Could a Dashboard widget be the cause of my Panics?

Question

Hello everyone,
For the past few months, I've gotten a kernel panic on the average of about once a week. I started looking a the kernel logs and I discovered that 18 out of the 19 kernel panics my powerbook experienced this year had something eerily in common: the current thread for all of them was DashboardClient.
Now what's frustrating is that all loaded widgets are labeled as "DashboardClient" in the activity monitor so I don't know how I'm suppose to figure out which one, save for process of elimination.
But could a dashboard widget be the source of my kernel panics?
Also, my drive's directory structure is spotless. No errors, defraged, disk warrior, etc. and I'm current with my updates.
If anyone could help me I'd really appreciate it!
Here's a panic dump from the latest panic:
Wed Apr 28 15:32:17 2010
Unresolved kernel trap(cpu 0): 0x300 - Data access DAR=0x0000000000000008 PC=0x00000000000AD208
Latest crash info for cpu 0:
Exception state (sv=0x30195780)
PC=0x000AD208; MSR=0x00009030; DAR=0x00000008; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x0007C270; R1=0x302A7A70; XCP=0x0000000C (0x300 - Data access)
Backtrace:
0x0007C270 0x0007CC54 0x0006E040 0x0006EB68 0x0003AB18 0x0029B170
0x0029B29C 0x0029BA74 0x0029BB94 0x003100AC 0x000B4448 0x9816C485
Proceeding back via exception chain:
Exception state (sv=0x30195780)
previously dumped as "Latest" state. skipping...
Exception state (sv=0x37fe1a00)
PC=0x95492954; MSR=0x0000D030; DAR=0xE34BCCA8; DSISR=0x40000000; LR=0x95492948; R1=0xBFFF99B0; XCP=0x00000030 (0xC00 - System call)
BSD process name corresponding to current thread: DashboardClient
Mac OS version:
9L31a
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0: Wed Jul 15 16:57:01 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.15.4~1/RELEASE_PPC
System model name: PowerBook5,6
System uptime in nanoseconds: 373029901008580
unloaded kexts:
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyEventDriver 1.7.4f1 - last unloaded 5772792683945
loaded kexts....

Answer 1

Yes, a widget can cause kernel panics — particularly an old one that hasn't been updated as needed for compatibility with a more recent OS version.
Starting with the widgets that you know you've added yourself, open each of your installed widgets and put it through its paces doing whatever it does, in an effort to provoke a kernel panic on purpose. While you have it open (if no KP occurs), consult the website of its developer to see whether any updates are available for it, and apply any that are appropriate. (Avoid any update that is designated as compatible ONLY with Snow Leopard or Intel machines, if you run across any such.)
If you get through updating all your widgets without a KP, just keep using your Powerbook and see what happens. It's unfortunate that you may have to wait several weeks to conclude that the problem has or hasn't been solved, but it may take that long if your KPs up to now have only occurred about weekly.
Message was edited by: eww