I ran the test in Single User Mode with each stick installed for 10 passes, and then one stick at a time in each slot, to rule out the possibility of a bad module or a bad RAM slot. I decided to go all out and purchased the 4.23 version of Memtest, simply because it's the latest version and supports Yosemite installations. I ran the whole battery of tests, and the RAM passed, as well as the SMART and surface scan tests. I also have a copy of Techtool Pro 8 that I ran using the Protogo tool to make a bootable USB drive.

It had a rating of 9 out of 10, so it wasn't in such bad shape. I also hooked up her Macbook to my troubleshooting iMac and ran DiskWarrior 5 via Firewire, and rebuilt the directory. I also did a volume verification with Disk Utility, which reported both the boot volume and the actual disk as ok. Ok, I did download and run SMART Utility, and everything was in the green, so no issues with SMART data. Thank you keysofanxiety and deltamac for your prompt and helpful replies!

A random system restart did occur even in Safe Mode as well. My other question is, what kind of kernel panics do not dump logs in the DiagnosticReports directory? Does that signify a hardware error? I haven't found any issues with the OS itself, and there are no third party drivers or kexts installed. Is there a way to parse this log, or to convert it to a readable format? If so, I'd be happy to post the output so that another knowledgeable user could assist me with this. I might have had more, but I reset the NVRAM in an attempt to resolve the panics, but this most recent kernel panic occurred after the reset, which is why it is present in the nvram log. I do see the raw data from AAPL,PanicInfo✠02 entry. I do have evidence of one kernel panic however, after running the nvram -p command in Terminal.

However, the kernel panic never leaves any logs in the /System/Logs/DiagnosticReports folder. The kernel panic screen doesn't always appear, but when it does, it's not the full black screen, but simply the light grey kernel panic screen. Sometimes there are black spots or artifacts that appear on the screen. The kernel panic happens at random, and the computer will usually just shut down or reboot immediately. I'm helping a friend with a recurring kernel panic issue she has with a 13' Macbook Pro 2012 2.5Ghz i5.

Filezilla for mac 10.10.3