iBook G4 freezing before login screen

[tomoyan]

Two nights ago, before I went to bed, I was playing the Sims 2, when my iBook G4 crashed. Our power cord can be a bit dodgy, so sometimes that happens. I didn't really think about it much, just closed the laptop and went to sleep.

Yesterday morning, I opened it and pressed the power button. It began turning on, and got as far as the grey screen with the apple and the spinning circle. And then it just froze. The circle stopped turning.

I freaked out a bit, and restarted it a bunch of times, each time with the same result. (One time it stopped spinning, and then told me a restart was required. Huh. The rest of the times the exact same thing as the first time happened though.) I even tried unplugging and removing the battery, but it made no difference. So eventually I just shut it and decided to try again later.

Today I opened it and pressed the power button without much hope, and again the apple and circle came up just fine, then stopped, but then a bunch of words and numbers popped up.

I'm a complete computer noob, but they don't look good to me... or are they good? Aaaaaaagh someone please help!

I have copied down the code that's still on the screen at the moment, and here it is.


System Failure: cpu=0; code=00000008 (Unknown failure code)
Latest crash info for cpu 0:
Exception state (sv=0x2CFD0500)
PC=0x000940B0; MSR=0x00001030; DAR=0xFBC0014E; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x00093F8C; R1=0xFC14FB41; XCP=0x00000098 (System Failure)
Backtrace:

Backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address: 0xFC14FB41

Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x2CFD0500)
PC=0x00008C784; MSR=0x02143000; DAR=0xFBC0014E; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x0008AF24; R1=0xFC14FC21; XCP=0x00000008 (8x200 - Machine check)
Backtrace:

Backtrace terminated - unaligned frame address: 0xFC14FC21

Exception state (sv=0x1F84FC80)
PC=0x00000000; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0x00000000; DSISR=0x00000000; LR=0x00000000; R1=0x00000000; XCP=0x00000000 (Unknown)

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 7.9.0:
Wed Mar 30 20:11:17 PST 2005; root:xnu/xnu-517.12.7.obj~1/REEASE_PPC

[djackmac]

It looks like kernel panics. It sounds as though you have corrupted software or perhaps a bad HD. If you have your important data backed up and your install DVDs you can go into Disk utility on the install DVD and check the condition of your HD. If Disk utility checks out you can attempt an archive and install or if your not worried about losing everything and having to put your files back together from your backup, you can do a reformat and reinstall. If both of those fail you are looking at a hardware issue with the computer.