iMac Freezing

Micah D., You put thermal grease properly? How you to apply thermal grease? You clean before with isopropyl alcohol or similar? Is the ram videocard in contact with de heatsink (is needed abundant thermal grease in videoram for contact with heatsink). important: is the thermal grease to apply new/in good condition?

Is posible videocard isn´t fit properly?

tyc314159 wrote:
Micah D., You put thermal grease properly? How you to apply thermal grease?

As I mentioned when you asked this question before, I don't even know what "thermal grease" is, much less how or where to apply it. I inspected both cards (the original from my iMac and the "new" one sent to me by welovemacs.com) and neither have any "grease" of any kind on them. These cards have their own very large heat dispersal units, which are not your normal heat sync at all but a very clearly more complicated version. Again, no grease was anywhere to be seen on anything.

You clean before with isopropyl alcohol or similar?

Yes, I cleaned all contacts with isopropyl alcohol and also blew them out with canned air.

important: is the thermal grease to apply new/in good condition?

I've no idea, I've never heard of thermal grease nor is there anything grease-like anywhere on the cards.

Is posible videocard isn´t fit properly?

I believe this is exactly the problem. I think that welovemacs sent me a used video card, even though their site claims the cards are "new". I believe the card was not properly seating in the contacts. It was clearly the right card, it looked absolutely identical to the one I removed except the sticker on it said "256" instead of "128" since the "new" card was an upgrade to the 7600, the card that came in my iMac was a 7300.

I'm typing this on my iMac as we speak, I'm back to square one. Old/original 7300 video card is installed and quartze extreme is turned off. Blah.

We love macs says they'll send me a return merch authorization sticker, so we'll see if they send me a new card that works, I hope so.

You may need to diagnose your issue a little further. If you have the proper video adapter and an external monitor you can check to see if your video is having the same distorted image on the external video before it locks up. If it does then it is your video card. (which I already would bet that it is.) If not then it is time to look at your LCD and video cable.

Ok, your graphic card is to screw on heat dispersal unit(heatsink). You need to unscrew to see the thermal grease. There are four screws.

Thermal grease is important for heatsink.

Thermal grease in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_grease

That's all well and good, but wouldn't they do that when they put the card together??

I 110% assume they put the thermal grease on when they put the card together. It makes absolutely no sense at ALL for them to assemble to card without necessary thermal grease. And I'm most assuredly not dismantling the card to check. I have enough problems already, thanks.

Zachnap, I have reconfigured my settings, perhaps you can view my email now

Micah D.
thank you for your efforts and postings !!!
BUT ⚠ when you replace GT7300 card you MUST remove heat sink from GPU! - did you find any thermal grease on either GPU or heat sink back then ??


hope to hear from you soon,
Milan Kovač

Message was edited by: milankovach

<Edited by Host>

milankovach wrote:
Micah D.
thank you for your efforts and postings !!!
BUT ⚠ when you replace GT7300 card you MUST remove heat sink from GPU! - did you find any thermal grease on either GPU or heat sink back then ??

Edit:

OK, I see where we're having communication problems. The unit I installed came with the heat-sink already installed. So I removed the original graphics card AND heat sink and replaced the entire unit with a new card and heat sink. Looking in between where the heat sink attaches to the card I can, in fact, see grease in there so it's there.

This is what I removed and re-installed on my iMac, unsuccessfully. A new card/sink unit is on it's way soon hopefully.



Message was edited by: Micah D.

George Klein wrote:
If not then it is time to look at your LCD and video cable.

Are you saying that the LCD and/or video cable can cause the entire system to crash? We're not talking about "just" wonky graphics here, when anything graphics intensive happens my iMac fully freezes and crashes. That does not sound like a problem with the LCD or it's connections IMO.

tyc3... posted this message some days ago:
+I think ours cards have Nvidia bad bump material,+

+Interesting: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1049921/inquirer-confirms-apple-macbook -pros-nvidia-bad-bump-material+

What we are in need of is an independent engineering lab able to identify the problem/s. I'm convinced that the problem resides within the logic board / gpu design but without proper testing we are not able to put real pressure on Apple.

I have illustrated the patterns for enhanced cooling vents on my 24" iMac here.

I bought a second hand one off a guy i know who used it VERY little, i booted it up started transferring stuff and then all the screen issues became apparent after a few hours! (he had only used of for an hour max at a time)
Apple need to sort this out a stop putting out sub standard products, is there nothing we can do to make them listed or at least get some official response regarding this issue, there must be thousands of people affected!
There is no imac computer i am now willing to upgrade to from my imac G5 as they all have graphic card or screen issues. The mac pro is way to expensive and the mini underpowered, if apple dont sort this shortcomings out then people will go back to cheap PC's......

Are we allowed to post our email here on this forum?

Back in June I wrote:

I am glad to know that at least I am not alone. I started experiencing the dreadful
''beach ball" spinning for more than a few seconds a couple of months ago. Making nothing out of it, I would wait, quit the application or force quit the application. But at other times I had to power it off/on. Once in a while I would use OnyX for maintenance and the machine would keep going. That was until the last Leopard update. Unfortunately, the system went down during a storm the following the day and that is when my nightmare started ..."

To make a story short my hard drive failed and had to replace it. Luckily, the people @ the Genius Bar recommended me a place here in Virginia @ a much lower rate. Coming from the PC world I wouldn't even dare to open this machine - not even to change the HD.

I doubt the Geniuses read these forum. When I asked about the overheating problem I was told the computer would shut down automatically if overheated. When I asked them what were the normal/acceptable temperatures, I couldn't get an answer. Oh, but wait, my temp sensors were working fine !. And when I asked them about the freezing problem, they didn't know anything about it either. Unbelievable!

I haven't experienced any graphic glitches, yet. But, the dreadful beach ball spins more than I would like to no matter what application I decide to run!. I don't want to even try opening several apps @ the same time - so much for multi-tasking. Waiting for the beach ball to finish spinning causes me a lot of anxiety!. I keep on wondering if I am going to end up with a very expensive paper weight on my desk. At time this machine feels slower than my Dell 8300 running XP with only 500 mg RAM.

The freezing problem seems to span several years, including 2009 for what I have read elsewhere.

Does any one here has any suggestions? Besides doing the normal maintenance stuff?

Thanks.

I wanted to add that my email address is no longer hidden, so any of you can email me @ anytime. I want to get of the bottom of this. I don't think it is fair that we have paid so much money for substandard hardware. If Apple doesn't fix this problem, I won't ever buy a computer from them and I would never recommend their products.

The problem we face is to determine the exact cause of the freezing.

< Edited by Host >

The kernel panic with OSX 10.4 is the same problem, I think.
I have had kernel panics with 10.4, too and now with 10.5 the freezes.