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

Hi again

Having updated to a 'stable' setup with Snow Leopard 10.6.8 using the kext fix and forcing into 64-bit mode I copied this to my external HD via Super Duper!. This is now backed up. I downloaded 10.9 Mavericks today and after waiting a very long time for it to download from the App Store (Free upgrade as well), I went ahead and installed it. Once installed I started to arrange how it worked, going through all the setups asked for by the Apple installer. At about half an hour in . . . boom . . . a grey screen. Disappointed to say the least. Anyway, I know it is not supposed to work but I thought I would have a go and install the kext fixes that worked for 10.6.8 (those from 10.6.2). Loaded them in and rebooted. Blimey! When it came up, everything was going along treacle-footed and obviously not correct. So, I did a repair permissions via the Disk Utility. Rebooted and . . . as of now, a few hourse later . . . the system is working. I haven't had chance to test everything but will report back later with a unpdate. If it goes pear-shaped . . . I will revert to 10.6.8. Wish me luck....

I have a mac 7.1 with ATI radeon 2400 with 10.7 and kext fixes, without freezing or any problem.

Yesterday I installed OS X Mavericks, and again freezing ....

Then I installed kext fixes and now working without freezing.

sorry....freezing again with OX mavericks and kext fixes.

Thanks very much, Sequera. Please let us know if things continue to go well (or not).

If folks in general can indicate what iMac version and graphics card they are using (as Sequera did), it is very helpful. Thanks again.

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Oops -- I posted before your second reply. Your crash outcome is a real shame. I'll watch to see how others are faring with Mavericks and the kext fix, and with other iMac and graphics cards. Thanks again.

iMAC Late 2008

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

4 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB

OS X 10.9 (13A603)

Since adding the kext fix from 10.6.2 to Mavericks:

One grey screen freeze while sorting the Mac just after installation.

Did the kext fix.

Did fix permissions. This took ages to perform.

Carried on sorting software under the new set up. Upgrading programs, etc.

One black screen after three hours of use. Fixed by pressing the power button on back off and on quickly, pressing the esc key and finding that the Mac seemed asleep. Log In screen came up and I logged back in. Mac was still running!

Went to System Prefs and set the Energy setting to Computer sleep to 'never' but left the display sleep to 3hrs.

Since then: No freezes . . . yet. If they return I will try the same solution and report back.

Bob

Actually the mac is an Early 2008 model.

Bob

Ok, so this is what happened:

I decided to install Mavericks and guess what? My computer got frozen. I have an iMac Mid 2007, 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 128 MB, Serial Number W873538YX85 running OS X 10.9 (13A603).

So, I did the kext fix and after some minutes it asked me to turn the program manually. I did, it took some minutes and it started again. Since then, I used the computer for 5 hours and it didn't want to sleep, but it wasn't freezing which was good. Then, I turned it off and today, after 12 hours I started the machine, it booted normally, but then it got frozen again. So I manually rebooted it and after 15 minutes is running again without problems.

So, I really don't know exactly to say if the Kext Fix has really fixed the problem or not...

I will try to fix permissions too, lets see.

What it bothers me, is the fact that Apple doesn't care about our problem, which it seems that is not a random thing 😟

Thanks everyone for updating here your progress.

Hello everyone,

I have the same problems:

-Random freezes

-Random black screen

-Random beach ball pointer and you can move it around but nothing else

-Random Striped lines on display

I have upgraded to OSX Mavericks - no change - i.e. still does random freezes.

I have upgraded RAM, I have taken the optical drive out and put in a SSD and thus had fusion drive.

I then uninstalled fusion drive, put back in the optical drive and installed SSD instead of HD.

Still freezes just as before.

The worst part was when it went into sleep mode and couldn't "wake up" again.

I've done clean install of the OS and that fixed that "sleep" problem, but not the random freezes.

I've had mac for about 4 months now- I migrated from the PC world. My IT experience is "expert" in the PC field and obviously "still learning" in the Mac department.

I haven't applied any kind of Kexts or other hocus pocus voodoo that people in here have suggested.

I am suspecting from reading everyones text in here, that the problem is the video card and for some the video kext will solve it, for others, replacing video card fixes it. Thats as close to a common denominator you can get.

Am waiting for confirmation that someone has a 100% fix before I try all the amateurs suggestions of kext updating and blah blah...

Heres my specs:

Model Name: iMac

Model Identifier: iMac8,1

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2,8 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

L2 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Chipset Model: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256MB

Amateurs!? You want pros, try a Genius at the Apple Store. I've done it, they've never heard of this. And there is no 100% fix, but the kext replacement has worked very well for a long time and it's no shot in the dark blah blah solution.

My iMac8,1, 2.8 GHz, ATI HD2600 Pro, same as yours.

