Best way for general trouble shooting

[gaijinpunch]

Hi. I've had a few threads here and gotten some help. I'm still a little unclear on where to look for a few things.

Basically my system is still generally unstable. I get crashes (Screen turns dark, tells me in multiple languages to reboot). I assume these are kernel panics... unfortunately there is no dump on the screen telling me what the system choked on. That's where I'm unclear. Where would I get the pertinent information to see what's mucking up the works?

Similarly, I have a very new issue where my optical drive is continually ejected whether it has media in it or not... somewhat annoying. I'm looking in /var/log/system.log, but don't see anything really interesting.

Thanks

 

[westwaerts]

edit your signature to show a clearer view of your system.

 

[gaijinpunch]

Aren't the programs for trouble shooting on OSX all the same? I'm not asking for specifics based on my hardware. I know a few places I'd look on a Linux system. I know like... 1 on OSX.

 

[westwaerts]

if nothing is in console log ( all messages)
you can only guess, whats wrong.

hardware test programs for apple are strictly confidental,
so you really dont find any around the net,

you can get IORegExplorer
to see whats inside your machine, sometimes helpful

the original apple hardware test are computer-specific and definitely dont run on hacks

so you can give us information, as we have been to a lot of things, with this stuff or try it on your own.