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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Recurring kernel panic

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 5:20 am

hello!

ok i am really panicing at the moment because this has never happened to my computer before.
I have been an apple mac user for years and have had the occasional kernel panic before.
about an hour ago, i opened my macbook (relatively new, intel core) computer from sleeping and as it was loading my previously opened programs up suddenly that grey screen comes up telling me to "restart my computer" . fine no problem, pressed the shut down buttton and left it.
5 mins later i turn the computer on again, it all loads and i select to open firefox, i press "restore previous session" and as soon as i do that the kernel panic comes up once again and i shut down my computer. this time i take out the battery and leave it for 10 mins.

ok so it should be fine now right? nooooo
i put the battery back in and turn on the computer, all good i take my time and let it load, then i open microsoft word. and yess the kernel panic comes up once again. so i press the shut down button. wait 5 mins then press the on button again, and the blue screen to start it comes up, yet no little apple, nor does my password thing come up either. wait for a while and nothing so i press the off button. wait. then press the on button. same thing just blue screen. do that again, and this time the blue screen doesn't even come up it makes a sound and the screen stays black, but the little sleep light on the front comes on. wait. and nothing it just stays like that. ok so i take out the battery again.

then put it in turn on the computer and the blue screen comes up and suddenly, weird writing fills up the screen and then it keeps going and the older writing keeps fading away .. this happens for 5 mins and then just black. ok thats when i really freaked out. very very very bizzare. and since then i have tried to turn it on and nothing happens. so now i have taken out the battery and its just sitting there.

i am realllly worried that my hard drive will be wiped out, please tell me that all the stuff on my computer will still be there!

Also what should i do at the moment, should i keep trying to turn my computer on? should i reinsert the battery? should i not touch it and wait to take it to the mac shop asap?

ok and i really truly appreciate your help in advance!!!!

THANK YOU!!

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:04 am

Start your computer holding the ⌘ and S key on your keyboard. When the black screen turns up and the "writing" stops, you will see something like:

If you want to make modifications to files:
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

If you wish to boot the system:
exit

:/ root#

Now to check your filesystem, type:

/sbin/fsck -fy

and press the return button on your keyboard and wait for the process to finish. If any errors are found repeat the above mentioned command until you get something like:

** The volume some_name appears to be OK.

(The term "some_name" is just to indicate that I don't know the precise name). Now type:

exit

and hit the return key. Hopefully after some more terminal text your mac will boot into the login screen.

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:12 am

thank you so much for your quick reply!!

i'm just a little confused however, did your response get cut off? because i'm not sure what to do after i see "If you want to make modifications" ??

thanks again

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:14 am

Check once again.

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:17 am

ok sorry about that!

thanks so much allan, i am about to go attempt this i'll let you know how it goes

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:18 am

sorry to be annoying, but just one more question,

by doing this will it erase my hard drive and delete all my files?

thanks!

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:34 am

No, not if you proceed exactly as described in my answer - well at least I have never experienced any problems. If you want to backup your files before proceeding and you have access to a second mac, you could mount your mac's hard disk in target mode, connecting the two macs using a firewire cable. When your mac's hard disk shows up on the other's Desktop you can drag important stuff to the other mac and thus backup things.

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:41 am

thanks ok well i do have access to another mac so i might try to do that.
but in the mean time i did what you said and pressed the on button with the s and the apple key and my computer started normally, went to the login screen and i logged in everything was fine and had no problems my desktop was completely normal. the only strange thing was that some things were missing from the top bar, like the airport sign and the time etc. so i selected shut down from the menu and shutdown the computer. then i waited a bit and pressed the on button again and it got to the login screeen and the kernel panic came up again so i pressed the on button and held it down until it turned off. now please what do i do?
the same thing you told me before?
thanks!!

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 6:47 am

Q: now please what do i do? the same thing you told me before?
A: Yes. But this time after you have logged in, start the Disk Utility application in the Utilities folder in Applications. Click on the system disk icon in the left window. Under the right window click the "Repair Disk Permissions" button. This may take a while.