Had the GPU replaced years ago by Apple while still under warranty. Worked fine for a couple months, then started back with the random freezes. Kext fix solved it. Installed Mavericks Tuesday, no kext fix yet, machine working fine so far after intensive use the last two days. I'm hopeful, but this is not unusual with new OS.

Hedegaard8, you might want to adjust your attitude a tad. That kext hocus pocus you refer to works, especially on HD2600. Use it, don't use it. That's up to you. I write this for others. The kext fix works.

hedegaard8, read my story on page 95. If you are still in question about the kext fix you might wanna be one of those people who take the "experts" advice from the Genius Bar and just buy a new computer.

For Hedegaard8's iMac and graphics card (8,1 and ATI Radeon HD2600) the kext solution is a 100% fix through Mountain Lion, at least. I know because I have the same pairing of computer and card, and it never has crashed after I applied the fix. It's also a quick and easy solution. Whether the fix still works on Mavericks is what the good sports who have stuck together on this message board for several years are trying to determine now.

It was a generous user named Krzysiu Turek who discovered the fix and posted it in an easy-to-use package with clear instructions. If not for him, we would have been stuck with machines that crashed at unpredictable intervals. His kindness extended the lives of these machines by 3-1/2 years.

I second all aieronimo's statements about how lifesaving the kext fixes have been. Unfortunately, it seems they are not working for me with Mavericks. The console messages I see are as follows:

10/24/13 10:38:07.842 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: WARNING - Invalid signature -67061 0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0B for kext "/System/Library/Extensions/ATI2600Controller.kext"

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: OSMetaClass: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport class ATIController is a duplicate;kext com.apple.kext.AMDSupport already has a class by that name.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport start failed (result 0xdc00400a).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport failed to load (0xdc008017).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Dependency com.apple.kext.ATISupport of kext com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller failed to load.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Can't remove kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport; services failed to terminate - 0xdc008018.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller failed to load (0xdc008015).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Failed to load kext com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller (error 0xdc008015).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext load request buffer from user space still retained by a kext; probable memory leak.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: OSMetaClass: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport class ATIController is a duplicate;kext com.apple.kext.AMDSupport already has a class by that name.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport start failed (result 0xdc00400a).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport failed to load (0xdc008017).

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Failed to load kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport (error 0xdc008017).

10/24/13 10:38:16.143 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: Failed to load /System/Library/Extensions/ATI2600Controller.kext - (libkern/kext) dependency load failed.

10/24/13 10:38:16.145 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: Load com.apple.kext.ATI2600Controller failed; removing personalities from kernel.

10/24/13 10:38:16.000 PM kernel[0]: Couldn't alloc class "ATISupport"

10/24/13 10:38:17.926 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: WARNING - Invalid signature -67061 0xFFFFFFFFFFFEFA0B for kext "/System/Library/Extensions/ATIFramebuffer.kext"

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: OSMetaClass: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport class ATIController is a duplicate;kext com.apple.kext.AMDSupport already has a class by that name.

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport start failed (result 0xdc00400a).

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport failed to load (0xdc008017).

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Dependency com.apple.kext.ATISupport of kext com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer failed to load.

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Can't remove kext com.apple.kext.ATISupport; services failed to terminate - 0xdc008018.

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer failed to load (0xdc008015).

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Failed to load kext com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (error 0xdc008015).

10/24/13 10:38:18.000 PM kernel[0]: Kext load request buffer from user space still retained by a kext; probable memory leak.

10/24/13 10:38:18.360 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: Failed to load /System/Library/Extensions/ATIFramebuffer.kext - (libkern/kext) dependency load failed.

10/24/13 10:38:18.362 PM com.apple.kextd[12]: Load com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer failed; removing personalities from kernel.

I leave it to brains larger than mine to decipher with thanks in advance for any help.

Hey guys,

I don't mean to cause offence with my attitude. I write a little tongue-in-cheek style. Certainly with no ill intent 🙂

However, having said that, surely I must point out that, 97 pages of posts later, there still is no 100% fix that cures everyones iMac in the same range. Some yes, some no, some this, some that.

I'll wait until someone works out a kext for Mavericks and will try that.

Thanks aieronimo for pointing out about Mountain Lion fix, but thats no good now that I've upgraded to Mavericks.

As for the geniuses at the bar, never met one. They aren't educated technicians, so expecting them to be one, is a little far stretch I'd imagine.

To be fair to Apple, I understand they don't bother with old hardware that is older than 2 years. Its still nice of them to make an OS that we can run quite well.

more....

I installed OS Mavericks in imac 7.1 (mid 2007) 2.0ghz core 2 duo , 4gb ram, ATI 2400 , with the kext fix, and fix permisions.

and.... freezes again.

After, I did the same solution of bobtibb. Change computer sleep to "never" in Energy setting, and the display sleep to "3 hours".

Now no freezes.

Hope it works.