If the Mac was stable with 10.2.8 and is not now, something changed. I had a problem in that my paper shredder started causing a kernel panic (the technical name for what you are experiencing) because the motor started generating excessive power line noise when it was run. Once I re-arranged my PCI cards and stopped using my shredder, I stopped having problems with my PM running 10.2.8 and now running 10.3.3. You could be having software or hardware problems. Since you haven't changed your hardware, did you install a new program or update? One debugging method with OS X is to create a new user account and use that. If you no longer have the problem, then you know you have something corrupted, probably a preferences file. One other thing to consider is has something changed in your environment? This could simply be it getting hot where you are and a borderline component getting just hot enough to fail, the A/C cycling on and off, something new plugged in that is not connected to the computer, ..... I mention the weather because it is spring and this is the time of year previously working computers start failing because it is getting hot enough for them to fail.
These are all valid observations but I would be weary of why you are having electrical socket issues. I would get that checked out and suggest you find out what is on that same electrical cicuit, it sounds like there may be a lot on it such as fridge, freezer, etc. Power here in Aus is 240 vlts at 50 hz cannot remember US spec appart from 120 Vlts at 60 hz.
Now bear in mind the AC power looks like a sine wave osillating between approx -170 vlts to +170 vlts giving RMS 120 vlts for USA. This osillation occurs at 60 times a second. OK what does all this have to do with your power I hear you ask?
Well if your wall socket is not supplying the correct regulated AC voltage all of the time then you could be seeing less than the RMS 120vlts causing problems with AC adaptor in computer causing temporary (if only split second) dropages on current to the computer that causes it to almost shut down due to no power (there fore crash). This is normally regulated but capacitors in power supply the "smooth" the supply to the electronics inside.
I think I have covered it correctly. But basically power needs to be supplied at a more of less constant rate so you won't have these intermitant problems.
We had a similar problem with an external modem's power supply that would do exactly that but only during winter when current drain on the part of power grid we were in caused RMS voltage to fall to approx 210 volts (I live in Aus), everything else in house was fine (Including Macs). Similarly if we have a spike or sudden drop in power where I work (when you see lights dim quickly) often the imac and B&W G3 are Ok and others macs and PCs generally fall over.
A non-interuptable power supply will help with some of these things, particularly short periods of low supply, but won't resolve root of the problem - that falls to power company!!
Regards
Simon
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