weird system crash (mbp)

[Hadley]

so my mbp just crashed. at the time i was running itunes, firefox, adium, and last.fm. i really wasnt doing anything at the time it crashed, but all of a sudden the song playing on itunes started repeating ala broken record, and the screen starting from the top darkened its way down to the bottom when a dark grey sign showed up saying you need to restart your computer in a few languages. I held down the power button to restart it and on the restart i got the silver startup screen with the apple and the spinning circle underneath. it was frozen in htat state for about 5 minutes when i just took out the battery to turn off the comp. when i put the battery back in and turned it on again everything was fine.

what gives? should i be looking for something to see what could have gone wrong, or should i just write it off as a fluke and wait to see if it ever happens again?

 

[SpaceMagic]

... Called Kernel Panic.

If it has just happened one, then ignore it.

If it happens again run tests on your RAM if you can.

Kernel Panics often happen if there are hardware conflicts.

 

[Hadley]

ok cool. i had read about kernel panics on here before, but thought it would look different than this. this is the only time its ever happened so i guess ill just keep an eye out for it happening again.

 

[Hadley]

It just happened again. I wasnt doing anything other than using firefox and itunes. If i should be testing my RAM, how exactly do i go about doing that? Should I be thinking about taking it into an apple store?

 

[e12a]

Download Rember, which can be found here:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/24508

Memtest, a very popular utility, now requires payment in order to download.

 

[smueboy]

For a little more info see this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/264657/

 

[Hadley]

After I changed the settings on rember to test everything I clicked start and got myself another kernel panic...im reading up on this other thread you linkd me to first, then running rember. hopefully i dont get another one in the process.

 

[Hadley]

I ran rember....there were about a thousand lines in the log while it was running that said "FAILURE" and then a bunch of stuff i didnt understand at all. its ran about 20 minutes when i went to check and the window for rember was showing a smaller picture of my desktop backgorund. when i moved my mouse to get back on the computer i had another kernel panic.

im taking it to the apple store tommorow, i dont know what else i can do?

 

[plinden]

What have you installed recently that involves kernel extensions? For example Parallels, CoreDuoTemp ...

If you create a new account and use it for a couple of hours, do you get any kernel panics?

(A bit of a stretch ...) does Disk Utility show any HD issues.

Boot from your OS X install disk while holding down the 'D' key and run the hardware test.

 

[Hadley]

hte only things i have installed recently are the HP printer (the free promo one i got for buying the mbp) software and rember today to test the RAM.

disk utility didnt show anything.

and ive been running this for an hour now without a kernel panic. should i just set up a new account now and leave the computer on?

 

[Hadley]

i also just ran the hardware test and it said there were no hardware troubles.

 

[LanGamer]

Hadley, I have had the same issues and so have many of my friends (random MBP kernel panics). I bought the 2.33 MBP about 2 weeks ago and within the first hour I got a kernel panic. It happened once more and then I started to worry.

After the 2nd kernel panic I ran the apple hardware test and it passed fine. I started to think about experiences in the past and thought maybe it had something to do with drivers and/or kernel extentions. Turns out I had VMware Fusion installed and even when it isn't running it has kext files loaded. I ran the uninstall and it unloaded the kext files. I'm pretty sure parallels does the same type of thing.

After I did this, it did kernel panic once more and hasn't done so since. I'm at a complete loss. Everyone on this forum will say its RAM. It might be, but I highly doubt it because it only happens when my airport is on. I'm sorry to say that I don't really have an answer, but if you ran the hardware test and everything is fine I would recommend reimaging your drive with the restore disks if the kernel panic happens again. If that doesn't solve it I would send it back.