OSX/Machine freezes

C

cyber11

Registered
I am having OSX/machine freezes recently.

My System Details:
Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) (version = 3.3)
Was originally a 400mhz but was replaced with a faster chip now running at 1 ghz

OS:
Mac OS X 10.2.6 (6L60)
Darwin Kernel Version 6.6: Thu May 1 21:48:54 PDT 2003; root:xnu/xnu-344.34.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC

First let me say, I used to be able to run for weeks with out restart other than certain software updates etc.

In trying to get to the bottom of this problem and when it started.

I'll go back about 2 weeks.
First I updated with the latest OSX and Safari etc.
(I did not update iTunes at the times as it was not something I used.)

About a week ago I also got my High Speed Internert connection from Cox Cable which is coming in through a D-Link cable modem on my Ethernet port.

This is when it started. I had been using the high speed connection for a day or 2 and then I saw there was an update to iTunes I installed it and was playing around with iTunes when it happened.
What happened was it dropped into what looks like a debugger screen. Kind of like a Linux/DOS screen plasterded over top of my usual OSX desktop and other applictaions that are open. It clobbers only a portion of the screen. The rest stays up in full color.

The machine is completly frozen. I can only restart it with the small button on the front panel. After restart it may run fine for an hour or 2 until it does it again. Every thing else is completly fine after restart no unusal application behavior etc.


The first line is;
System Failure: cpu=0; code=00000001 (Corrupt Stack)

The last few lines mention the MAC ADDRESS and the Ethernet connection

Last line is:
waiting for remote debugger connection

Also at the time this started I was constantly running out of disk space. I have since freed up about 1.5 gigs but it makes no difference.

The way it happens most often now is if I'm using Safari or IE then I click in a Finder window, or I'm in the Finder and I click on an application Icon in the Dock. It makes no difference if Classic Environment is running or not.

I have eliminated both iTunes and Safari assuming that just not starting them up during a restart is adequate.

I have also eliminated Ethernet connection. I went back on my dialup for a couple of hours and about 2-3 hours it happened.

I tried to trash preferences but I'm not sure what they are. In prior versions of the OS this was easy to figure out.
So I'm not sure if these were the right files or if that even would make a difference.
com.apple.system.preferences.plist
com.apple.Safari.plist
com.apple.finder.plist



I also did the following:

I have run Diskwarrior. Everythings fine there.
I also ran a few utilities such as Dragster, Jaguar Cache and Cocktail.
It still happens but I can run for a bit longer now.

Any ideas?
 
Cyber11,

Welcome to MacOSX.com! Hopefully someone can give you some assistance.

It looks like you've done some good troubleshooting. I would suggest looking at all your running applications. Test each one by itself to see if it's an app that's crashing the system.

By the way, what looked like a debugger screen was actually a kernel panic, a system crash. System crashes are, or should be, rare.

There are a gazillion things that could cause a kernel panic. We've suggested to other people that they check out their hardware, especially RAM. Do you have a hardware diagnostic disc?

Doug
 
Thanks Doug,

First, where would I find the Hardware Diagnostics?
I bought the the machine new and have looked on all disks but can't find anything.
What specifically am I looking for?
Is there any place I can DL it from?

I tend to believe the RAM aspect of it.
Heres what I have.
1 128 in each of the 4 slots
3 were exact same, 1 was different in physical size and appearance but still PC100/128
the different one was in J21
the others were in J22 J23 J24
So I removed the different one altogether, moved all the others up one slot
It has made no difference.

So I removed the one in J21 and moved the other 2 up 1 slot.
Question: Would I be better off with 1 512 SIMM then 4/128's?

Although could be the processor upgrade but that was months ago. Why now?
I never had a lick of trouble until the 10.2.6 upgrade.
This is a Giga Designs G-celarotor chip.
Suppose I could put the original back in and see what happens.

As far as applications crashing, Safari crashes frequently, more so leading up to this problem.
However if I don't run it at all the machine still freezes.
This seems to be a precursor as to whats to come but not always.
If I use IE it still freezes up in about the same amount of time.

Would it do any good to reformat and install all over again.
I could do this without too much trouble but if thats not the likely culprit then I don't want to bother.
I have 2 10GB drives.
When I started using OSX I decided to add a drive and put only OSX on it and left the OS9 on the other drive.
Neither drive is partitioned.
 
You can check your crash log to see the specific of the crash. This may help you determine what is causing you to crash. Second, check the ram chips? Are they Apple brand? Third, check the processor's manufacture to see if they have experienced Mac OSX trouble.
 
Unfortunately because it is a system freeze there is no information written to any crash logfile. If it were a Finder crash yes there would be.

All the SIMMs are Kingston but were not Apple specific. I was under the impresssion that specs such as size and speed were the only thing that was needed. No?

Could you elaborate on what you mean by Apple specific?

thanks,
-bill
 
Kingston is fine. Beyond the general advice given I can't offer more as I'm not a RAM expert. I have heard that OS X is finicky about RAM. Still, Kingston is a top brand. How old are they?

Have you tried each DIMM by itself?

Your accelerator could possibly be the problem, but you say you didn't start having troubles until recently. How about trying an earlier version of OS X? Just a thought.

BTW, I'm not at home now, but I believe I got a hardware diagnostics disk with my computers. Of course, both are covered under 3 years of Applecare. Perhaps that hardware disc comes with Applecare. I was thinking that you could run a memory test.

Doug
 
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