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jfrizzell · Jun 3, 2003, 07:04 PM

Ok, fist let me say I'm a complete Mac newbie, but I do have a fair amount of Unix experience...but it's been a while.

I had just finished installing Toast and went to Safari to look something up and wham...my first Kernel panic. Rebooted the system and it kernel panics during the boot process. I booted into single user mode and looked around a bit, couldn't find anything out of the ordinary and rebooted into safe mode. That works ok. I rebooted again normally and this time rather than a kernel panic it just locks up with the grey Apple screen and the spinning dial. The dial stops spinning and it locks. Rebooted with verbose mode and can't really make heads or tails of it, but it seems to be hanging on the last line of /etc/rc which is SystemStarter. The only thing I can see is that it mentions something about NVDANV10Hal.kext. I've tried a repair permissions and eliminating any local startup tasks (haven't disabled any system startups yet). I'm also reset the PRAM. Any suggestions or is it time for a reinstall?

Thanks!
Jamie

someone_else · Jun 4, 2003, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by jfrizzell:
Ok, fist let me say I'm a complete Mac newbie, but I do have a fair amount of Unix experience...but it's been a while.

I had just finished installing Toast and went to Safari to look something up and wham...my first Kernel panic. Rebooted the system and it kernel panics during the boot process. I booted into single user mode and looked around a bit, couldn't find anything out of the ordinary and rebooted into safe mode. That works ok. I rebooted again normally and this time rather than a kernel panic it just locks up with the grey Apple screen and the spinning dial. The dial stops spinning and it locks. Rebooted with verbose mode and can't really make heads or tails of it, but it seems to be hanging on the last line of /etc/rc which is SystemStarter. The only thing I can see is that it mentions something about NVDANV10Hal.kext. I've tried a repair permissions and eliminating any local startup tasks (haven't disabled any system startups yet). I'm also reset the PRAM. Any suggestions or is it time for a reinstall?

Thanks!
Jamie

Boot into su again and make sure the disk is clean.

/sbin/fsck -y

Repeat until it says no problems found.

Reboot.

Run the permissions checker again.

If that doesn't work, I'd say re-install.

You may have corrupted a system file.

HTH.

MacManMikeOSX · Jun 4, 2003, 06:06 PM

Sound like darwins kernal is having problems I'd say only reinstall the kernal.
(yes I know it's named mach but it's derived from xnu and has mach in it but is truely just the darwin kernal its not mach not xnu just darwin)

pat++ · Jun 5, 2003, 04:39 AM

Originally posted by MacManMikeOSX:
Sound like darwins kernal is having problems I'd say only reinstall the kernal.
(yes I know it's named mach but it's derived from xnu and has mach in it but is truely just the darwin kernal its not mach not xnu just darwin)

kernEl please

Start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files by pressing shift during boot. I suspect Toast has installed a bad kernel extension.... If you computer boots when using Safe Boot, try to remove the Toast kernel extension (or reinstall Toast).

You can find kernel extensions in /System/Library/Extensions and /Library/Extensions

jfrizzell · Jun 5, 2003, 12:52 PM

Well, I finally decided just to do an archive and install. This worked better than expected and I was back up and running in no time. Things worked fine for a day until I got back home last night and tried to connect to my wireless access point. It wouldn't accept the password and after 2 or 3 tries I received a kernel panic. I found some discussions about resetting the access point to correct this and sure enough, that did it (weird by the way...) The machine ran fine for the rest of the day until it locked up while downloading some files. The screen had been blanked by the power settings but the system wouldn't come back. Had to power it down and when it came back up it was back to the kernel panic on boot.

I ran a complete hardware diagnostic but it found nothing. I took out the 512Mb RAM upgrade and installed the original 128Mb module. Still the same problems. I'm about ready to do a complete erase and install. Any other recommendations before I do this? I'm going on vacation for 2 weeks on Tuesday and have to get this thing running before I leave because it's going to be my storage device for digital photos.

Thanks
Jamie

pat++ · Jun 5, 2003, 01:55 PM

what laptop is this? If this is a PowerBook 12" or 17", make sure you installed the lastest Airport update which fixes some issues with Airport Extreme. The base station needs to be updated too IIRC.

jfrizzell · Jun 5, 2003, 02:24 PM

It's the 12" PB. I have installed the lastest Airport update from Apple, but since I'm not using an Apple base station, I can't update that.

Jamie

Originally posted by pat++:
what laptop is this? If this is a PowerBook 12" or 17", make sure you installed the lastest Airport update which fixes some issues with Airport Extreme. The base station needs to be updated too IIRC.

MacManMikeOSX · Jun 5, 2003, 04:08 PM

Originally posted by pat++:
kernEl please ..............

I will spell things how I please thank you

-turns his back and storms out-

alien · Jun 5, 2003, 05:33 PM

Did the panics leave any logs? They would be accessible in Apple System Profiler. Sometimes it's possible to get some hints on what's happening by looking at the log.

Is any 3rd party devices connected to the Mac?