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There is plenty of free open-source software on OS X if that's what you're looking for, it isn't magically turned into shareware

Actually, it is. Take Memtest86+, the de facto standard RAM tester. Now Google for "memtest os x" and you'll find this jerk who sells a compiled version but doesn't make the source available to it. To rub salt in the wound, he's too lazy to make his own website graphics and uses the default "Joomla! ...because open source matters".

Sure, you can get Memtest for free if you know how. It's just irksome that the source-deprived shareware version is the one most Mac users will know about. So one program isn't the end of the world, but it seems par for the course for OS X.

Yeah, I was wondering about the memory. I did upgrade it at one point, using the exact modules recommend by Apple (although not bought from them). I wondered enough that I ran memtest, leaving it running for a very long time. I imagine it would turn up any. Can you suggest any other clues I could look for?

Bluetooth is definitely a problem. It'll often by red in the Activity Monitor and can't kill it. At that point the system is screwed, and the System UI process tends to freeze. It does seem to the system a lot using Skype via the BT headset. It looks like there have been similar complaints going back a couple of years. I think Apple's BT implementation is crap. Another common problem I encounter is I can't use the microphone on the BT headset with Skype due to white noise that starts after a while (another common problem). I installed Airfoil so I could listen to music from other sources (e.g. streamed from the BBC's website in Firefox) via AirTunes, and to remove it due to increased crashing. It's frustrating.

Maybe I should pay head to the other person's comment about VMWare Fusion. I rely heavily on it though.

I'm still happy with the machine. It has everything I want in a small and light form factor. I could grumble about the lack of USB ports, but then it would be a monster like work Dell M6300. It also runs hot... especially after an hour of Skype with the web cam on.

Short of building in a hardware memory tester ... there's no way to tell if a memory problem exists, short of running into a problem, and throwing the sticks into a real hardware memory tester ...

My machine at work has some kind of hardware problem that was never quite solved while it was under applecare. it "panics" at least once a day, some days, it'll "panic" 5-10 times. Some things that set it off are scrolling in a terminal window (such as when I'm sync'ing portage on our server) or putting an audio CD in the lower optical drive.

http://www.memtestosx.org/

SCSI my ass.

Just to be sure it was really Parallels and not something else (I haven't had it crash mine at all), test your memory. Memtest is by far the best tester.

You may want to try running the Memtest application to see if you have faulty RAM.

Instead of the Apple hardware test, consider this third-party tool.