You have a kernel panic and the big clue you are looking for in the report back to Apple (or in the console log) is:
panic(cpu 0 caller 0×001694C6): “vm_map_unwire: entry is unwired”@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1228.5.20/osfmk/vm/vm_map.c:4110
Trawlled the internet and came up with 2 possibilities:
- VMWare Fusion. OK, VMWare does some nifty things with memory.
- Faulty RAM modules
The pointer for me was that booting in ’safe mode’ caused the Mac to start normally and to be happy for days on end; time for my client to copy over onto another Mac. So I think “Aha, some third-party software is lousing up!”. And the fact that one of the most often used is Fusion seems to be too good to be true.
Which it was. The Mac didn’t stop panicing on start-up no matter what bit of software I removed, what cache I cleared, which plist I dumped.
So I reluctantly move on to RAM. I take out a module. No panics. Put it back, take out the other module, no panics again, So I really strain the Mac with big photoshop files and opening every app in the dock. All fine. So I put the RAM back and restart. No Panics. So all I needed to have done was re-fit the RAM. Sometimes the temptation to be too clever is too much.
In this case the RAM looked fine, but must have made poor contact. It has worked fine since. First thing I’ll do next time. Apologies if it doesn’t work for you. Perhaps my internet trawl will be useful to you:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7517857�
http://macosx.com/forums/hardware-peripherals/302019-help-random-imac-aluminum-20-crashes-boot.html
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=92754
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8418392�
Great troubleshooting. Glad that it ended up not being us!
Thank you so very much for this solution. You’ve practically saved me hours of trial and error and frustration. I think I would never have thought of this kind of solution – one of the most awkward things I’ve ever encountered during my 20~ computing years.
BTW – I don’t think its because of bad connection. I think it really is a memory management software error that causes Leopard to panic during boot because something was saved incorrectly to the vm maps records.
Must be that removing the hardware parts forces it to reset these maps.
Again – thanks a lot for sharing!!
Nir
That would be beyond me. So far the client has not contacted me with a recurrence, so I hope that refitting the RAM remains the solution. In my long-winded way I am just pointing out that sometimes you can waste time when all that needs doing is something simple… Checking a fuse, checking a connection, turning everything off then back on again one thing at a time; these things so obvious with hindsight.