[X4U] Bad Memory Causing Kernel Panic on Wake?

[Zane H. Healy]

Bad memory can manifest itself in strange and unpredictable ways.  On 
my Rev. 0 G5 2x2 I had to stop using Virtual PC after I added some 
"substandard" PC3200 RAM.  The *ONLY* app that has any problem with 
the RAM is Virtual PC.  In fact I've sense added 2 more 2GB kits of 
the same RAM.  The system has run fine with this memory for years, as 
long as I don't try to run VPC.  If I run VPC, I get a kernal panic 
in short order.  If I take the RAM out, I can run VPC with no problem.

Zane




At 11:30 PM -0500 6/27/10, Joe Sporleder wrote:
>Over a week ago, I installed a couple of memory sticks from OWC 
>(Newer Technology brand) to get my 13" MacBook Pro up to 8GB of RAM. 
>I also installed a 640GB Western DIgital 2.5" hard drive, replacing 
>the 320GB that came with it (I used Disk Utility to clone the old 
>drive info onto the new one). I'm running MacOS X 10.6.4. I am 
>getting kernel panics on wake from sleep, and sometimes when 
>starting up fresh after the computer has been off for a while. 
>Almost like clock work, I can easily reproduce 80% of the time the 
>kernel panic - simply put it to sleep for a while and then wake it 
>up. Wouldn't memory problems manifest randomly or under stressful 
>loads? I have often had just email and Safari open, and that's often 
>about all I run at home. At work it is usually hooked up to an 
>external 24" display and a USB hub, but I'm always careful to not 
>plug and unplug the external stuff while the machine is asleep. Last 
>Friday and Monday while the MacBook was at work with the new memory,
>   it had a fairly heavy workload with design apps and photoshop, 
>etc, and it worked great.
>
>I've tried all of the things I could find on Apple's online support 
>knowledge base on dealing with kernel panics, like repairing the 
>hard drive and permissions (Disk Utility found some minor things 
>that it was able to repair) - I even reset the SMU. I also ran the 
>apple hardware test app in the extended testing mode and it found no 
>problems with the memory. The only thing I haven't tried yet is 
>reinstalling the OS, or swapping out with known good memory (the 4GB 
>that was in it is long gone making another MacBook happy, but I do 
>have a spare Mac mini that takes the same kind of memory that I can 
>test with).
>
>One item that is fairly consistent in the kernel panic report is 
>"com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement" - that seems to be 
>the last entry before everything goes bad. And, like I said above, 
>if the machine has been off or asleep - maybe for a half an hour or 
>more, or overnight, the kernel panic always happens within about 60 
>seconds after waking up (or about 60 seconds after the desktop 
>appears if it was off). Otherwise, a quick restart and everything is 
>fine until I need to put the machine asleep or shut it down for 
>extended periods of time.
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-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com              | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |