Kernel Panic

Some of you may know that I've periodically been experiencing odd-ball
system behavior and performance degradation (sporadic fading of Dock icon
labels; occasional hangs when attempting to log out; sporadic and sustained
visits from the SBBOD; occasionally, unusually long TM backup times (several
hours instead of 5-10 minutes); overall system slowdowns). A couple of folks
have suggested that I consider performing an Archive and Install, but I've
yet to try that, in part, because I'm uncomfortable and concerned about
taking what seems to me to be a "sledge hammer" approach that could leave me
with a dead system or some other problems that might take forever to resolve
(for example, I've heard of folks having problems with the system refusing
to recognize their identities after performing a reinstall, or finding that
their TM backup drive no longer recognizes the internal drive as the one it
"belongs" to).

The latest odd behavior occurred last night/early this morning. I have my
system set to go to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, and wake up at
about the time that I do. Last night, however, I decided to knock off early,
and decided to manually put the machine to sleep. IIRC, usually, when I do
that, I receive a dialog regarding (for example) closing certain (but not
all) open apps (in particular, Safari). However, this time I didn't. I
thought it odd, and went to move the cursor to close some windows, to see if
the dialog I thought should be there was (for some ungodly reason) hidden
behind a Finder window. However, the cursor vanished as I began to move the
mouse, and the system seemingly immediately went to sleep.

I overslept this morning, but when I awoke, the iMac had not waken up -- I
had to press the power button to get a response. I then saw a dialog
indicating that OS X had unexpectedly quit (words to that effect) -- similar
to the message I often get when Entourage crashes (which happens too often,
I might add). It then asked if I wanted to report the problem to Apple; I
said "yes," but I also saved the report, entitled "Problem Report for Mac OS
X Kernel," to disk. (See
<http://img383.imageshack.us/my.php?image=problemreportformacosxkss0.pdf>.)
Clearly, the report was simply a copy of the panic log that was created and
filed in /Library/Logs/.

I checked the system log immediately after, and was unable to locate any
indication that I had put the system to sleep. However, I did find what
seems to be relevant entries that began about the time I turned the machine
on (previous entries reflected activity prior to my attempt to put the
system to sleep last night). Here are a few "excerpts":



Dec 8 10:06:59 localhost kernel[0]: npvhash=4095
Dec 8 10:06:51 localhost com.apple.launchctl.System[2]: fsck_hfs: Volume is
journaled. No checking performed.
....
....
....
Dec 8 10:06:54 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.distccdConfigd):
Unknown key: SHAuthorizationRight
Dec 8 10:06:54 localhost com.apple.launchd[1] (org.cups.cupsd): Unknown
key: SHAuthorizationRight
....
....
....
Dec 8 10:06:59 localhost bootlog[39]: BOOT_TIME: 1228748804 0
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: 64 bit mode enabled
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost rpc.statd[20]: statd.notify - no notifications
needed
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: Darwin Kernel Version 9.4.0: Mon Jun 9
19:30:53 PDT 2008; root:xnu-1228.5.20~1/RELEASE_I386
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000
us
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: vm_page_bootstrap: 512318 free pages
and 11970 wired pages
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: mig_table_max_displ = 79
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: 102 prelinked modules
....
....
....
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: Security auditing service present
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: BSM auditing present
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen:
0E8FFE86-E711-338E-B0F6-55CFE0777A67
Dec 8 10:07:00 localhost kernel[0]: Waiting on <dict
ID="0"><key>IOProviderClass</key><string
ID="1">IOResources</string><key>IOResourceMatch</key><string
ID="2">boot-uuid-media</string></dict>
....
....
....
Dec 8 10:07:01 localhost kernel[0]: Matching service count = 0
Dec 8 10:07:02: --- last message repeated 5 times ---
Dec 8 10:07:02 localhost kextd[10]: 409 cached, 0 uncached personalities to
catalog
Dec 8 10:07:05 localhost kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 3
Dec 8 10:07:02 localhost
/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow[25]:
Login Window Application Started
Dec 8 10:07:06 localhost kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
Dec 8 10:07:05 localhost DirectoryService[35]: Improper shutdown detected
....
....
....


The complete log of events surrounding the startup and "Problem Report for
Mac OS X Kernel" (panic log) can be viewed here:

<http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=systemlogrt5.pdf>


I'm not sure if what I experienced constitutes a "typical" kernel panic. The
only two times I experienced one was about 10 days after I first got the
machine back in May and once a few months ago (early September). In both
instances, I saw that standard descending window and dialog informing me
that I must shut down the iMac.

I don't know what to make of all of this. The only seeming "upside" is that
for the rest of the day, the system has been behaving better than it has in
a while.


--
iMac (24", 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD) ? OS X (10.5.4)

.