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

@KrzysiuTurek

It's been two months or so since I installed the 10.6.2 kexts - and everything works flawlessly. Not a single crash! What's more, though perhaps it's not related, my iMac (2 GHz, Radeon 2400, OS X 10.7.2) seems to be working faster when it comes to graphic-intensive tasks, and starting up faster as well...

What a pity Apple can't fix this thing themselves - I suppose the problem will return when I install a new OS update, so I keep the .kext files on my computer, just in case...

Anyway, good thing there are the fantastic people here, who solved a bug which Apple has yet to aknowledge it exists...

KrzysiuTurek (Krzysiu Turku?), wielkie dzięki!

Mikołaj

I have the same problem identified many times above (2008 iMac, complete freezes after recent upgrade to Snow Leopard). I just went through the process described by KrzysiuTurek on page 28. The installer said it was a successful install, but I see that the version recorded for the three files hasn't changed, although the files indicate they were modified today. Should I be seeing the same version numbers as before (1.6.36.10)? If not, does this have something to do with owners and permissions as mentioned in your Dec 9 post? If yes, what do I need to do to deal with this? I'm not too technical so would appreciate help to understand and address this. Thanks.

I wonder if you or anyone else out there can help me. On Dec 14 I posted to friedmania re his subsequent (Dec 9) post to you where he talks about owners and permissions. My post is repeated below. I have not had a response yet, and my computer just crashed again, for the first time since trying the fix last week. My question was about what I should be seeing as kernal file version numbers after applying the fix.

I have the same problem identified many times above (2008 iMac, complete freezes after recent upgrade to Snow Leopard). I just went through the process described by KrzysiuTurek on page 28. The installer said it was a successful install, but I see that the version recorded for the three files hasn't changed, although the files indicate they were modified today. Should I be seeing the same version numbers as before (1.6.36.10)? If not, does this have something to do with owners and permissions as mentioned in your Dec 9 post? If yes, what do I need to do to deal with this? I'm not too technical so would appreciate help to understand and address this. Thanks.

Type the command 'kextstat | grep ATI' in a Terminal. You should see an output similar to the following:

~:67% kextstat | grep ATI

97 2 0x148c000 0x2b000 0x2a000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <74 14 13 7 5 4 3 1>

98 0 0x14b7000 0x97000 0x96000 com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (6.0.6) <97 74 14 13 5 4 3 1>

99 0 0x948000 0x215000 0x214000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (6.2.6) <75 74 14 7 6 5 4 3 1>

100 0 0x154e000 0x12000 0x11000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <97 74 14 13 7 5 4 3 1>

Note the version numbers in parentheses to the right (6.0.6 and 6.2.6). They should (probably; you have a slightly newer iMac, and will have a different ATIxxxxController driver) match the ones I have on my iMac 7,1 running 10.6.7 with replaced kext files. [Note: don't try replacing the kexts in 10.6.8; people have reported that that results in a blue screen or other error on boot.] If you're having trouble replacing the kext files, there's a tool at http://cheetha.net/ called "Kext helper" which will get all the locations and permissions correct for you.

Finally found the actual files in /System/Library/Extensions. The files in this location which correspond to the loaded kexts above have versions (from "Get Info"):

1.6.6.25 ATI2400Controller.kext ATIFramebuffer.kext ATISupport.kext [replaced]

1.6.26 ATIRadeonX2000.kext [not replaced]

The files ATI2400Controller.kext, ATIFramebuffer.kext, and ATISupport.kext in "/Backup Extensions" (placed there by Kext Helper) have version 1.6.26.31.

Here is what I get at terminal:

93 2 0xffffff7f813f9000 0x12e000 0x12e000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.3.6) <73 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

94 0 0xffffff7f81527000 0x2b000 0x2b000 com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller (6.3.6) <93 73 9 8 5 4 3 1>

95 0 0xffffff7f8084d000 0x25d000 0x25d000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (6.3.6) <74 73 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

102 0 0xffffff7f81552000 0x14000 0x14000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.3.6) <93 73 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

I think this means that I have version 6.3 files, instead of the 6.0 and 6.2 that you have?

I used the same installer tool you mentioned, and the .zip file of the old (10.6.2) graphics drivers provided by Krzysiu Turek: 10_6_2atikext. Maybe it didn't work? I am in version 10.6.8, but switched to 64-bit mode prior to the install, based on comments earlier in this thread from folks who seemed to have had sucess with installing the old drivers in 10.6.8. in 64-bit mode. I don't have any trouble at boot up, but the crash I had today was to a blue screen.

Not sure what my next move is? Probably no point in just trying the kext install again? I wonder if it work OK if my machine was in 10.6.7 like you? My Snow Leopard installation disc is 10.6.3, but I presume it upgraded automatically to 10.6.8 after installation. I think I read earlier in this thread someone downgraded from 10.6.8 to 10.6.7 and sucessfully installed the old drivers. Do you know if there a way I can do this? If not, do you know whether (and how) I could reinstall 10.6.3 and prevent it from upgrading?

