Friend's OS X Freezing -- Need Help

[greenguy4]

So my friend just called me to take a look at his computer. He is running the newest revision iBook 14 in with Tiger 10.4.2

Whenever he turns on his computer moments later the screen goes dark grayish and the big power button symbol comes on and it says in several languages he needs to restart his computer. He has no idea how this happened and is not sure what to do. I have never encountered anything similar to this so I have no idea what to tell him. Should he reinstall OSX?

Thanks

 

[mad jew]

Sounds like a kernel panic, so maybe read this.

We need to work out if it's a system software problem, a peripheral problem or a Mac hardware problem before reinstalling.

 

[greenguy4]

Read that will run the disk utility and tech tool deluxe. Anything else that I missed and also ti says to ugrade to latest OS 10.4.3 but the computer won't stay on long enough to install it. What other options are their to install this. By the way sometimes it will freeze right after login within seconds and other times it will stay on for 2-3 minutes.

 

[greenguy4]

Last three trys at start up:

Froze right after log in.
Froze right after log in.
Froze during start up.

 

[mad jew]

Unplug everything, take out all RAM except for the standard stuff Apple gave you (if relevant) and then run fsck.

 

[greenguy4]

No third party Ram installed -- straight from the Apple store. Running Disk Utility from the Mac OSX disk and will let you know what happens
Thanks again guys. I'll be crossing my fingers.

 

[greenguy4]

Ran Disk repair and disk permissions repair and before the login screen the computer froze up again. No new software has been installed in the last few days (problem started a few hours ago) so I can't think what else it could be.

 

[greenguy4]

Computer isn't able to even fully login before freezing. Anything else besides disk utility?

 

[IJ Reilly]

This is a hardware issue, with a 99% confidence. You can do little else other than bring it in for service. Please don't even try to reinstall OSX. This will not help, and could even make matters worse if the Mac freezes during the install process.

 

[greenguy4]

How can you be sure it is a hardware issue. He has had the computer since late August with no problems. Why act up now?

 

[Sedulous]

Perhaps it might be a good idea to reset the NVRAM/PRAM? I recently had a system that was randomly hard-freezing. Reset the PRAM and all is well.

 

[DXoverDY]

How can you be sure it is a hardware issue. He has had the computer since late August with no problems. Why act up now?

make an appointment at the nearest genius bar (at the nearest apple store). take it to someone that knows what they're doing. he has 1 year of support, so take advantage of it if possible. if no apple store is near you, call them up, tell them what's happening and they'll send you a box to send it in.

my issue with apple is they have a "30 day phone support" or is it 90 days? either way, it's a load of bull. i had a problem, and they wanted to charge me for the phone call because it was past that period. told them to screw themselves and proceeded to fix it myself. if i ever need anything hardware related fixed, i take it to the nearest apple store where they can't tell me they need my credit card to help me.

 

[greenguy4]

How do you reset the PVRam?

 

[IJ Reilly]

How can you be sure it is a hardware issue. He has had the computer since late August with no problems. Why act up now?

Because it nearly always is. I've seen probably hundreds of threads reporting symptoms like yours and I can't recall a single one where the problem was traced to software. Why now? Who knows? Things happen. I personally have RAM in my desk drawer that worked perfectly for years and then suddenly for no apparent reason went bad. I've had RAM that worked perfectly with 10.2 cause kernel panics in 10.3.

 

[IJ Reilly]

How do you reset the PVRam?

http://guides.macrumors.com/Resetting_NVRAM

 

[yellow]

Zap the PRAM: restart, hold down Apple-Option-P-R, let go after the 3rd time it chimes.

Reset NVRAM: restart, hold down Apple-Option-O-F, at the prompt type: reset-nvram, hit return, then type reset-all, hit return

Your friend might also want to investigate resetting the PMU on his iBook.

