Plugging in 2nd Display = Crash

Question

Everytime I plug in my second display to my Powerbook, the box asking me if I'm sure I want to shut down appears for about 3 seconds, and then my system dies. It doesn't go through the shut down process, where the screen goes grey and that thing spins around. It just shuts down. I've tried repairing disk permissions, but I'm kind of at a loss. Any ideas?
My second display is a 17" Apple Cinema Display. It is connected via an ADC to DVI converter.

Answer 1

Your computer's NVRAM settings for displays could be screwed up. To reset them to eliminate this cause, hold AltApple+PR during reboot (you can let go after you hear a second startup-chime). This wipes out the NVRAM settings and rebuilds them from stored settings on disk (system clock, network, display, power management). This is the simplest thing to try first..
If hardware is eliminated as a likely cause I have some software suggestions to look into... The one thing that causes trouble more than anything else I have found are corrupted system preference .plist files! If you like, you can try deleting these files to start with to force the OS to rebuild them properly automatically. Delete these, reboot, then reconfigure your video settings and see if the problem ends:
In your Users/(accountname)/Library/Preferences/ByHost folder:
com.apple.preference.displays.(############).plist
com.apple.screensaver.(############).plist
(#s are the Mac address of your built-in Ethernet port)
Wipe those files, reboot, and see if the problem has abated..