I don't know if this will help, but I'm running 10.6.8 in 64-bit mode with the older kext files, and it has completely solved my "screen freezes". It looks like you have the ATI2600 GPU like me. My kextstat output looks different from yours:

brian@imac:~ kextstat | grep ATI

103 2 0xffffff7f814d5000 0x2d000 0x2d000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <79 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

104 0 0xffffff7f81502000 0x99000 0x99000 com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller (6.0.6) <103 79 9 8 5 4 3 1>

105 0 0xffffff7f80900000 0x25d000 0x25d000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (6.3.6) <80 79 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

106 0 0xffffff7f8159b000 0x12000 0x12000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <103 79 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

I think you should have the 6.0.6 and 6.3.6 version numbers, so I wonder if the old kexts really didn't get installed correctly, especially since you mentioned that the kext version numbers didn't change from what they were before, right?

My machine is a 24" early 2008 (iMac8,1) with the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics.

Regards,

Brian.

EDIT: I'm trying to find where I got the 10.6.2 kext files, but I seem to have lost the link. I'm pretty sure I got them from a website mentioned in this thread, that someone had put together explaining the steps to take to fix this problem.

you can get mine from here, but it's HD2400 only:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ng3jz9ac68pcm8k

i also have to mention, that in the original kexts there are symlinks (a.k.a aliases) which get transformed to real files when copied. i did not see the "kext installer tool", so i cannot tell whether it's ok or not.

there are a couple of things one has to pay attention to:

- kext files are owned by root/wheel (entering "chmod -R root:weel filelist" into terminal does the trick)

- kext files do not have extended attributes ("xattr -cr filelist" removes them all)

- kextcaches need some time to rebuild. after deleting the old files (make a backup first, you never know) and installing the new ones, wait until the kextcachebuilder process finishes. that should be 1-3 minutes usually.

to be sure, after the installation process one may trigger the rebuild by touching the S/L/E directory like this:

touch /System/Library/Extensions

h.t.h

of course. filelist needs to be replaced with the actual path, like /System/Library/Extensions/ATI2400Controller.kext

and so on.

Marno49, I got the 10.6.2 files and exactly followed the instructions on this web page: http://krzysztof-turek.com/apple/

Hopefully with that plus the info from swmaster you'll be able to sort it out.

Sorry! Have not been logged in for a while. I had first tried the GUI kext helper tool, but that did not work for me. What did work was using a command line (via ssh from my macbook). I copied the three files to /System/Library/Extensions, then ran:

chown -R root /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

xattr -src /System/Library/Extensions//ATI*

kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

kextcache -system-caches

Reboot

The last two steps were critical too for clearing the cache. Anyway, after doing this you should definitley see the version changes in those three drivers (6.0.6 instead of anything later):

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>

See if that works! Sorry for the delay.

Brian

Those are exactly the instructions I followed. But I do remember now being puzzled by the instruction to "take the 3 files and put them on your desktop". I thought this meant move them from the System/Library/Extensions folder to the Desktop, but I couldn't seem to do this. I could only copy them to the Desktop. Can you or anyone else comment on whether this sounds right, and whether it would have made any difference to the success of the install?

Also, I'm going to have to ask swmaster about his/her post. I don't really understand what it implies for me.

And I see, friedmania has commented too, although I think I will need clarification/help there too. I will probably try to contact him first.

Can you help me a bit, I'm not very technical.

When you say "using a command line (via ssh from my macbook)", is this something I would do from terminal, since I have full access to my iMac? What exactly did you do at the command line? is this where you "copied the three files to /System/Library/Extensions"? I'm very nervous about doing anything in terminal without precise, step-by-step instructions. I presume the 3 files you are referring to are the 3 replacement files found in 10_6_2atikext, but could you just verify this, and explain exactly how I go about copying them to /S/L/E via the command line? Then you say you "ran:

chown -R root /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

xattr -src /System/Library/Extensions//ATI*

kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

kextcache -system-caches

Reboot"

Was this at the command line again? Are they 5 separate steps? Can I do it just by pasting them into terminal at the prompt? For Reboot, was this something you "ran" in the same way, or is this just a normal reboot?

Sorry for my ignorance, and I hope you will have patience with me. I so much appreciate having you and the rest of this community out there.

Marno49 wrote:

I think this means that I have version 6.3 files, instead of the 6.0 and 6.2 that you have?

Not sure what my next move is? Probably no point in just trying the kext install again?

The kext files didn't get replaced properly. I'd try installing the kexts again using the Kext helper tool. Make sure you're in an account with administrator privileges. Don't install *all* the kext files, just ATISupport.kext, ATI2600Controller.kext, and ATIFramebuffer.kext from the zip file that you already have (I think those are the correct ones for your Mac). If you want to do it by hand:

1) Unzip the zip file by double-clicking on it.

2) Open the resulting folder, and move just the three listed files above to your Desktop.

3) In Terminal, type:

sudo cp ~/Desktop/ATI*.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

sudo chown -R root /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

sudo xattr -src /System/Library/Extensions/ATI*

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

sudo kextcache -system-caches

and then reboot. I hope I have that right (I used the KextHelper tool on my system, and go to 10.6.8 or 10.7.x, or boot 64-bit, because I need Rosetta for a number of applications for now).

Ok, I will try it again. Just to be absolutely clear, do I hit enter after each of the lines in step 3, or does it all go in as one string?

Hit enter after each line in step 3. But I'd try the KextHelper again first.