brand new Power Mac G5, kernel panic during initial setup screen

If it's not too much trouble I'd take it back. If you want to take a crack at it first start up from your install disc, run disk utility and format the hard drive. Then reinstall and see if that solves your problem.

just happened to me, brand new Quad with 2 GB ECC setup assitaant starts then the comp is dead, took it to apple they told me I have to send it in to the online store since it was a custom.

First try this.

Hold the power button until reboot and immediatly hold the mouse button down, the cd tray will open. Insert installation disk #1 and gently close the tray, reboot holding the power button and immediatly hold the c button down until you see the Apple logo.

Your booting off the c.d..

Now chose a language and select Disk Utility from the installer menu, select the internal drive and Erase, Format HFS+ with Zero Option. Let her rip for a hour or two or however long it takes.

When finished Quit and Install Tiger fresh with all the options, developers tools and freebies/bundled software (iLife '06).

Now see if you have any problems.

You shouldn't because what your describing is a bad OS installation, perhaps on bad sectors on the drive, The above steps should cure that wonderfully. (The OS is not loading correctly and the hardware is defaulting to fan turbo mode because the OS is not controlling the fans)



If you still have problems, option boot off the same installer disk and run the extended battery of Apple Hardware Test and note any problems you see to tell Apple.

If your installation disk is dirty/scratched/bad ask for a new one at a Apple Store/Support and repeat above steps.

If all that fails, then take the machine in for service.

You are making the assumption that a bad block is causing a kernel panic.

I'd look at some of the FAQs and Apple articles on what can cause a kernel panic first.

While I am all in favor of zero-all at a minimum with any disk drive to avoid potential future problems, or better yet if it is smaller and faster drive (Raptor comes to mind) to do 7-way write erase...

I would tend to want to check console log, look to see if it is memory or cpu.

OPTION boot to the Apple Hardware Test and give that a try, first.

If that passes with flying colours then move on to some of the FAQs:

OS X Upgrade FAQ
MacWorld FAQ
Mac PRAM, NVRAM, CUDA/PMU & Battery Tutorial
How to reset the PMU and nonvolatile RAM
Diagnose & Fix System
OS X Complete FAQ
Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.4
Kernel Panics
MacRumors Guides to Hardware
Resetting PMU G5 (not sure if this covers Quad)

Isolating Issues Hardware and Software
Diagnostic LED Lights

I tend to believe RAM is frequent cause (and can be triggered by multiple factors) which is why I recommend the MacIntouch Bad RAM Report but you should be able to tell my the logs if it is one of the cpus or RAM usually.