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

I don't know if this is just coincidence or not, but since updating my iMac to 10.6.3 it keeps on crashing. On 3 separate occasions today, whilst using my Mac the screen has gone completely black with thin white lines down it.....see pic below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/6SYzhCgVYEU5TBKqRfOQ1Q?feat=directlink

The fans and hard disk are still running but it will not respond to any keyboard or mouse presses - I simply have to turn it off by holding the power button in.
It will then restart as usual.

Anyone got any ideas? Do you think that if I was to re-install Mac OS X from my original install disk it could solve the issue?

Thanks

Darren

24" intel imac 2.8Ghz, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Mar 31, 2010 2:43 PM

Reply
1,804 replies

Nov 16, 2011 7:35 AM in response to swmaster

Hey swmaster,

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty sure I've got the right files and have them installed properly. Not sure about the waiting thing; I probably rebooted within 1 minute after installing the new files:


MrFreeze:bsm johnk$ kextstat |grep ATI

70 2 0xffffff7f813f1000 0x45000 0x45000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <69 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

71 0 0xffffff7f8173b000 0xca000 0xca000 com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller (6.0.6) <70 69 9 8 5 4 3 1>

73 0 0xffffff7f81436000 0x261000 0x261000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (7.1.2) <72 69 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

76 0 0xffffff7f81724000 0x12000 0x12000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <70 69 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>


I used kext helper 0.7 to install them


MrFreeze:bsm johnk$ cd /System/Library/Extensions/

MrFreeze:Extensions johnk$ ls -l@|grep -i ati

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Nov 15 14:58 ATI2600Controller.kext

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Nov 15 14:58 ATIFramebuffer.kext

drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Nov 15 14:58 ATISupport.kext


Thanks for checking these.

Dec 9, 2011 9:23 AM in response to DazzaG

I've been in the same boat since upgrading to 10.6.3 and eventually to Lion. I tried what KrzysiuTurek mentioned, as it seemed it helped some folks. I downloaded a zip file with the 10.6.2 kext files for my imac7,1 with ATI2400, and after loading them with the kext helper tool, I rebooted. The system would only display a grey screen, nothing more. So I'm hoping its the files I downloaded that were not quite right. I will have to dig them up from a 10.6.2 backup I have and try again. In the meantime, I have 3 hours left on my Lion recovery! Ug.

Dec 9, 2011 1:16 PM in response to DazzaG

Success! Helps if you change the ownership and permissions on the kext files! Since my display was messed up, I had to ssh in and do stuff via command line. I did have one issue though. I copied these three files over, put them in the right place, changed perms and owners, and rebooted. The display hung at the apple logo, and in the log I saw:


com.apple.kextd[10]: Can't create kext from cache: /System/Library/Extensions/ATI2400Controller.kext is already open and has a different CFBundleVersion from identifier->path cache entry 4.


I had to clear cache, but did not see the files other mentioned to delete, so I ran:

kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

kextcache -system-caches

And rebooted...


came up clean, and the older drivers are loaded, and no hangs in 30 minutes... (which is longer than I was getting lately)...


All I can say is thank you thank you thank you! The iMac lives!


$ kextstat | grep ATI

72 2 0xffffff7f81898000 0x45000 0x45000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

73 0 0xffffff7f81bcb000 0xca000 0xca000 com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (6.0.6) <72 71 9 8 5 4 3 1>

75 0 0xffffff7f818dd000 0x261000 0x261000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (7.1.2) <74 71 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

91 0 0xffffff7f81c9f000 0x12000 0x12000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <72 71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

Dec 10, 2011 3:32 PM in response to DazzaG

I was very glad as i discovered this thread! Thanks a lot!


After installing the three Files everything workes fine without any problem an without any freezes.


My Setup:


iMac 24-inch, Early 2008

2,8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

6 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (4 GB DIMM 0 and 2 GB DIMM 1)

ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)


Regards from Germany


.J-Peter.

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

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