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sworthy · Jan 27, 2005, 02:02 AM

My 12" Rev B powerbook has been acting up like crazy recently. Before I take my laptop into Apple (and most likely ship it off) I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas of what the problems could be. Everything installed by apple except for 512mb of RAM from Crucial installed 16 months ago.

Symptoms: I first encountered a problem a couple of weeks ago and got this really strange error:

Since then, I've experienced a somewhat sluggish operating environment (though only some of the time), random crashes where I need to force a restart manually, closing the lid to put the pb to sleep and it stays running, opening lid of pb to wake from sleep and the screen doesn't come on, and turning on the computer and the screen doesn't come on.

Any ideas?

Randman · Jan 27, 2005, 02:12 AM

Does it happen randomly or with certain apps? Have you tried repairing permissions? Could try creating a new user and see if the problem continues. If not, a clean install. If so, you could try a full install or just take it into a shop.

Did you install any apps when it started?

sworthy · Jan 27, 2005, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by Randman:
Does it happen randomly or with certain apps? Have you tried repairing permissions? Could try creating a new user and see if the problem continues. If not, a clean install. If so, you could try a full install or just take it into a shop.

Did you install any apps when it started?

It happens completely randomly, i.e. I walk away from my computer (though a few apps like ical are running in the background), come back and the crash message is on the screen. I have repaired permissions to no avail.

I've yet to try a new user and or clean install. Seems like that should be my next step though, huh? Thanks for the help.

dwood · Jan 27, 2005, 03:13 AM

ya thats a kernel panic, most of the time those are caused by software conflicts/issues. Once you eliminate software being an issue, as randman explained, you may wanna try pulling out a stick of your ram, and seeing if your issues go away, if not, put that stick back in and pull the other. Also trying popping out your airport card.

sworthy · Jan 27, 2005, 10:13 AM

Originally posted by dwood:
ya thats a kernel panic, most of the time those are caused by software conflicts/issues. Once you eliminate software being an issue, as randman explained, you may wanna try pulling out a stick of your ram, and seeing if your issues go away, if not, put that stick back in and pull the other. Also trying popping out your airport card.

This is possible even after using the machine as is hardware-wise for the last 16 months? I'd think that if there were any compatibility issues w/ the airport card or the RAM they would have presented themselves already - or can they get funky over time?

Randman · Jan 27, 2005, 11:15 AM

It could be ram but I doubt it. Likely an app caused some system glitch or an install update was corrupted. If you tried a combo update recently, you could try and resintall it. However, creating the new user should be able to narrow it down to being a software or hardware-related problem.

dwood · Jan 27, 2005, 11:19 AM

Originally posted by Randman:
It could be ram but I doubt it. Likely an app caused some system glitch or an install update was corrupted. If you tried a combo update recently, you could try and resintall it. However, creating the new user should be able to narrow it down to being a software or hardware-related problem.

if the issue resides in the home directory, otherwise do the archive and install as previously mentioned