New imac keeps freezing.

CALIFORNIA RESIDENCE:

if your iMac, like mine, was unusable until the Firmware Update, then it will now work perfectly. The Warranty can be reset to the first day of usability (November 15th, even if you didn't update until later like me.)

Good luck to you all. Apple Care has been awesome to me in the past and with the extending of my 3 year apple care i will erase the previous 3 months from my mind. Long live Apple. 🙂

Hi Jeff
How does one accomplish this? What do you have to ask for when calling Applecare? I am a California resident who just got my iMac purchased on Sept 1 to work as it should on November 21.
Thank you in advance
JB

From my terminal:

Last login: Fri Nov 23 21:28:22 on ttys000
Schumi:~ engstrom$ uptime
21:28 up 2 days, 3:28, 2 users, load averages: 1.55 1.43 1.31
Schumi:~ engstrom$

And I've watched many Front Row trailers and have imported almost 100 CDs into iTunes in these past two days. The last reboot was after installing the firmware update (I had several freezes before the update). I'm cautiously optimistic.

Message was edited by: engstrom

I've had phenomenally good luck so far after the firmware update. That being said, I am still getting strange artifacts on the screen - usually just a line of 'off' color maybe a pixel or 2 wide and crossing 1/3 to 1/2 the screen. I really notice it playing WoW but also when just surfing the web. I was going to cancel the new video card install but with these strange lines and frankly disappointing graphics work I'm going to let them replace it. I know the iMac is not a gaming machine but really - I shouldn't see the different rasterizing lines of detail in WoW with the video set to lowest on all sliders.

Hey all, I'm in!! Bought in on Black Friday, who could resist right? Just hoping that all (check that most) issues are repaired or dealt with. It occurs to me that we haven't found out though if the original poster, MJBug has had his or her iMac fixed. I hope so.

24 inch 2.8, (got AppleCare just in case) arrives around the 10th of December, sort of a birthday present for that special guy (ME) in my life hee hee. I will keep you informed of any data transfer issues.

Cheers

Mike

Well I think I finally ended this bad Apple nightmare about freezing and unusable iMacs! After 10 days I had my iMac back with (they say) changed logic board and update (I saw the updater in the last used items list).

For now, is rock solid. Am happy again.

Got mine back today with same story and haven't had a problem since.

Well, after the apple store had my computer for three of the past four weeks, I went in and asked for it back. They installed the new patch, and it looks like it doesn't freeze, so I took it back.
I really think they should have offered me some sort of peace offering ... Applecare for this computer or something ... but they didn't. I asked, and they said they'd sell it to me ... not exactly what I meant ... anyway, fingers crossed that this software fix works, since the graphics card never came in that they ordered.

Should have read the reviews before purchase!

We just bought a new imac 24" and right out of the box during the registration no less....It froze and would no do anything! We thought we would get away from the Microsoft PC **** only to dive into the Mac ****! The family and I are so mad, we are ready to return this thing and get our money back.

You are within your 14 day return period so if you can't get it stable enough to apply the firmware update, I would definitely return it. Its a great machine once its stable but I understand your frustration as I had to go through it myself.

Yes, unfortunately Apple seem to have dropped the ball on this one, though they say it only affects a small number of iMacs.

If you read all the posts you'll see the iMac Graphics Firmware Update fixes this problem.

If you can get the machine to stay stable for 10 mins, run software update (Apple menu) and apply this fix. You may need to apply other patches before this one appears.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307008

Some people have found the problem varies between boots, so if you get a hang keep rebooting until it's stable. If no joy, as MacBookC2D123 says, take it back.

I got mine september first too! I haven't done it yet, they only work till 5pm PST so i hope i can get it done before its too late.

And it wont be the 21st, it will be the 15th, i think this is because it was fixed on apple's end on the 15th and we just didn't update it until later. And i also think you have to have calls in about the problem before the fix, (or visits to the genius bar.. i have 5 calls in their records) Otherwise everyone could say that it happened to them, and not just those it effected.

(and I think it was only one manufacturer so likely a lot less than 1000 had the problem over the last 3 months. Its just when a computer is unusable you hear from nearly every person)