Mac Screen of Death

[Temporary_User]

A weird issue occurred in class today. First a girls MBP kept on getting the error and she restarted a couple times (I'm surprised people still have a startup sound, why do companies include them in the first place?)
I was sitting near her, and she was embarrassed about the sound, and told me that it seems to happen to her in the classroom.

I had never had the problem, but I closed my lid for about 5 minutes, and then after opening it my MBP also had the problem. I restarted, but immediately on startup I got the message again. So I gave up and just used pen and paper for the rest of class.

I'm not sure if others were having the problem too or not. There is only around 6 people in the class that use laptops, and it appeared we were the only 2 with their screens down, or laptops put away.

Any ideas what would be causing this? My obvious assumption would be the wireless internet connection. However, it is the universities connection and I have used it all over campus, it just seems like something going on in this one room in particular.

[Barnes]

By screen of death, do you mean a kernel panic? Letters and numbers on the screen kind of matrix style?

It's possible that the wifi caused it. Not sure why that one location would have caused it though. Did you both recently upgrade to OS X 10.6.5?

You should go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility and verify and repair if it says it's needed.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Barnes

By screen of death, do you mean a kernel panic? Letters and numbers on the screen kind of matrix style?

It's possible that the wifi caused it. Not sure why that one location would have caused it though. Did you both recently upgrade to OS X 10.6.5?

You should go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility and verify and repair if it says it's needed.

Almost definitely wifi if I'm reading this right and two different Macbooks kernel panic'ed at the same time and location.

That's quite amazing actually

[Flabbibulin]

This is a basic kernel panic message in os x. Is this the error you were seeing?



Also, what is your native operating system on your pro/what generation MBP? Apple has done a decent job of eliminating the kernel panics that were a huge problem with earlier Tiger OS laptops.

Either way, a kernel panic on start up is a pretty good indication of a hard disk error/bad blocks. A sure way to tell would be to boot up your install disc and see if it goes straight to a kernel panic. If so, I would say you are dealing with a hardware issue.

Kernel panics, at least in older models, were caused by many things, but the most common hardware causes were bad RAM and bad hard drive.

For what its worth, I manage almost 500 Apple computers at work and kernel panics are something I've dealt with plenty of times- solutions have ranged from reimaging the computer (reinstalling OS) to replacing the faulty hardware to simply doing a software update.

A kernel panic caused by a wireless network connection seems a little unlikely to me at first, but a airport driver problem could be responsible- best way to tell is by trying to recreate the kernel panic with different scenarios.

edit: and yes, as Barnes mentioned, a permissions repair is a good idea.

[silentsim]

there's some kernel panics happening with the first flash build that supported hardware acceleration..i switched to 10.2 square and they disappeared.

[Temporary_User]

Sorry yes it was a Kernal error we were receiving. Just like the image Flabbibulin posted.

My computer is only a couple months old. 10.6.5.
Not sure about my classmates.

I've only been in the room a few times before (maybe 4) and never received the message, although my friend seemed to have a couple times.

It has to be the room because everything else seems to be fine other wise since (haven't been back to that room yet).