Frequent Kernel Crashes - Help?

[macguymike]

System specs are in the sig. I'm running Panther 10.3.9 and the PB is 1st Gen.

My PB suffered a small drop a while ago and ever since then, it has been very sensitive to pressure on the left hand side where the HD is. For example, if I am typing and rest the heel of my palm on the surface there, every now and then doing so will cause a kernel panic.

Today I bumped my desk and apparently jarred my PB enough that it KP'ed on me. So, I rebooted. KP at the grey Apple logo screen. Reboot. Same. Reboot. KP at the desktop. Reboot. Success... then KP randomly as it sat idle a few minutes later.

As of now, it's up and running, but I had to go through almost an hour of KP reboots with varying levels of boot progress before the KP popped up.


Any ideas what might be making my system so unstable? Could I possibly have damaged my HD from the bumps it took?

Any fix-it ideas?

 

[Mord]

take the dented part off and hammer it flat with a mallet, it could be shorting something in the powerbook, otherwise just do an archive and install of OS X

 

[macguymike]

take the dented part off and hammer it flat with a mallet, it could be shorting something in the powerbook, otherwise just do an archive and install of OS X

There is no "dented part" on my PowerBook. I did an archive/install shortly before the second bump occured. The KP's started up again immediately after the bump (ie. I bumped it and the KP popped up and repeated itself for several reboots).

 

[emptyCup]

Except for developers testing out new code, kernel panics are usually due to faulty hardware. It is possible the bump loosened memory or some other part. Call Apple.

Best wishes

 

[macguymike]

Except for developers testing out new code, kernel panics are usually due to faulty hardware. It is possible the bump loosened memory or some other part. Call Apple.

Best wishes

I was wondering if maybe the HD got knocked loose (hence the KP's whenever pressure is applied to that side of the case).

 

[IJ Reilly]

I was wondering if maybe the HD got knocked loose (hence the KP's whenever pressure is applied to that side of the case).

It's tough to know what happened inside the case with the drop, but you can be sure it was something physical to the hardware. You could try reseating the user-accessible RAM and AirPort card (if installed), but I fear you are going to need service.