[Miniryu]

See, we have two iMacs (G4, jag 10.2) in our department cluster that crash when you leave them idle for too long. Specifically, the screen dims, and there is a message that reads "You need to restart you computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button." in four different languages. On the very bottom the numbers appear: 00:03:93LA5:41:44 and 010.001.002.011

I imagin that upgrading the OS would work, but since I don't have admin privilages I am looking for another solution. I'm just a student tired of hearing other students talk about what crap the new iMacs are.

[macmike42]

If these Macs are totally idle when they are having kernel panics, they have serious hardware problems. Bring it to the attention of the lab admin and have him make sure they aren't running anything idiotic like Norton Antivirus (which is, in and of itself, basically a virus which one must manually install). NAV would cause Macs to kernel panic when they access too many files to quickly (for example, when compiling something). Also check what kind of RAM they are using and for any funky USB or Firewire hardware. If the Macs are stripped down to stock config but the kernel panics continue, have the admin demand replacements from Apple.

Quality control at Apple really seems to have slipped. My revision a Beige G3 has the cheapest RAM, HD, G4 ZIF, Radeon 7000, Firewire/USB card money can buy, as well as hacked opensource floppy drivers, several odds kernel extensions I made or modified myself (I'm no driver programmer!), and I have never had a kernel panic, ever.

[GRAHAMUK]

Originally posted by Miniryu:
See, we have two iMacs (G4, jag 10.2) in our department cluster that crash when you leave them idle for too long. Specifically, the screen dims, and there is a message that reads "You need to restart you computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button." in four different languages. On the very bottom the numbers appear: 00:03:93LA5:41:44 and 010.001.002.011

I imagin that upgrading the OS would work, but since I don't have admin privilages I am looking for another solution. I'm just a student tired of hearing other students talk about what crap the new iMacs are.

No machine is ever truly idle - there's always something going on, lots in fact. A kernel panic (which is what you're describing) can only be caused by errant software running with kernel priveleges, which is the OS itself (which is more or less stable) or a kernel extension (KEXT), which can easily be a pile of crap. Witness the driver for the Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem (if you have that installed, there's your problem right there). A clean install of the OS should cure this problem, if you can't figure out which component is the culprit. On reboot, you can examine the kernel panic log in Console to see what it was crashed.

[Miniryu]

Originally posted by GRAHAMUK:
No machine is ever truly idle - there's always something going on, lots in fact. A kernel panic (which is what you're describing) can only be caused by errant software running with kernel priveleges, which is the OS itself (which is more or less stable) or a kernel extension (KEXT), which can easily be a pile of crap. Witness the driver for the Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem (if you have that installed, there's your problem right there). A clean install of the OS should cure this problem, if you can't figure out which component is the culprit. On reboot, you can examine the kernel panic log in Console to see what it was crashed.

Thanks for the reply. There is no USB modem, just USB floppies/Zip. Do you think they could be causing the problem? How can I use the Console to examine the kernel panic log? If I can't find anything there, I think I will ask the system admin to reinstall the OS.

[dtriska]

You can use Apple System Profiler to view the logs. Click on the "Logs" tab and go to the bottom of the list. There will be a disclosure triangle for kernel panics.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Miniryu:
Thanks for the reply. There is no USB modem, just USB floppies/Zip. Do you think they could be causing the problem? How can I use the Console to examine the kernel panic log? If I can't find anything there, I think I will ask the system admin to reinstall the OS.

Well, even as a non-admin, you should be able to just yank the USB floppies and Zip out of the USB port. Then leave it running for a while, and see if it KP's.

Also, you might want to have your sysadmin check the RAM on the machines to make sure it's not faulty. Hopefully they didn't buy crap RAM...

[rhombus]

My 450mhz DP G4 (10.2.4, 512 MB of RAM) gett kernel panics intermitently when I leave it to to sleep (I only realise once I wake it up, of course). The kernel panic description is always the same in the kernel panic log - here is an example:

Sun Mar 2 20:37:13 2003


panic(cpu 1): Unexpected user state trap(cpu 1): 0x00000008 DSISR=0x40000000 DAR=0x15d58140 PC=0x91b74ffc, MSR=0x0204f030

Latest stack backtrace for cpu 1:
Backtrace:
0x00084FAC 0x000853DC 0x00027FA8 0x0008EF70 0x00091F78
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x15145A00)
PC=0x91B74FFC; MSR=0x0204F030; DAR=0x15D58140; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x91B51E98; R1=0xBFFFAB50; XCP=0x00000008 (0x200 - Machine check)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 6.4:
Wed Jan 29 18:50:42 PST 2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.26.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

I have had kernel panics with exactly the same text in the log in every version of 10.2.x except 10.2.0, in think.

However recently I got a different kernel panic - but it was still caused because my mac went to sleep.

Fri Apr 4 18:23:36 2003




Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 1): 0x200 - Machine check DAR=0x00843000 PC=0x15a16fcc
Latest crash info for cpu 1:
Exception state (sv=0x14FD4280)
PC=0x15A16FCC; MSR=0x00049030; DAR=0x00843000; DSISR=0x42000000; LR=0x15A16F04; R1=0x0D90BD70; XCP=0x00000008 (0x200 - Machine check)
Backtrace:
0x001D5A84 0x15A16F04 0x0003E2C4 0x0003E1CC
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.iokit.IOATABlockStorage(1.2.4)@0x15a1100 0
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOATAFamily(1.5.3f1)@0x1550e000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(1.2.3)@0x159a0000
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x14FD4280)
previously dumped as "Latest" state. skipping...
Exception state (sv=0x14F4C780)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)