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CIA · 11:18 PM

My iBook G4 has been acting up lately. I think it might be overheating but I'm unsure.
Below are 2 photo's from the last crash, (yes, taken with an iPhone, sorry about the quality). Anyone have any clues if I need to "nuke and pave" my machine, or perhaps it might be something hardware based.
iBook G4, 1.2Ghz, 1GB RAM, upgraded 100GB drive, upgraded K04 DVD burner.
10.4.10, all the latest updates installed. All upgrades were done right when I got it, and it's run solid for the last few years. No new software or anything installed, this just started randomly happening.
It's just a living room web/email/remote for airtunes machine, not my workhorse.
Thanks in advance.

C.A.T.S. CEO · Jul 22, 2007, 11:18 PM

it looks like a kernel panic having to do with your graphics card, IMO.

BTW, what version of OS X are you running? A KP should show a gray box in 4 languages with a giant power button.

CIA · Jul 22, 2007, 11:20 PM

as stated in the original post. 10.4.10.

Cold Warrior · Jul 23, 2007, 10:00 AM

If you have the hardware diagnostic disc it came with, I'd give that a shot to see if it can find anything.

Waragainstsleep · Jul 24, 2007, 05:09 PM

Kernel panics come in a variety of flavours. Always have. Plus like was mentioned, its was a thread from the display drivers which caused it.
You could check your system log to see if it sheds more light.
How often is it happening? If its frequent, try booting from the drive of another Mac. If it doesn't happen, its probably software. If it does, your hardware test should show something up. Its usually VRAM when GPUs fail, though this does not necessarily look like that.

gutterflowerjc · Jul 24, 2007, 11:26 PM

It's been a while since i owned my old powerbook, but it did this every once in a while. I found that a fresh install of OS X usually helped, hope you get it working again soon!

CIA · Jul 26, 2007, 11:23 AM

I think I need to admit it's time to nuke and pave the machine with a clean install. I was thinkiing about it yesterday... This is the original install of OSX 10.4 that I put on the machine when I got it in the spring of 2005. I remember I got the laptop like a week after 10.4 shipped, and since it was a refurb and only had a CD (at the time) I got tiger on a bazillion CD's. Anyway, the look on my l337 pc gamer co-worker's face when I told him it was a nearly 2.5 year install of the OS, and I was just now starting to have issues was reward enough. He said he can rarely go 6 months without having to reinstall XP with all the driver updates and such messing up the plumbing of his gaming rig.
So, I'll go format and clean install this weekend. Kind of a bummer, as I was hoping to go an entire OS life (start of Tiger to start of Leopard) without a re-install.
If it continues crashing after a clean install then I'll report back with more detailed logs and see if we can get to the bottom of it.

Waragainstsleep · Jul 27, 2007, 11:49 AM

I've seen some pretty ancient installs over the years. OS was king for durability. Seen installs of that which were 4 or 5 years old before now. But I've also seen X installs getting near that sort of age too. Though nothing before Jaguar was stable enough to use daily for that long.

CIA · Jul 28, 2007, 03:29 AM

I never shut down unless I crash also, always just sleep the laptop.