[G4] How to get actual kernel panic data?

[Bruce Ryan Nakamura]

Hello Eric,

I had the same problem.  First the Oahu Apple Store, and subsequently  
a local shop named MacMouse Club couldn't fix it.  I lost $1627.73  
because MacMouse Club parted out my broken Firewire 400 MDD, and  
switched it with a Firewire 800 that couldn't run my OS9 type  
software, without getting my consent before doing the switch.  The  
problem Frankensteined into a GREAT BIG HASSLE!  Sigh.

My educated guess is that you might have an erratic power supply  
problem because that was the only part both the Oahu Apple Store and  
MacMouse Club didn't replace.  The logic board was changed by the  
Oahu Apple Store.  My hypothesis is that when the power supply  
stutters for just a fraction of a second, the CPU freezes or panics.

Perhaps you can hook your power supply up to an oscilloscope and look  
at the wave form while the power supply is under a load.  When there  
is no load, the wave form might be fine.  However, when the power  
supply is running the fan and the CPU, the wave form might break down.

Aloha from Oahu,

Bruce


On Apr 9, 2009, at 11:16 AM, Eric Smith wrote:

> My iBook G4 has started experiencing regular kernel panics.
> My immediate question is how can I get the actual kernel
> panic message to display, rather than the generic message
> ("You must restart your computer ...") ?
> It's a long shot but maybe there's some clue in there
> I could decipher.
>
> Background: this started happening out of the blue.
> Once it started, it would either happen during the boot,
> or if it did boot all the way up it would happen as soon
> as I tried to log in. I was able to boot from the install
> CD without any problems and run Disk Utility, repair the
> filesystem and repair permissions (but no significant
> problems were seen). After doing this it would run for
> a longer period of time after booting, but after about
> 15-20 minutes of operation it would panic again, and
> then start panicking on every boot again.
>
> I took it to my authorized Apple repair shop (and they're
> good; I've used them for years on different systems).
> They ran all their HW diagnostics and found nothing
> (I have never opened it and added RAM or anything else),
> and wiped the disk clean and reinstalled. They also tried
> different kb/mouse, running off an external drive, etc.
> The result: still random panics, although they claim the
> panics are less frequent now. At that point they gave up.
>
> So I'm not sure what to do next. Live with a system that
> panics at random intervals and hope it doesn't get worse,
> or declare it a total loss? I don't expect that taking it
> to Apple will be of any use because they will probably just
> want to replace the logic board at a prohibitive cost.
> All I'm thinking is that if I can gather some more data on
> the actual panics there might be some hope.
>
> Thanks,
> Eric S.
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