Tell me if that helps.

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 7:05 am

ok, something strange that happened before has just happened again. I pressed the S and the apple key and the on button and it made a sound like it was going to start up but the screen didn't change at all it remained black. but the sleeping light came on.

so i tried to start it again. and it doesn't do anything.

should i maybe take out the battery and start it again?

thanks!

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 7:31 am

Try and start with the power adapter connected. Press the start button and right away press and hold the ⌘ and S key.

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 8:13 am

ok, finally i am making some progress!

i have logged in and opened the disk utility application. i then selected "macintosh HD" and pressed "repair disk permissions" .

i'm a bit unsure as to which drive i was supposed to click, because there is one above the "macintosh HD" thats called "74.5 GB ST98823AS MEDIA"

so now its says :

permissions repair complete
the privelages have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

so what do you think i should do now? Should i do it to the other drive or should i "verify disk permissions"?

thanks!

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 8:31 am

You can try and click the other drive, but you will not have the choice to repair permissions - see for yourself. This will only be possible on the system disk. How full is the disk with the system on it? At least 10% of the total capacity should be available. If not this can cause various problems.

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 8:41 am

ok well i think they may have been the same drive or something, because i clicked the other one and i pressed repair disk permissions and it did it again but it still said "repairing permissions for macintosh HD".

also as far as capacity, it says:
capacity: 74.1GB
avaialable: 29.9GB
Used: 44.2 GB
number of files: 502 784

it also says

mount point: L (or some strange blue symbol)
Format: Mac OS Extended (journaled)
owners enabled: Yes
Number of folders: 115, 838

i'm not sure if that helps

thanks,

andria

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 9:05 am

OK. Everything looks fine. One thing I would recommend is to restart your MacBook regularly - like once a day. Don't just close it when you finish working. Shut it down. Every time you restart your MacBook certain maintenance scripts are run which help keep the system fit. If you don't ever restart these scripts will not be executed.

Allan

PS. The mount point is / which is right.

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 9:22 am

ok well thank you for all of your help!!
i really appreciate everything because i was quite worried that my computer had melted down or something.
it all appeared to be working fine and then i opened system preferences and suddenly the kernel panic came back so now i've turned it off and i think i'm just going to leave it overnight and take it to someone in the morning (i live in australia).

But again i really do appreciate all of your help!

Andria

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 9:43 am

Your welcome.

Is it possible to use the power adapter without the battery in place? If so, what happens, when you use the MacBook just on the power adapter? Any less kernel panics? Something other than the system must be wrong. It seems that kernel panics happen on a lot of different occasions - launching Firefox, Word, login screen and now System Preferences.

You may also want to look here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....hreadID=121923
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

Allan

andria6 - Feb 1, 2008 - 10:07 am

so i took the battery out and just used the charger, started up fine, logged in then a window came up and said "mac os x quit unexpectedly" (something like that) then asked if i would like to send a report. i said yes and i saw the report and rewrote the beggining of it:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00194E0C): pmap_enter: mapping not in pv_list!
Backtrace, format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

ok then there are 5 lines of number and letter combinations and next to the last one it says :

No mapping exists for frame pointer
Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x8200cf80

now i didn't even go near any other programs at all and suddenly the kernel panic came up once again!!

maybe the report thing makes sense to you?

thanks,
andria

tubajensen - Feb 1, 2008 - 11:16 am

Well, it doesn't seem to be the battery causing problems. I don't have any further suggestions. Try looking at the previous sent links on kernel panics. I'm not sure it's a hardware problem now. Some people at:

http://discussions.apple.com/

have success when repairing permissions and deleting com.apple.PowerManagment.plist located at ~/Library/Preferences (that is, the Library in your home folder). Also using a Logitech mouse may cause problems. Update to the latest driver and see if this helps.

Allan