Comments on: Why'd my reliable mac crash so violently?

Question: Why'd my reliable mac crash so violently?

thecaddy — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:31:31 -0800

My 15" Powerbook from 2003, running OS X.3, just froze up and demanded that I restart my computer. Why? The screen grayed out and a message popped up telling me to restart my computer in English, German and a couple of other languages, in front of a graphic of the apple power logo.

Was it some kind of kernel crash? I've gone through my logs and don't see anything out of the ordinary.

I've never seen anything like this. Has my computer been hacked, or was it just running so long that a serious crash was bound to happen? (Disclosure: I've been using OS9 support recently.)

By: birdherder

birdherder — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:37:24 -0800

That was a kernal panic. Once every 5 years isn't the end of the world. But if it happens again soon, it could be you're having a hardware problem.

By: mumkin

mumkin — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:37:41 -0800

You saw this, right? I doubt very much that you were hacked. If it's never happened before, I wouldn't worry about it over much. If it happens again soon, I'd break out the hardware diagnostics CD/DVD that came with the powerbook and have it thoroughly test itself.

By: furtive

furtive — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:38:50 -0800

That's Apple's equivalent to the Blue Screen of Death. The fact that you've never seen one before is a testament to the reliability of OS X, although I've seen a lot more of them in Leopard than I ever did in Tiger or Jaguar.

I wouldn't worry about it unless it keep reocurring.

By: pedmands

pedmands — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:40:18 -0800

That happened to me constantly when I first installed Leopard. A quick re-install and a software/boot cache update got me running smooth again. I have no advice to offer, only consolation when I tell you it's not a permanent or unsolvable problem if it keeps happening. Since you're undoubtedly not under Apple Care any more, I'd take comfort in that fact :) Good luck.

By: justnathan

justnathan — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:53:03 -0800

IBooks from that period were quite prone to kernal panics; I've not heard of similar issues for Powerbooks. I second the diagnostic CD idea as well; in my experience the panics tend to throw off little things in the system that are easily fixed using the diagnostic programs.

By: pwicks

pwicks — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:57:22 -0800

Like everyone else so far has said, it's a kernel panic and probably no big deal. If it keeps happening, memory is the most likely culprit, either a chip that has gone bad or come loose. You can use something like memtest to check your ram if need be.

By: AmbroseChapel

AmbroseChapel — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:39:35 -0800

>Like everyone else so far has said, it's a kernel panic

Actually everyone else so far has spelled it "kernal" for some reason. It may help when searching for it, etc., to know that "kernel" is correct.

Apple's page on the subject.

By: threeze

threeze — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:39:25 -0800

AmbroseChapel, maybe everyone else is used to talking about Commodore 64's?

By: thecaddy

thecaddy — Thu, 15 May 2008 23:36:00 -0800

Okay, thanks everybody. I figured it was something like that but I hadn't seen the screen before, and I had three other incidents in my panic log (all occasions where the computer did something else weird, now that I think about).

I'm on vacation but I'll make sure to run the diagnostic check when I get back to the house.

Thanks!