24" iMac Screen Freezes since 10.6.3 update - pls help!

Mine is W89xx. However on day two after creating a new user account and working on it, I have had no screen freezes. But, I also have limited applications running with this new user account.

Tigara wrote:
Mine is W89xx. However on day two after creating a new user account and working on it, I have had no screen freezes. But, I also have limited applications running with this new user account.

My concerns were initially with late 2006 iMac's, because mine is broken and whilst looking for answers, I found that there seemed to be alot of reports/forums/web petitions relating to very similar problems to mine.

During my search for answers, I started getting a hint that alot where coming from the same factory.
(W8xxx factory.year.week.week )
I tried to stay away from the idea that all iMac's could end up with these problems.
My problems started as a graphical niggle, then took a nosedive into an iMac that will not power up.
(still dead, even after trying to reset the SMC)

My problem also started with a crash/freeze now and again, moving into a crash/freeze as soon as the desktop had appeared.

There is also a lot of talk over capacitors, cooling system, overall system layout, etc...
If any of that kind of talk bears any relevance, I believe my capacitors and such should last for more than 3-4 year in a machine that cost me £1000/$1500 plus.

Tigara wrote:
However on day two after creating a new user account and working on it, I have had no screen freezes. But, I also have limited applications running with this new user account.

This indicates that your problem is somewhere in the files in your old user account's home folder, not in the 10.6.3 files. I'm not sure what you mean by "limited applications" in the above, but it may be an indication of an incompatible software item logging into your old account starts up.

Since this would be an issue significantly different than what is discussed in this topic, it would be best if you started a topic of your own for personalized recommendations about how best to resolve it.

I have a iMac7,1 with W87xx serial. I have had my computer for while and it has never given me a problem until about a month ago. I computer was stuck on the screen saver and my mouse and keyboard were active, but i couldn't get it to go away. I had to do a manual shutdown and I have to do this periodically since then. I thought it was a Firefox issue, but it also happens with Chrome.

Yesterday I did a complete reinstall and today I am having the same problem. I also have a MBP with 10.6.3 but it appears to be not effected.

Killervirgo wrote:
I have a iMac7,1 with W87xx serial. I have had my computer for while and it has never given me a problem until about a month ago. I computer was stuck on the screen saver and my mouse and keyboard were active, but i couldn't get it to go away. I had to do a manual shutdown and I have to do this periodically since then. I thought it was a Firefox issue, but it also happens with Chrome.

Yesterday I did a complete reinstall and today I am having the same problem. I also have a MBP with 10.6.3 but it appears to be not effected.

I don't think your problem is anything to do with software.
I have used Firefox/Chrome and suffered these symptoms.
Yet, I think our iMac's being produced in the same factory during a certain period of time is more relevant.

Please have a look at my thread.
If you post, please include the first 5 characters of your serial.
Which indicates; Factory, year, week of production.

Link To My Thread

ps. I have reinstalled in so many ways; 10.6.3/10.5/Linux/Windows... It's the iMac/Hardware.

you really need to do one thing...take it back to apple and start a paper trail. get it fixed if it is under warranty. one more thing...make sure the service center records your serial number...
apple has an amazing way to lose information on repairs and service records and history of your machine...
just protect yourself and backup!!!
(i feel like i'm talking about a windows machine...hehe)

After installing the combo update, doing a PRAM reset and clearing all caches some weeks ago, my 20" 2.66 runs fine again. No crashes anymore.

andrewtemnoff wrote:
apple has an amazing way to lose information on repairs and service records and history of your machine…

And yet Apple's customer service & support is consistently rated as the best or second best in the industry. I can't say anything about what it is like in Taipei, but here in the U.S. I've never had any problems with lost records.

duly noted...
the asia team is subpar...

Since updating my iMac to 10.6.3 it has crashed an average of 3 times a day with a solid color or striped screen. I have read this discussion and others like it and have come to the conclusion that it only happens when I have my external usb time machine hard drive attached. There are 3 absolutely identical iMac systems in my office and the only one that has had this problem has a usb drive. There are no issues with the drive itself. I have decided to back up sparingly. I hope
Apple can fix this issue in the next software update.

I take it back. I was wrong. It took a couple of days to happen again, but iMac froze on a striped screen. So frustrating.

I have the same problem. Too bad i didn't go this discussion right away. I suspected a hard drive problem. I reinstalled, formatted, zero out data more than 1 time and it gives me the same problem. I have the Snow Leopard and it's not installing anymore. I can install my orig OS that comes with my machine and then when I update to the latest OS update, it started to freeze. It won't continue installing the new update, it freezes. It works if I don't update but it's still buggy. Probably a remnants of the bugs.

Bad news, I already bought a hard drive from best buy. I hope this will be fix right away so I can return the hard drive I bought from BestBuy.

This is frustrating. Apple wiz please fix this...

Are they going to pay for our hard drive. it looks like my hard drive was damage because I cannot re-install my Snow Leopard. Erased, reformatted and zero out data but can't reinstall my Snow. That's why I think my hard drive is done.

How can I go back to 10.6.2... I cannot reinstall Snow Leopard even if I reformatted it, repartition, zero out data.... I've done about everything but to no avail.

this *****!!!

Before trying my suggestions, please check for others opinions...

Place your snow leopard disc to the drive and press c to boot it in the dvd drive, you can then reformat and install if you want.

hope this helps!!!

if you're in 10.6.3, i don't know if you can down update from 10.6.3 to 10.6.2.. you have to reinstall i guess.

with me, i cannot even reinstall the snow leopard.