Your friend might also want to investigate booting in Safe Mode: restart holding down Shift until login prompt

 

[greenguy4]

Resetted all the PVRam and whatnot and still not working. The computer works when it is in safe mode but I'm not sure what usability this takes away.

 

[California]

Resetted all the PVRam and whatnot and still not working. The computer works when it is in safe mode but I'm not sure what usability this takes away.

Babe, it is the logic board. It's failing. Take it in and quit being "in denial" about it. EXACT same symptoms to me on my 1ghz PB. Apple repaired/replaced everything fine after that.

 

[greenguy4]

So how does the hardware get a Kernel Panic anyway?

 

[Makosuke]

So how does the hardware get a Kernel Panic anyway?

What panics is the OS; it happens when, basically, an error it can't recover from occurrs.

The three common circumstances I'm familiar with are:

1) When the OS tries to do something with the hardware and it goes terribly wrong. It freaks out, and a Kernel Panic results. This can be caused by bum hardware or a bad driver.

2) Incompatible system-level software. System hacks that screw things up or, again, bum drivers that freak out when trying to do certain things.

3) Corrupt OS data; once in a very rare while this just happens, but if it's consistent it's either bad RAM or a bad motherboard (hence screwing up data before it gets to RAM).

The fact that it's not doing it in safe mode leaves a small percentage chance that it's his OS install that's screwed up, but usually that'd only be if he'd specifically done something that is kicking in after login. The surefire way to test it is to reinstall the OS and see if it fixes it. If not, almost certainly hardware.

Were it mine I'd give the hardware test that came with it a shot just to see what it says, and if it claims nothing's wrong, then maybe trie a reinstall. But if there's a genius bar nearby, just run the hardware test, the go in and ask about it either way (if it does turn up something bum, it's faster to be able to say "the hardware test said XXX is toast" than have them take it and do something).

 

[maxterpiece]

You say it runs fine in safe mode? If that's the case then I'm pretty sure if you reinstall OS X it will run fine.

I've seen this kind of issue about 5 times on various different computers and every time it has been the logic board except for once, so it is most likely the logic board but you can't be sure.

But yeah, I woudl make sure it runs okay in safe mode because it might create mroe problems if the computer freezes while OS X is reinstalling.

 

[IJ Reilly]

I would not read much into the fact that it boots in safe mode. I'd be willing to bet that if it was run in this state for a while, it would eventually panic, especially if it turns out to be a RAM issue.

I would caution against trying an OS reinstall on a Mac with this much of a tendency to kernel panic. The chances of you getting all the way through the process have to look pretty small, and failing that, then you have to deal with the problem of trying to fix a Mac with no bootable OS.

Don't risk making the problem worse -- please have your friend bring this Mac in for service!

 

[greenguy4]

Yea he is in quite a bit of a tough spot. You see we are both studying abroad this year with no Apple shop in the country. We are both going back to the US in about two weeks luckily except we will only be there for a little over a week! So if he takes it in and then it isn't ready he needs to have it shipped here. I will let him know not to reinstall the OS and I guess for right now that is the best option.
Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[yellow]

Whoa there tiger..

If you can boot in safe mode, then there's a high % chance that it's a corrupt kernel extension that can be recovered from. Especially since the panic was happening at boot time. Have your buddy boot in Safe Mode and then post (as an attachment) the last 2 or 3 entries from /Library/Logs/panic.log. This will (hopfully) help us figure out what is leading to the panic and getting it fixed. I'm not fully convinced that it's hardware related at this point..

 

[IJ Reilly]

Whoa there tiger..

If you can boot in safe mode, then there's a high % chance that it's a corrupt kernel extension that can be recovered from. Especially since the panic was happening at boot time. Have your buddy boot in Safe Mode and then post (as an attachment) the last 2 or 3 entries from /Library/Logs/panic.log. This will (hopfully) help us figure out what is leading to the panic and getting it fixed. I'm not fully convinced that it's hardware related at this point..

Care to make a little wager?