[dreamBweaver]

Tonight I plugged a Kensington FlyLight (USB) into my PB12 and suddenly the system screeched to a halt. The screen showed everything in a blurry state. I tried to reset the computer with the power button. Holding it down did nothing. I got it to work again by removing the battery and restarting. I'm not sure if any damage was done? It seems to work fine and the USB ports work normally. Does anyone know what I could do to find out if anything shorted out or broke? A second opinion would be a relief.

[MaxPower2k3]

sounds like it was just a system crash, but a hard one. normally, during a system crash (called a Kernel Panic, the equivalent to a BSOD on windows, but nicer ) it will come up with a screen telling you, in about 6 languages, to restart your computer. in the future, to manually reboot your computer, press control+command+power key. sort of the mac equivalent to ctrl+alt+delete in Windows.

[RealMac]

Yes I would agree with MaxPower here. It happens from time to time. As long as it isn't repeatable, I wouldn't worry.

Apple is fixing things that can trigger kernel panics daily. If you get them often I would try a reinstall of the OS (perhaps something got corrupted) and if you've added ram lately to try removing it, as bad ram can trigger them.

It's very rare under osx for a user to experience a system lockup like this, but there are still instances where it happens. Sometimes a log of the crash is kept /Library/Logs/ (I think that's the location).

If you get them often, it might be wise to paste the output here or to some other support-type site.

Just my opinion.