[2009059]

Hi

My dual 2.7 is having a lot of kernel panics lately (last couple months). I added 2 gigs of 3rd party ram but ran checks on those and they say the ram is fine. Before I added ram I had a kernel panice about every month and a half. Now I have multiple in a week! I can't put the computer to sleep because I always wakes up with a kernel panic screen. I just leave it there downloading stuff, converting, whatever and I come back to a 747 taking off!

oh and ive tries reinstalling OSX but it really only helped for a few weeks.

what do I do!!???

[andgarden]

Sounds like you need to pull all of the third party RAM and send it back to Apple for close examination.

[2009059]

The ram is not bad...the hardware test said it was working fine. Is it the ram or something else?

[zwiebel_]

Just to make sure, I would double-check the RAM. Get Rember at macupdate
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15837
or a slightly faster CLI version from http://www.memtestosx.org and recheck again. These two apps saved me alot of hair pulling, where TechTool and other standard tools failed.

[2009059]

the second one says it passed
Test sequence 1 of 1:
Stuck Address : ok
Random Value : ok
Compare XOR : ok
Compare SUB : ok
Compare MUL : ok
Compare DIV : ok
Compare OR : ok
Compare AND : ok
Sequential Increment: ok
Solid Bits : ok
Block Sequential : ok
Checkerboard : ok
Bit Spread : ok
Bit Flip : ok
Walking Ones : ok
Walking Zeroes : ok

..the other is still running but so far everything seems fine

[2009059]

could it be some third party software that causes it?

[zoetrope]

Originally Posted by 2009059

Hi

My dual 2.7 is having a lot of kernel panics lately (last couple months). I added 2 gigs of 3rd party ram but ran checks on those and they say the ram is fine. Before I added ram I had a kernel panice about every month and a half. Now I have multiple in a week! I can't put the computer to sleep because I always wakes up with a kernel panic screen. I just leave it there downloading stuff, converting, whatever and I come back to a 747 taking off!

oh and ive tries reinstalling OSX but it really only helped for a few weeks.

what do I do!!???

A kernel panic every couple of months is not normal either, so the fact that they've only increased with the 3rd party RAM indicates another problem. And the fact that you've reinstalled the OS and keep having kernel panics probably means the panics are caused from hardware releated issues. Do you have any external firewire hard drives or other peripherals plugged into the computer? Any USB drives or peripherals? You might be able to glean some information from the Console utility, take a look at your system and console logs, as well as any crash reports. You can find the Console utility under Applications --> Utilities.

[2009059]

I have the ipod in my sig, epson r200, saitek cyborb 3d joystick, tablet (also in sig)..no external drives.

I can pretty much confirm it is not the ram, not the ipod, tablet, joystick or the periphials I mentioned (because they all worked fine from May up until September). So should I take it to the apple store to have it checked out?

[zoetrope]

I can't tell you what to do, but I would highly suggest that you do take the PM into the apple store to have it checked out, and if need be replaced. You should not put up with constant kernel panics, whether its mulitple weekly kernel panics, or every month and a half. Remember to take out your 3rd party RAM before taking it in, that way if you have to replace it you won't forget and leave it in.

I know its heavy, but something is definitely wrong and Apple should replace this unit if need be.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by 2009059

I have the ipod in my sig, epson r200, saitek cyborb 3d joystick, tablet (also in sig)..no external drives.

I can pretty much confirm it is not the ram, not the ipod, tablet, joystick or the periphials I mentioned (because they all worked fine from May up until September). So should I take it to the apple store to have it checked out?

Before schlepping your machine back to an Apple store, I'd still try disconnecting all non-Apple peripherals and the iPod. Run with nothing attached and see how it goes. While you say all the hardware was running fine, its still possible for a corrupted driver (at least one that uses a kext extension) to crash the OS.

[zoetrope]

I would agree with Cadaver, unplug everything and let if run for a while. Also, the 400GB drive you have in your PM, did you install that drive? Is it the only internal drive, and was that a build to order option from Apple? I don't remember a 400GB drive as an option when I ordered mine. Have you also run the drive utility on that HD and checked it's S.M.A.R.T. status? While that is not the end all be all of diagnostics, it is a pretty good indicator of your HD's health.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by 2009059

My dual 2.7 is having a lot of kernel panics lately (last couple months). I added 2 gigs of 3rd party ram but ran checks on those and they say the ram is fine. Before I added ram I had a kernel panice about every month and a half. Now I have multiple in a week!

What checks? How many times? No check is perfect. As others have said, take the PowerMac back to how it was before you were having panics, then add things back one by one to find the problem. Bad RAM wouldn't surprise me.

[2009059]

Originally Posted by zoetrope

Also, the 400GB drive you have in your PM, did you install that drive? Is it the only internal drive, and was that a build to order option from Apple? I don't remember a 400GB drive as an option when I ordered mine. Have you also run the drive utility on that HD and checked it's S.M.A.R.T. status? While that is not the end all be all of diagnostics, it is a pretty good indicator of your HD's health.

I ordered it with the 400gig (it was a bto option)

For the utility, are you talking about diskutility? I've done that and it says the S.M.A.R.T status is verified.


I've unplugged everything except the keyboard, display and mouse and so far (half hour) no panics. I'll leave it like this for a day and then plug stuff back in.

Thanks everyone

[2009059]

I found the panic.log zeoptrope? was talking about and here is what it typically says:

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.3.0: Mon Oct 3 20:04:04 PDT 2005; root:xnu-792.6.22.obj~2/RELEASE_PPC
panic(cpu 1 caller 0xFFFF0003): 0x300 - Data access
Latest stack backtrace for cpu 1:
Backtrace:
0x00095698 0x00095BB0 0x0002683C 0x000A8304 0x000ABC80
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x7248E780)
PC=0x0089FC40; MSR=0x0000B030; DAR=0x4B600000; DSISR=0x42000000; LR=0x0089FB70; R1=0x416438F0; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)
Backtrace:
0x0089FB70 0x0089F6A4 0x0089A144 0x0087DFC4 0x002E7800 0x002E96CC
0x0008C430 0x000291C0 0x000233AC 0x000ABFAC 0x6B322D73
backtrace terminated - frame not mapped or invalid: 0xBFFFE8E0

Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.ATIRadeon9700(4.1.6)@0x876000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(1.7)@0x479000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.4.1)@0x83c000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.4.1)@0x860000
Exception state (sv=0x7276B000)
PC=0x9000B208; MSR=0x0200F030; DAR=0x010F2048; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x9000B15C; R1=0xBFFFE8E0; XCP=0x00000030 (0p

does this mean there is something with the:
....graphics card ( Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.ATIRadeon9700(4.1.6)@0x876000)


....or cpu 1 (panic(cpu 1 caller 0xFFFF0003)??? In some of the other logs it says the same but with cpu 0 instead.