[newsushi]

Beginning on friday of last week my Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz began exhibiting a behavior that prompted a crash during every restart attempt. The behavior did/does not effect a shutdown and power up cycle, only a restart cycle.

If restart is chosen, the computer will chime, the grey screen with the apple and spinning gear appears, and then the machine crashes.

I was running the latest version of Tiger. System Updater could find no items that needed updating.

To resolve the issue I decided to reinstall Tiger from scratch. I backed up my startup disk and chose erase and install.

With zero installed applications and files and a brand new install of Tiger 10.4.0 the behavior persists. After completing all necessary updates to bring the operating system to 10.4.10, the behavior persists.

What's more, I booted from my backup startup disk on another G4 running Tiger. That machine does not exhibit the behavior of crashing during a restart when restarting from my backup startup drive.

This led me to believe that this issue was related to a hardware malfunction.

-However-

If I restart the effected machine into safe mode, it starts up fine.

According to apple, safe mode in Tiger:
1. forces a directory check of the startup volume.
2. loads only required kernel extensions (some of the items in /System/Library/Extensions).
3. disables all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts .
4. moves to the Trash all font caches normally stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/ , where (uid) is a user ID number such as 501.
5. disables all startup items and any Login Items.

Given that this behavior persists on a machine with a fresh install of Tiger, there should be zero non-apple-sanctioned startup items, login items, or fonts.

The last thing I tried was using first aid from the Tiger install disc. It found no errors on my hard drive.

I reset the PRAM both before and after the resintall which had no effect on the behavior.

Any suggestions or ideas?

[rehoot]

It sure sounds like hardware, but if it runs in safe mode, then maybe there is a software issue. If you haven't already done so, you should also try booting from the Install DVD and looking in the menu for "Run Disk Utility" to check the hard drive (again). Your list above says that all startup items are bypassed in Safe Mode. You might try deleting all startup items and trying it again in regular mode (this probably won't help, but you could try it).

I just posted some tips on removing the startup items, I'll paste them here:

To narrow the possibilities, turn off every app that runs at startup (look in the System Preferences->Users->Startup Items and REMOVE them (make a list so you can reinstall them later). You might also have more hidden startup items. Look for files in the folder called /Library/StartupItems (this is what it is called in 10.3 -- and it is the Library folder from the root, not the one in your home directory, or look in both places). If you remove them, be sure to save a copy that preserves the permissions (tar should work).

After you remove all the startup items, you can activate them one at a time to see what causes the problem.

[newsushi]

Perhaps I forgot to mention it in my original post, but I have already tried booting from the CD and using disk utility to repair my startup disk. It found zero errors and the behavior persisted after that.

This is a fresh install (erase and install) so there should be zero startup/login items. I verified that there are zero startup/login items in both the system preferences and startupitems folder.

I've been looking through my logs, and I can't find a single difference between a failed restart & a successful cold boot.

So this is also something that is escaping my systemlog.

Could firmware be a culprit? How does one even go about reinstalling firmware?

Are there any other processes that exist on the machine that pre-exist the OS that I can check?

[Big Mac]

Try holding down command v during startup to go into verbose mode. You may be able to narrow down the cause.

[newsushi]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Try holding down command v during startup to go into verbose mode. You may be able to narrow down the cause.

Thanks for the tip Big Mac. Verbose mode points to kernel panic. Is there a way to see a log exactly as it appears in Verbose mode so I can post/print it? Also, there is no crashreport.log or panic.log on my machine. It's a 1.33Ghz G4 Powerbook running 10.4.X Shouldn't it be producing both of those? Everything is running on the default installation parameters, so I'd think so. Anyway to enable these functions?

Steps I've taken to resolve kernel panic:
1. Remove the single 1GB non-built-in RAM module
2. Repair permissions. Repair disk. Reset PRAM
3. There are no startup items or login items
4. There are no third-party applications or software installed
5. There are no peripherals connected to the Powerbook
6. Complete erase and install.

The only step I have not been able to take yet is to do a hardware verification with the supplied hardware verification disc as it is at home. I will try that this evening. However, failing that, any advice or suggestions?

Thanks!

[newsushi]

Update: I just completed a hardware test and everything passed ... and the kernel panic persists.

Also, I'm still not getting any crash or panic logs and am trying to figure out how you "enable" those or why they're not showing up to begin with.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[newsushi]

Issue resolved.

While brainstorming on the differences between Safe boot and a regular boot, I realized that I had not yet troubleshooted the airport extreme card. While it passed the hardware test, disabling the card and doing a restart did not produce a kernel panic.

So I reseated the card and the issue did not repeat itself. Bad connection, I guess.

Thanks to all for your help and suggestions.

[Big Mac]

Congrats.