iMac G4 Kernel Panic
I recently set up a PPC iMac G4, 800 MHz. I pulled out the user-accessible 256 RAM that came with the machine and replaced it with this 512 stick from OWC. I had been using that stick in another machine for about a year without issue.
I erased the HD and did a clean install of 10.4 from a retail disc, and then did all the software updates to get it to 10.4.11.
Since setting it up it's been kernel panicking fairly often. I can't tell if there is a specific trigger for the kernel panic, but I was trying to get dropbox to work (supposedly it's supported for PPC) and it doesn't seem to like that very much.
Permissions and HD are fine, per Disk Utility/First Aid.
I can't run the Apple Hardware Test, because the optical drive on this machine doesn't work and AHT won't boot from an external optical.
I'd like to find out if there is an issue with the RAM. I've been running memtest in single user mode. When I run memtest with all the RAM in the computer, I get a FAILED message several times, and then a kernel panic. When I run memtest after pulling out the 512 RAM, I only get a kernel panic.
I tried to get a log from memtest, but it doesn't save--presumably because of the kernel panic.
Does anyone have experience with this? Should I assume it's the internal stick of RAM--in which case I would have to order a new one and take the machine apart to replace it, and then test it again? Or is there a better way to test the RAM? Any other components that could be causing the kernel panic?
Let me know if you need more information, and I'll try to take some photos of the screen during the test.
Thanks!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.4.11), PowerPC 800 MHz, 768 MG SDRAM