Graphics Corruption in WoW

Question

Level 1

60 points

Graphics Corruption in WoW

Starting about 2 months ago, my 24" white iMac has begun suffering from graphics corruption after about an hour of World of Warcraft. For the first hour, all is well; then when the computer is hot, the corruption appears and the machine starts freezing up at times. The problem clearly corresponds to the temperature of the machine; when it's "cold" there are no issues.

It's under warranty; is this something that's fixable?

24" iMac C2D, white, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on Mar 3, 2008 12:13 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Andy Lang Author

Level 1

60 points

Mar 3, 2008 12:14 AM in response to Andy Lang

I should have added that completely restarting the machine while "hot" does not make the problem go away for more than a few minutes.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 4, 2008 3:40 PM in response to Andy Lang

Sure it's fixable, but not by an end user. You're still under warranty, so take it to an Apple Store.

The tough part will be getting the machine to malfunction in front of the technician.

Reply

Answer 3

mwachel

Level 1

50 points

Apr 17, 2008 3:45 PM in response to John M Rivera

Any news on this issue? I have the same problem. It seems that it all started after I installed the graphics update for leopard.

Reply

Answer 4

Apr 24, 2008 6:42 AM in response to Andy Lang

This is not a new problem actually, you iMac just runs too hot. I guess that Apple didn't design the cooling solution for heavy graphics use 😉

The graphics chip (nv7600GT) in my iMac start to fail at around 75C which IMNHO is way too high anyway, and at that point the SMC has NOT raised the fan speed to compensate. This surely also leads to degraded part lifetime, so maybe thats the reason 😉

Anyhow, get smcfancontrol or semilar and up your CPU fan speed (yes the CPU fan also cools the Graphics chip). Use iStat or semilar to watch the temps.

This has solved the problem for several iMac(white) users out there.

I myself use a hacked up "fancontrol" that I've modified to work on the iMac, that way the fan is automagically adjusted to keep temps within range, while keeping noise down when not loaded.

Reply