Nooooooo!

[caffienekitty]

[Want to know what the Mac equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death looks like?]
Want to know what the Mac equivalent of a Blue Screen of Death looks like?

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

You may have found these already, but I looked up kernel panic with your OS and found a couple of pages that might be useful:

The X Lab:
Resolving Kernel Panics

"Kernel panic after 10.5.8 Update" on Apple Support Communities.

If those don't help, I recommend you post everything there to a discussion at Apple Support Communities. There are some jerks there, but there are also some people who know a whole lot (and sometimes, there's some overlap between the two). I have gotten help from the support communities in the past.

I hope you find a solution!

[caffienekitty]

Thanks, I found some good stuff through those links (including the secret Apple Hardware Test built into the computer!) and it doesn't appear to be a hardware problem, so I'll be wading through the software and hard-drive maintenance options out there and hoping it doesn't do it again in the meantime.

ETA: Spoke too soon. It's doing it again, locked up and flickered the screen in Safari, then rebooted to a kernel panic. Tried starting in safe mode, but it sat and spun the wheel for ages before another panic. I've just zapped the PRAM and am waiting for it to decide what it's doing next. I've logged in from the project computer, the one that had the battery explode and doesn't acknowledge the right click/two finger tap on the trackpad, and is also a little older and trying to run the newer OS the person I bought it from had installed, and is not terribly stable, so I'm kind of leery of using it long term.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

That sounds really bad! I wish I could help.

This may sound silly, but you might point a fan at it. I know this is happening on first start-up in the morning, but I have heard of machines that overheat right away when something goes wrong. It couldn't hurt, even if it doesn't have a very high chance of helping. I think I have a dim memory of doing this myself, but it was so many years ago I can't remember what happened after.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Brilliant Husband has one other suggestion: when you get the machine to restart after a kernel panic, immediately do a full shut-down and restart to be sure you have a clean restart.