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

For what it's worth, I was having the multiple freezing problem on my 2007 iMac (ATI2400) on 10.7 AND 10.8. (Had to go to Lion when Mobile Me shut down, then Mountain Lion soon thereafter.) The 10.6.2 kext solution from KrzysiuTurek worked and I had weeks of uptime through 10.8.0 and 10.8.1 without any problems.

10.8.2 apparently over-wrote things, because I had a freeze within 5 minutes of rebooting after upgrading. I just reapplied the same solution -- hopefully that works.

I am surprised Apple isn't monitoring this thread and fixing this...

hi, I'm Claus.
The funny thing is that the files which where in my extentions folder before upgrading to 10.8.2:

AppleGraphicsControl.kext
GeForce7xxxGLDriver.bundle

GeForce8xxxGLDriver.bundle

NVDANV40Hal.kext

has all dissapeared from my system. And I still get freezes now and then.
Incredible that Mac support center does not answer on this problem apparently so common for a lot of people.
Should I take the risk and ri-install the abobe kext files before buying a new imac? Of course Mac support center would prefer me to buy a new one, right?

Hey there.

if you installed OSX 10.8 and the ATI kexts from 10.6.2, until now, now subsequent OS updates seem to touch it.

10.8.1 was a tiny-weenie one, so it was no surprise for me that all the "working" ATI kexts were intact after software update finished the install.

10.8.2 is however more than 600MB, but still, no harm. i was prepared to install the 10.6.2 kexts right after logging in, but what a pleasant surprise, after checking the load versions, it turned out, there's no need to worry:

$ kextstat | grep ATI

70 2 0xffffff7f81655000 0x46000 0x46000 com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <69 10 9 7 5 4 3 1>

71 0 0xffffff7f81a4f000 0xcb000 0xcb000 com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (6.0.6) <70 69 10 9 5 4 3 1>

73 0 0xffffff7f816a2000 0x2cc000 0x2cc000 com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (8.0.0) <72 69 10 7 6 5 4 3 1>

74 0 0xffffff7f81a35000 0x12000 0x12000 com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <70 69 10 9 7 5 4 3 1>

so don't be afraid, you can install 10.8.2 on a "fixed" 10.8 w/o breaking the fix.

Sorry, I did NOT have this experience. I installed the 10.6.2 kexts under 10.8, and went from 8-10 freezes a day to none for weeks. No issue under the 10.8.1 upgrade. Then after the 10.8.2 upgrade, I had two freezes, each within 10 minutes of a reboot, as I noted above.

Installed the 10.6.2 kexts again, no freezes in the last 36 hours or so. So I think the 10.8.2 upgrade indeed "broke" the fix, at least on my setup.

Me too. Update to 10.8.1 and installed kext files. After update to 10.8.2 there were no ATI-Files except com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000. After two days freeze while starting to play a dvd. Kext installed again and everything fine.

iMac - 24-inch, Early 2008

Processor 3,06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512 M

Software OS X 10.8.2 (12C54)
Had a lot of freezing problems after upgrading to Lion and then Mountain Lion..
but before changing my iMac, not worth to change graphic card as I believe this is a software/extention problem, with the help from KrzysiuTurek I've tried this:

After upgrading to 10.8.2 I still got freezes and had to do hard startups 4-5 times a day.

Yesterday I tried to install these:

AppleGraphicsControl.kext

DSACL.ppp

DSAuth.ppp

DVFamily.bundle

GeForce.kext

GeForce7xxxGLDriver.bundle

GeForce8xxxGLDriver.bundle

GeForceGA.plugin

GeForceVADriver.bundle

NVDANV40Hal.kext

NVDANV50Hal.kext

NVDAResman.kext

I could not use Kext Helper b7.app as it refused to install the files, with 10.8.2 so I tried with kext Wizard.app and that worked.

The funny thing was that after startup my iMac has no more freezes!!! (finally after weeks of battles) but:
- screen moviments like moving around windows with the mouse sometimes goes with little flipping...not a smooth movement,

- the iMac refuses to go into sleep mode ...and to restart. So I have to shut it down.

- Aperture does not open anymore saying: "The installed graphics card does not meet the minimum requirements for Aperture."
...But still no more freeze even when it heats up. I have also turned of smcFancontrol...and no freeze. Will try to test all my softwares and get back here. Should anyone be able to help me on reactivating sleep, restart, Aperture would be nice.

