Kernel Panics on multiple boot disks

Question

Dear All,
In the last 2 weeks I have suddenly started to get repeated panics (grey multilingual box) at less (often much less) than 30min intervals on this machine - booted off the internal HD (even after a disk erase and re-install), an external Firewire disk (which runs fine booting another processor) and even the Tiger install DVD! Everything passes Apple hardware test and in desperation I replaced the machine. Now the dealer who has the machine cannot get another panic! He also says he can get nothing from the crash log from the Tiger DVD crash (most other logs were lost when the disk was erased), but I feel this should mean something - an extract from the critical section in quite a long log is:-
Apr 21 17:47:06 localhost : 11295 files looked up in 0.79 seconds. 11295 files written in 26.00 seconds.
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : 70832 kilobytes installed.
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : Performing post-extraction actions
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : Assembling receipt
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : pkgReceiptMaker[233]: pkgReceiptMaker(233) malloc: * vm_allocate(size=3378614272) failed (error code=3)
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : pkgReceiptMaker[233]: pkgReceiptMaker(233) malloc: * error: can't allocate region
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : pkgReceiptMaker[233]: pkgReceiptMaker(233) malloc: * set a breakpoint in szone_error to debug
Apr 21 17:47:07 localhost : pkgReceiptMaker[233]:
Apr 21 17:47:08 localhost : 2006-04-21 17:47:08.949 runner[97] * -[NSPortMessage receivePort]: selector not recognized [self = 0x3153a0]
Apr 21 17:47:08 localhost : 2006-04-21 17:47:08.950 runner[97] Exception raised during posting of notification. Ignored. exception: * -[NSPortMessage receivePort]: selector not recognized [self = 0x3153a0]
Apr 21 17:47:09 localhost : Installer(94,0x1895200) malloc: * Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x100; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug
This machine has given a good deal of trouble in the past but has had a new logic board only last year. Any suggestions?
Powerbook G4 17 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1G RAM

Answer 1

Thanks! A lot of interesting stuff. The Tiger DVD was the same one used to install Tiger originally on this and other machines so not that I think.
RAM is a thought - the only thing done to the machine before passing it to the dealer was to remove & re-insert the extra 512M RAM resident in the machine since it was bought (why? - in the mistaken belief that I could transfer it to the newer PB - in fact it is not compatible, presumably not fast enough).
Of course it will presumably still be using the internal HD for virtual memory when booted off the DVD (so a HD problem might still cause a crash) - but it would not if booted off an external firewire disk would it?
No peripherals were connected when using the DVD, though some other disks/partitions are also present when using the firewire drive.
Thanks for all the advice! What I really need is either assurance that the problem has for some reason gone, or that the machine has a definable hardware fault, in which case Apple have said they will fix it under Applecare even though it is 3 weeks out-of-cover (in view of the history).
FWIW last year's acknowledged hardware issue was a strange one in which the machine had run fine under OS 10.3, or under 10.4 when booted from an external disk, but consistently froze after a few minutes when booted from the 10.4 install DVD (regardless of whether an install was actually attempted). I am not clear that this was ever really diagnosed but it was fixed by various replacements (a second DVD behaved in exactly the same way).
Will S