Kernel crashes on my iMac solved

Hi all
I was getting constant kernel crashes on my iMac running 10.6.8 for months, it wouldn't go through the day without grey screening and freezing, sometimes 2 or 3 times. Looking at the the crash logs it was always something different, WindowServer, kernel process or an application. My only idea was looking at the logs was that Parallels loads lots of items at startup like...

com.vmware.kext.vmnet 3.1.3
com.vmware.kext.vmioplug 3.1.3
com.vmware.kext.vmci 3.1.3
com.vmware.kext.vmx86 3.1.3
com.parallels.kext.prl_vnic 6.0 12090.660720
com.parallels.kext.prl_netbridge 6.0 12090.660720
com.parallels.kext.prl_usb_connect 6.0 12090.660720
com.parallels.kext.prl_hid_hook 6.0 12090.660720
com.parallels.kext.prl_hypervisor 6.0 12090.660720

Of course I didn't know whether Parallels was a culprit for my Mac freezing but methodically going through possible causes I could only assume one of these may have gone corrupt.

I uninstalled Parallels Desktop (without dumping the Virtual Machines) and reinstalled the latest version. Bingo not one crash for the last two days and not looking like either. Just a story of reinstallation to get back on the happy road again in case you have the same problem.

I can only assume after many updates to Parallels something must have got mixed up somewhere and a clean install did it the world of good. No reinstalling the Virtual machines either just loaded them back in and it's great.

Phew! Sherlock Holmes would have been proud.

 

Thanks for the helpful tips,now I know how a Kernel crash on iMac. Hope you'll make a lot of helpful post.