[arcticmac]

Not sure whether to post this here or under OS X discussions, but I think it's hardware related.

Anyhow, my sister's emac keeps having repeated crashes of the windowserver. Basically, the windowserver stalls, (according to ps), sometimes things on the display get scrambled, and sooner or later, the cursor, (which usually works at first), stops responding too.

The only thing I've found to do is to ssh in, and sudo reboot (which just helps to make sure the filesystem is safe... it doesn't really save any data.

While using ssh, I looked in the logs, and I see this...

in system.log:

Code:
Jan 2 09:08:15 localhost kernel: ATIRadeon::submit_buffer: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 3, need 6. RBBM_STATUS 0x81c1c100. VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x000
00002
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x01005962 4f000217 00000007 00000003
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x03f46a38 c0003c0c 00000002 00000008
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x00004443 01e1f827 00002a2a 81c1c100
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x60000002 00100000 51b3a230 72000a03
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x080a0f00 00000000 0401faf8 80000003
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0x0008bbbb 00000002
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 0:0x08012020
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 1:0x00000002
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 2:0x000101ce
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 3:0x08014020
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 4:0x00000002
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 5:0x000101ce
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 6:0x08016020
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 7:0x00000002
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 8:0x000101ce
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 9:0x08018020
Jan 2 09:08:25 localhost kernel: 10:0x00000002

(it continues with lines like the last one until the number immediately after 'kernel:' is 1023, and after that one, it stops, waits a while, and adds more...
and in windowserver.log:

Code:
Jan 02 08:37:51  [177] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
Jan 02 08:37:51  [177]   Display 0x42741c0: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x610 Model 0x9d07 S/N 0; online enabled built-in (0,0)[1280 x 960], base addr 0x0xb0018000
Jan 02 08:37:51  [177]   Display 0x3f003d: MappedDisplay Unit 1; Vendor 0xffffffff Model 0xffffffff S/N -1; offline enabled (2304,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb2019000
Jan 02 08:37:51  [177]   Display 0x41dc9d00: VirtualDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x756e6b6e Model 0x76697274 S/N 0; offline enabled built-in (2305,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x
0xb0015000
Jan 02 08:38:08  [177] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "SystemUIServer" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled
 them.
Jan 02 08:41:12  [164] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
Jan 02 08:41:12  [164]   Display 0x42741c0: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x610 Model 0x9d07 S/N 0; online enabled built-in (0,0)[1280 x 960], base addr 0x0xb0018000
Jan 02 08:41:12  [164]   Display 0x3f003d: MappedDisplay Unit 1; Vendor 0xffffffff Model 0xffffffff S/N -1; offline enabled (2304,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb2019000
Jan 02 08:41:12  [164]   Display 0x41dc9d00: VirtualDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x756e6b6e Model 0x76697274 S/N 0; offline enabled built-in (2305,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x
0xb0015000
Jan 02 08:41:23  [164] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "SystemUIServer" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled
 them.
Jan 02 08:58:18  [177] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
Jan 02 08:58:18  [177]   Display 0x42741c0: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x610 Model 0x9d07 S/N 0; online enabled built-in (0,0)[1280 x 960], base addr 0x0xb0018000
Jan 02 08:58:18  [177]   Display 0x3f003d: MappedDisplay Unit 1; Vendor 0xffffffff Model 0xffffffff S/N -1; offline enabled (2304,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb2019000
Jan 02 08:58:18  [177]   Display 0x41dc9d00: VirtualDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x756e6b6e Model 0x76697274 S/N 0; offline enabled built-in (2305,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x
0xb0015000
Jan 02 08:58:31  [177] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "SystemUIServer" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled
 them.
Jan 02 09:15:26  [178] CGXPerformInitialDisplayConfiguration
Jan 02 09:15:26  [178]   Display 0x42741c0: MappedDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x610 Model 0x9d07 S/N 0; online enabled built-in (0,0)[1280 x 960], base addr 0x0xb0018000
Jan 02 09:15:26  [178]   Display 0x3f003d: MappedDisplay Unit 1; Vendor 0xffffffff Model 0xffffffff S/N -1; offline enabled (2304,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x0xb2019000
Jan 02 09:15:26  [178]   Display 0x41dc9d00: VirtualDisplay Unit 0; Vendor 0x756e6b6e Model 0x76697274 S/N 0; offline enabled built-in (2305,0)[1 x 1], base addr 0x
0xb0015000
Jan 02 09:15:38  [178] kCGErrorFailure: CGXDisableUpdate: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "SystemUIServer" for over 1 second. Server has re-enabled
 them.
Jan 02 09:21:14  [178] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGXPostEventByConnection: invalid connection
Jan 02 09:25:39  [178] (ipc/send) invalid memory: CGXRunOneServerPass: mach_msg (gServiceSet) failed

I've run a repair of permissions, repaired the disk (using disk utility on the install disk), run apple hardware test, and reinstalled the system, and nothing's fixed it.

Does anyone know what's wrong?

[arcticmac]

made a little bit of progress...
I tried booting up in safe mode, and that worked without crashing for at least an hour (crashes have gotten to be pretty close together, so that you really couldn't use the machine of late)
I then, based on the line:
"Jan 2 09:08:15 localhost kernel: ATIRadeon::submit_buffer: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 3, need 6. RBBM_STATUS 0x81c1c100. VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x00000002"
decided to try doing my own "mini safe boot". I moved the files ATIRadeon.kext and ATIRadeon8500.kext out of /System/Extensions/ and rebooted (BTW, I picked ATIRadeon8500 (rather than one of the others) because that was the one that kextstat said was loading, and I decided to go ahead and grab the other one too just in case). For now, it seems to be fine, as far as not crashing goes, but it also lacks any hardware graphics acceleration, which kinda sucks...

Does anyone have an idea where I should go from here?

[blasto]

I think its a logic board problem - my ibook has the same report

Feb 9 22:19:26 ibook kernel[0]: ATIRadeon::submit_buffer: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 5, need 6. RBBM_STATUS 0x80010140. VAP_CNTL_STATUS 0x00000002

which occurs randomly and is better in safe boot. If been putting up with this for months, waiting for the intel ibook... If you have warranty go back to Apple.