external firewire drives - lacie 80gb (used for years, no problems) and recent western digital 500gb (more recent - 5weeks or so, crashes began happening a few weeks after started using this drive...)


System Failure: cpu=0; code=00000008 (Unknown faioure code)
Latest crash info for cpu 0:
Exception state (sv-0x27409000)
PC=0x000949F9; MSR=0x00001030; DAR=0xFFFA000; DSISR=0x400000000; LR=0x00093FCC; R1=0xFC14F347; XCP=0x00000098 (System Failure)
Backtrace:

Backtrace terminated – unaligned frame address: 0Xfc14F347

Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv-0x27409000)
PC=0x0008C824; MSR=0x02143000; DAR=0xFFFA000; DSISR=ox40000000; LR=0x0008AFA4; R1=0xFC14F427; XCP=0x00000008 (0x200 – Machine check)
Backtrace:

Backtrace terminated – unaligned frame address: 0xFC14F427

Exception state (sv=0x00878500)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 7.5.1:
Thu Aug 19 12:41:16 PDT 2004; root:xnu/xnu-517.8.6.obj~5/RELEASE_PPC

Memory access exception (1.0.0)
Ethernet MAC address: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Ip address: 0.0.0.0

Waiting for remote debugger connection.

[Alcivar]

Your experience with this particular "Kernel Panic" is very similar to mine. I haven't hunted down the problem yet. It seemed to start after I added a second external Lacie FW drive. The trouble with this sort of thing it seems is that there's so much possible troubleshooting to go through.

see: macosxhints.com - Twenty steps to help diagnose and fix system issues

I'm pressed for time, but if you have any luck please post back!

[John Doh]

thanks for your response and for the info in that article! i'll definitely post back if i have any luck, though i'm probably going to have to take it into the shop as i need to have it up and running sooner than later. if i take it to the shop, i'll post their diagnosis as well, just in case that's useful to you.
good luck!
john

[Cold Warrior]

try booting into safe mode and seeing if the problem persists

if it doesn't crash in safe mode, it could mean you have a corrupt or misbehaving system file or kext. You should then try reinstalling your operating system -- archive and install.

[reader50]

He's already reinstalled once. I'd be more inclined to suspect a bad RAM stick, based on what little is in the kernel panic log.

My suggestion is to boot into the Apple Diagnostics disk, and run the battery of tests. If it passes everything, kick it into just the extended memory test. I don't recall if the Apple memory tests can be left running overnight.

You can use the Rember test, which is a GUI front end for the CLI memtest. Or boot into single user mode and do memtest directly.

[John Doh]

Great - thank you!
I'll run the diagnostics you recommend and get back to you with the results. And yes, I've tried safe booting and it crashes there too (as well as reinstalling as previously mentioned). Just a note - I've never run these diagnostics before, so if there is anything you think I should know, I'd definitely appreciate any guidance. Also, it appears that I need to install those apps (rember and memtest) to run them. Or perhaps they are on the diagnostics disk? I'm just not sure I'll be able to install anything as the computer crashes quite quickly after booting at this point.
Thanks again!
John

[RCT]

Hi John,
I don't have the specific answer to your problem, BUT I've got a very similar set up to you, including 2 external drives, one of which is a WD500GB too. I did have some problems earlier this year, of course they may not have had the same cause, even if the effects were similar. You may like to consider what I did, and that was I finally narrowed down the problem to overheating. The maximum optimum operating temp is 35 degrees. There's a couple of free apps around that put your current temp in the menu bar, very useful to keep an eye on it. Have a look at how your G4 is situated, see if you can circulate some air round it, check the room temperature too (at this time of year most people have central heating on), clean all dust from inside, try it without the drives attached, then just one, etc etc. You might also try updating your system to 10.4.9, which is the most stable version to date.
From my own experience, I'd hazard a guess that your machine is struggling to cope with all the extras tagged onto it, and is overheating, causing the crashes.
Good luck.

[John Doh]

Great advice - thanks RCT. I think I'll open it up and clean it out (dust wise) and then go through the diagnostics recommended earlier. At this point, it's crashing so soon after boot that I probably won't be able to install the temperature apps until after I stabilize the system some more. I'm definitely interested to be able to monitor the temperature! I did try running it without any externals connected, but that didn't seem to help much. I've also been holding off on upgrading the operating system 'til getting through these larger video projects, but I agree - it's time to go to 10.4.9. Anyway, I'll go through the steps you suggested and see what happens. If it works, I'll let you know - thanks again for your help!
John