Mac on SBS - The iMac was unhappy yesterday :(

While working around the shop yesterday, the iMac stopped suddenly.

We have the sound output connected to a good set of Altec Lansing speakers so we can have music piped into the shop area via iTunes.

It had been in screen saver mode with the tunes going for quite a while when all of a sudden there was quiet in the shop.

When we realized it, this is what we found on the iMac's screen:

You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.

There is nothing really innocuous installed on this iMac. Other than the software that came with the OS, there is Microsoft Office, Microsoft Messenger which has yet to be punched through ISA, and a Parallels installation with a Vista Business VM.

That's it folks.

After the subsequent reboot, this is what we were presented with once logged in:

Problem Report for Mac OS X
Problem and system information:

panic(cpu 0 ...) ...

I do like that first word in the problem report: panic! :D

Like Microsoft, Apple has a built in reporting feature. So, like we do with Microsoft's products, we sent the report off to Apple. No "problem solved" message came back though. :P

Up until this system lockup, the iMac has been running steadily with only a few other application crashes.

When updates require it the iMac gets rebooted. This happens a couple times a week from what we can tell so far. Essentially, it has been running constantly since we bought it.

So, it is becoming a little clearer that even Macs have a few glitches.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.