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General discussion

Kernel panic

Dec 8, 2010 1:40AM PST

Hi there, I've got a MacBook (a black one) three years old and bought in Chile (long story) but being used in the UK. It's given me a bit of grief in the past but nothing too serious.

Now, when I start it, I get a message in three languages telling me to restart the system - when I do this, I just get the same message.

I've tried restarting with the 'T' key held down, which does take me to the transfer screen, but nothing else I've tried (restarting with option, cmd, 'O' and 'P' held down, for example) seems to work. This problem has come out of nowhere - I've not installed any RAM, downloaded anything new or dropped it - so I'm worried that it might be a hardware problem. Pretty sure it's running 10.4.

When I took a look at the computer physically, I noticed that one of the three screws on the back is missing, and that one of the screws on the inside of the computer, where the battery slots in, was loose. I tightened the battery one, but obviously nothing I can do in the short term for the one on the back - don't see how this would affect the computer but you never know...

Anyone have any ideas? My thanks in advance to anyone who might have been through this before and can shed some light, or anyone who's just smart enough to know how to fix these things. Feel free to let me know if you need further info.

Many thanks,

Luke

Discussion is locked

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The usual
Dec 8, 2010 2:37AM PST

You see the store look for the usual Apple issues with that heat sink compound and plastic strip issue from years ago. Then they get the vents and heatsinks cleaned up but beyond that they swap in a motherboard and send us on our way. And yes they may update some flash or OS just in case. In other words, things an owner might not do.
Bob

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The usual
Dec 8, 2010 3:12AM PST

Thanks Bob - so you're saying that this is something I can clear up myself?

Cheers,

Luke

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If you do
Dec 8, 2010 9:29AM PST

If you do, and since the system is out of warranty there's no particular reason why you can't (especially if the system isn't working at present), be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you keep the screws in order. The left and right side of those systems use different length screws, and the longer ones will go into the shorter holes, from which you will never get them out again without breaking the screw or the top case.

Honestly though, given the age of the system and the Blackbooks weren't exactly the most reliable model Apple put out, the thing is probably a gonner, being not worth the expense of repair. Just a quick anecdotal story. Work for a national retail chain on this side of the pond. All the Apple systems tend to come to me from all the stores. Had a Blackbook in, and I wrote up a repair estimate for it because someone put the screws in wrong. I started to explain the situation to the person who signs off on either the cost of repairing the system or destroying it for being uneconomical to repair, he looked at the thing and said, "A Blackbook? You can stop right there. This is a crush."

There's just about any number of things that could have gone wrong with that thing, it really wasn't one of Apple's better designs. If you still have the original restore media, you can run Apple Hardware Test. If you're lucky, it's just some bad RAM which would be pretty cheap and easy to fix. It's possibly a bad HDD as well, but anything beyond that, and you're probably looking at $500 for the part, and another $100 for labor. Given the habit of most companies, just change the dollar sign to a pound sterling sign and add VAT. With a brand new MacBook costing probably about 1,000 quid + VAT, it just doesn't seem worth repairing.

One thing you can do, is that there is an extended repair program for those models due to issues with the top case cracking and splintering along the edges. So, that could be a good pretext for taking the system in for a diagnostic and repair estimate if yours is doing that.