[G4] kernel panics across different volumes; RAM?

[Wayne Clodfelter]

I recently obtained a QuickSilver and moved a stick of 512MB RAM from  
my old Sawtooth to max out the RAM in the QS. I replaced it in the  
Sawtooth with a 128MB stick that had been in it a year or two earlier.
At the same time, I installed Tiger on one volume on the Sawtooth's  
internal ATA drive, and cloned Panther onto the other volume on the  
drive.

The Sawtooth, which had never given a minute's trouble under Panther  
started having kernel panics. Not immediately. No problems for about  
a week, and then I upgraded Tiger from 10.4 to 10.4.2. A day or two  
later is when the kernel panics started.

Not just on the Tiger volume, but on the Panther volume, as well.  
Even in safe boot and booted up as root, the kernel panics persisted.

Presently, I have removed all RAM except for a single 512MB stick of  
PC133-333, and have not yet had another kernel panic, but it's only  
been a few hours since removing the other RAM.
I pressed the CUDA switch for about 5 seconds after removing the RAM,  
too.

The other 3 sticks are PC 100.

The only things that have changed on the Sawtooth is the RAM swap  
mentioned above, and a different HD (as I put the HDs from the  
Sawtooth into the QS, and the one from the QS into the Sawtooth). So,  
yes, the installations of Panther and Tiger on the Sawtooth are new,  
too, but permissions have been repaired, and both volumes were  
repaired using Disk Utility, and also checked with TTP4.0.5. No  
problems were found.

So my question to the list is this:
Is the RAM the primary suspect? Could PC 133 and PC 100 sticks co- 
exist under Panther for 2 years with no problem, and become  
problematic under Tiger? Even to the point of showing up under Panther?
If not the RAM, then what? Before you ask, I have not changed or  
added any PCI cards, etc. I removed some peripheral FW drives, USB  
printer, scanner, etc, but have not added anything back except a  
powered USB 2.0  hub. I suspect hardware because the kernel panics  
persist over two different volumes and even under safe boot and when  
logged in as root. Could it still be software induced?

Thanks.



Regards,

Wayne Clodfelter
wayne at troutnc.com