iMac Freezing

I appreciate your comments. I'm not looking for resolutions from users - none of us have the answer...Apple has that. As for Customer relations...phooey. I've tried that. No one wants to address this issue. They've left us hanging and they're laughing all the way to the bank. My machine ran OK for a full 10 minutes this morning after a cold boot (from sitting 7 hours) - then it was back to normal. For the past 2 and a half hours, I have been freezing and crashing as usual. So, I'll keep filling in the reports and posting and waiting. My "Send a report to Apple" window is feeling more like a chat window

I know Technical Support is pretty much useless, but I was hoping Customer Relations would be a little more accommodating. I don't feel good about Apple getting away with raping my wallet.

Recently [Dell issued fixes for issues with nVidia cards|http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10000353-1.html], but they seem to be newer than the GeForce 7300GT I have. Anyway I hope Apple takes similar steps.

Tech support useless? You couldn't be more correct. Customer Relations apparently isn't prepared to live up to the name. In my last feedback email, I copied every message in this thread and pasted it into the email - just in case they were incapable or unwilling ( more likely) of making it to the discussion boards. I'm not giving up. Someone owes me an answer, and I'm going to get it, somehow. I thought about writing to people like CNN and such - they do reports on stuff like this, and they're always talking about Apple. I wonder if they'd handle a story like this. Let's see. If enough of the networks get wind of this, someone will cover it - at least, that's my theory. Stay tuned...

Well, good luck with that. You might want to start [here|http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/07/share-your-appl.html].

Thank you very much for that link. I appreciate it. It took a while - I've been crashing like crazy all day - but I managed to write a detailed email. Hopefully the word will get out somehow.

Well I called apple to. Explained the symptoms, they asked me if I played allot of games! I said no and they said ow!! Then told me that my late 2006 ATI Model wasn't in covered list. But they were aware of issues with some models, but would tell me which ones. I assumed it would be the 24 inch models. But they would not elaborate and advised me to keep on using smc fan control. Or pay to get it repaired in an apple certified service centre. :/

I'm sorry to hear the results of your call. The only one playing games is Apple. In my case, I have never - ever - played any game of any type on my iMac. I use my computer for Design/Prepress - or at least, I would, if it ran long enough. Telling you to keep using SMC Fan control is like the tire shop telling you to keep inflating a tire with a hole in it. I grimaced when I read the part about taking your machine to an Apple certified service centre... in my case, my machine is past warranty, so what difference would it make where I had the repair handled.. assuming it can be repaired. And even if we all took our Spastic Plastic in to Apple, they don't stand behind their product,,, so how can we expect them to stand behind any repairs? What a ridiculous suggestion. Judging from some of the posts, I've read, taking it in for service doesn't help. I guess we just keep pounding away at them. "The constant drop of water wears away the stone..."

Well - my iMac finally died this morning. It ran for about 10 minutes, crashed, and now It refuses to boot - although I did manage to get it to boot in Verbose mode, but other than a few areas that look unusual (I'm not sure what to look for), I can't tell what's happening. I tried booting from the install CD, but that doesn't work. It booted into Hardware Check, and it says there's a problem: 4MOT/1/40000003:HDD

Repeated attempts at booting this machine fail. This is obviously a fatal error. And so - another one bites the dust. I'll be calling Apple this morning to give them a piece of my mind - in the meantime, I was unable to get everything off the iMac before it died - so I'm sunk. I have jobs to complete this morning and I will be unable to deliver. Not only did this spastic plastic seriously interfere with my productivity, it is now hitting my wallet. I certainly hope that Apple records all calls, because this will be one for the books. My blood pressure is up, and I am angry as ****. What can you expect from a company who recommended the use of a ****** paperclip to restart rev 1 iMacs? What a disgusting situation. I'd highly recommend that anyone who is fighting to get their first generation iMac problems acknowledged, get everything backed up or off that box ASAP before you lose it all like I did. I'm furious.

iMac wasn't dead... just having death spasms. I eventually managed to get it up and (barely) running again. I called Customer 'Support' and they more or less told me to go pound salt. She was very careful not to say anything that might be construed as acknowledgement of a problem. In fact, she left me on hold for a while while she went to discuss my issue with someone else. She returned to tell me I'd have to pay for it myself, but that she'd be happy to give me the name of the nearest Apple Certified Service Tech. Thanks for nothing, Apple. So, I've sent some more emails, and I'll send as many as it takes to get this company to wake up and admit that they have abandoned us. I'm so furious. Why on earth did I defend this company for all those years? Did we help create this monster, but supporting it for so long? I think, perhaps, that is the case. They don't need us now - they're doing quite well, thank you. Anyone else feel betrayed?

I don't understand how so much of the tearing and artifacts and all of that occur independent of some applications. sometimes the mouse will be responsive but the rest won't, and vice-versa. I've had a few weird ones lately, but the most frequent is my imac turns into a skipping CD. I'll be playing some mix and typing then it just stutters and it'll keep repeating that half a second for a long time. if I'm lucky I can put it into sleep really quick and wake it up and everything will be fine. come on apple.

Hello everyone, I am so glad I'm not the only one in this boat. I am experiencing the problems with my 24" White iMac with the Nvidia 7600. It started to act up right after my Leopard upgrade. Darn these constant upgrades!

Well, I'm calling Apple today.

I've done all I can. I have spoken with Apple - and am still trying to determine what the problem is. I'll update you when and if I get an answer. I'm taking the box in tomorrow to have it looked at. I can only hope that it doesn't cost too much - I'm unemployed - and what little money I do make comes from freelance, which isn't easy to do right now. Stay tuned.

Ironic, isn't it? My alu 24" iMac also crashed a lot more than my Windows or Ubuntu box. It's now at the shop... I hope that those issues will be history once I get it back.

Hi, I bought a imac 2 weeks ago and had logic express 8 pre-installed. Every time I open LE8 or garage band it freezes and wont let me force quit it. In the force quit menu is says not responding. I have to shut down and re-open my imac. I went into safe mode to check the error message and it says: Sound Core (-012020). And now msn messenger is doing the same thing. What's going on? I even uninstalled and reinstalled LE8 and Garage Band. Can anyone help?

It took me a long time, but I finally found this thread. I have been having some of the same problems. Mine are: 1. when closing a stack dock, artifacts are left on the screen. 2. a blinking line appeadr in videos and during a video ichat. the other end of the ichat sees the line. 3. the screen freezes for several seconds. if I click on things, nothing happens, but the clicks are remembered and all take effect when the freeze ends. If I have the performance moniter running, it freezes too. 4. Hard freezes occur occasionally and I have to force a power-off reboot. I downloaded a temperature checker and found that the video card was running at 147 F. So I downloaded smcfancontrol and set the sliders about halfway up. The video card temp is now at 113 F and all my problems are gone, at least for now. I feel for those of you who still have the freezes. I also think Apple needs to DO something about this.