@navsaria + @j-peter

that's kind of strange... anyway.

if you get into situation like this, please check the kext versions in terminal using this command

$ kextstat | grep ATI

it is possible, that the kext caches were not rebuilt, and you still use the recent kext instead of the one from 10.6.2. Atisupport, ati2400controller and atiframebuffer should be version 6.0.6.

oh my.

i just checked, 10.8.1 did not affect anything, as there were no GPU updates in the package.

only

AppleSmartBatteryManager.kext

IO80211Family.kext

IOAHCIFamily.kext

IOUSBFamily.kext

System.kext

however 10.8.2 breaks the fix. it has 8.0.61 bundles for both ATI2400 and ATI2600.

my system was not affected, as it *failed* to finish the system update...

so yes, after 10.8.2 you need to reapply the fix. my bad.

I wanted to throw this out to the community. I have been having trouble for some time with my imac, like everyone has said. I did the kext fix and thought it solved my problems. But then a week after my mac froze again, then again, then again, then again, then complete hard drive failure.

I wonder if some of the problems out there may not be hard drives starting to fail. I am replacing as we speak with a 1TB WD Black Caviar 64mb SATA 6.0 drive. I am restoring with 10.8.2 without the kext fix. I have the 2600 Pro graphics card too. I will let you know how it goes in a few days and see if the problem reoccurs. That WD drive that was in mine has a fairly high failure rate from what I have read.

Just to confirm what swmaster and others have said. 10.8.2 will return 24" iMacs with ATI2400s to the status of expensive paperweights. You need to reapply KrzysiuTurek's excellent kext fix, which makes them computers again. So much for Tim Cross's (and for that matter Steve Jobs') "uncompromising demand for excellence" (WSJ All Things Digital conference, LA, 29 May 2012)! How much longer will we have to put up with this self-serving, arrogant nonsense?

Hi, iamvivid -- I appreciate your offering a suggestion on this. However, I am about 1,000% sure it's not the hard drive. I have the 2600 Pro graphics card. Without kext fix, computer crashes several times/week to a few times/day. With kext fix, no crashes -- none, zip, nada, going on multiple years. By the way, I have a Hitachi (not WD) hard drive. If your computer continues to crash after applying the kext fix, then the issue is something other than what people are posting here.

Howdy all,

I joined this discussion under false pretenses. I have a 20" Mid 2007 iMac. Same infamous ATI 2400 Graphics card. I'm experiencing the same problems. I upgraded the CPU (and hard drive while I was at it) and got some relief when I corrected many "minor" problems with fonts. However the problems were completely cleared up after installing KrzysiuTurek's kext fix. So tell the world that the fix works with other machines.

That is not to say, however, that this is the only problem these iMacs can experience. I am a designer/illustrator and art director. I need to have many fonts at my disposal, but if they were all loaded, it would take forever for apps to load. I therefor employ a font manager in addition to FontBook. The fonts in the font manager are loaded only when called out by the app. I must be constantly vigilant to avoid conflicts which can cause similar crashes with my squirrely machine. I would like to get rid of it but who would want it? ... And besides after upgrading the CPU it's FAST. I might suggest that before the pain of changing the HD, you FIRST install the kext fix, then consider font or other problems. Changing the HD in these machines is a bear if you do it yourself.

Thanks to KrzysiuTurek my crashes now only occur when I have font problems or when Apple decides to "upgrade".

Dear dudes,

do you anybody of you happen to be sharing kexthelper referencing on the krzystof turek's blog http://blog.krzysztof-turek.com/apple-imac-8-1-freeze-problem-solution-en/ ?

Downloaded the kexts just fine, but the link to the kext helper seems to be dead now...

I've encountered ** GPU Debug Info Start ** crash yesterday for the first time after upgrading from SL to ML and the kext replacement seems to be the only reasonable way to fix this judging form this 80 pages long thread..

thanks!

RapidShare link to Kext helper b7

https://rapidshare.com/#!download|175p7|1815412984|Kext_Helper_b7.zip|1257|0|0

Or Website

http://www.klickout.com/mac/easy-way-to-install-kext-files-on-mac-lionsnow-leapo rd/

Also have a local copy.

Thanks Roelof2, just rebooted with kexts in place hoping it's going to work