[iMOTOR]

I have a 12 inch 1ghz PowerBook G4 (ancient, I know) that has been having problems for about three weeks. Here is what happens:

1. I lift the screen to wake the computer from sleep, the computer is dead no video no sounds

2. I press the power button till the computer shuts down then I restart, the computer chimes then kernel panics, verbose mode shows Airport triggering the kernel panic.

3. Turn the computer off, remove AirPort Extreme card, restart computer and it boots just fine.

4. Shutdown, re-insert the AirPort Card, restart computer, everything boots up fine, airport works at login.

5. sleep and wake the computer about 5 times and back to dead.

The computer never kernel panics during operation, just when wakeing from sleep. The fact that I can re-install the airport card and it works fine makes me think it’s a software problem, not hardware.

What I have tried so far that doesn’t help:

Repair Permissions
Verify Disk

What I have not tried so far:

Archive and install
reset pram
Delete kernel extensions

Any suggestions?

[ibook_steve]

Not sure why you think this is software. The machine is having problems waking the Airport card hardware when coming out of sleep, causing the panic. It's only happening sometimes, but if it's consistently when you wake the machine and not during normal operation, it indicates that there's probably some power issue with the Airport card.

Sorry to say, this sounds like hardware to me. You could try an OS reinstall, but I'm betting on hardware.

Steve

[Snow-i]

What steve said.

[iMOTOR]

It seems like a software issue to me because I can take the card out, boot the computer, put it back in and everything goes back to normal, at least for a few more sleep/wake cycles. If it was hardware, it seems to me like it would never boot with the card installed.

I’ll get a new Airport card for it and report back to ya, thanks the help.

[imitchellg5]

I have this exact issue with a 15" 1.33 GHz PowerBook. It's fine, until I hit the airport menu. I've reinstalled OSes, tried different cards, no dice.

[iMOTOR]

I can actually hit the airport menu all day without trouble, its when I wake it from sleep that it goes dead. But reading the Apple forums, everyone else is describing what you have; hit the airport menu then kernel panic.

[ghporter]

While behavior when waking from sleep may seem like software, it's built into the card, which makes it hardware. The real way to tell is to put another card in and see what happens.

[seanc]

Alternatively, permanently remove the card and see if the machine is stable.

[iMOTOR]

Update:

I swapped AirPort cards with another iMac and so far the iMac has had no trouble after waking several dozen times.

The PowerBook on the other hand, now will wake and login, but AirPort will be off and turning it on will trigger a kernel panic.

[ghporter]

The card is obviously the problem. Get a new one and all will be well. Disregard; I read it wrong.

[imitchellg5]

What? If it switched in a different card and turning AirPort on causes a kernel panic, obviously it's not the card's problem.

[ghporter]

My bad. I got it backward. It is obviously NOT the card, as the problems stayed with the computer and didn't move with the AirPort card.

[iMOTOR]

But now it’s really confusing; I never had kernel panics during runtime with the original AirPort card.

[seanc]

To me it seems like there's a bad solder joint somewhere.