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Mike Lipay

Q: Airport wireless network and kernal error

I'm not sure just where to post this (AirPort, PB, or Tiger), so I thought I'd try here first.

On my PB-G4, running Tiger, I get a kernal error every time I boot up.

I went into safe mode, switched over to ethernet so I could boot. After rebooting I turned off access to my AirPort and set the access to my Verizon wireless and everything is working again. It's just when I try to access my AirPort wireless router that I get the kernal error, and it happens every time.

I have two other wireless Mac's (MBP and MB) running Snow Leopard, neither of them are experiencing any issues. Went to the Genius desk at the local Mac store, but they no longer suppor the computer or the OS.

15" MBP, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Currenly have: 1 MBP, 1 MB, 1 PB, 1 iMac

Posted on Aug 4, 2010 3:17 PM

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Q: Airport wireless network and kernal error

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  • by Mike Lipay,

    Mike Lipay Mike Lipay Aug 11, 2010 8:31 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Level 2 (229 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 11, 2010 8:31 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Bumping this.
  • by Braby,

    Braby Braby Aug 11, 2010 3:54 PM in response to Mike Lipay
    Level 4 (1,795 points)
    Aug 11, 2010 3:54 PM in response to Mike Lipay
    I posted my own experiences in this forum a few days back. At that time the presence of the Airport Card was causing the display to malfunction. I subsequently tried another card and now often get the kernel panic on startup.
    If you Google something like "Airport Extreme Kernel Panic" you will find threads galore on the subject.
    Apparently its a well-known problem which, because we are both running admittedly outdated machines and OS, nobody ( ie Apple) is ever going to address. The concensus appears to be that while the problem may be hardware related, installing 10.5 seems to often cure the problem. Since the hardware test indicates no issue with my Airport card(s) I'm going to try installing 10.5. I'll post back with the results.
  • by Mike Lipay,

    Mike Lipay Mike Lipay Aug 11, 2010 4:04 PM in response to Braby
    Level 2 (229 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 11, 2010 4:04 PM in response to Braby
    Thanks, but I have been told that 10.5 won't run on a PBG4. May help others, though.
  • by Braby,

    Braby Braby Aug 12, 2010 12:56 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Level 4 (1,795 points)
    Aug 12, 2010 12:56 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    I think you may have been misinformed. You don't say which PB you have but I believe any G4PB meets the minimum requirements for running 10.5- presuming you have a reasonable amount of RAM installed. Certainly many people are quite happily using Leopard on PowerBooks. Anyway, as I said I will post back when I've tried it on mine.
    I presume you have tried re-seating the Airport Card? If you're lucky that may be all the problem is.
  • by Mike Lipay,

    Mike Lipay Mike Lipay Sep 13, 2010 8:21 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Level 2 (229 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2010 8:21 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Resolved the issue.
  • by Braby,

    Braby Braby Sep 13, 2010 9:35 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Level 4 (1,795 points)
    Sep 13, 2010 9:35 AM in response to Mike Lipay
    Whoops - I never did report back! Glad you fixed the problem; for info. I did install 10.5 on my PB - it runs fine but unfortunately it didn't resolve the Airport card kernel panics. Having now had the same issue with 2 logic boards and 2 Airport Extreme cards I have to conclude that it's a hardware issue that frankly is beyond me. I bought a Sagem 802.11g PCMCIA card for next to nothing, popped it in the slot and it was instantly recognised as an Airport Card - no drivers required, it appears in the top menu bar and works perfectly.
  • by Mike Lipay,

    Mike Lipay Mike Lipay Sep 13, 2010 6:01 PM in response to Braby
    Level 2 (229 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 13, 2010 6:01 PM in response to Braby
    What I found out was that the TC is dual-band and automatically assumes that anything connecting to it is doing so at the higher speed. I needed to rename the low-speed connection then setup my PBG4 to connect to the lower speed connection.