DazzaG

Q: 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

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

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  • by Simon Baker,

    Simon Baker Simon Baker Nov 19, 2010 2:24 PM in response to Supermike530
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Nov 19, 2010 2:24 PM in response to Supermike530
    I have had no freezes for the last week with the fans ramped up with SMCFanControl. I have a screen shot, but my ISP has changed its freespace settings and I have given up trying to upload it. In any case, there are 3 settings for the minimum fan speed under preferences. I have them set on ODD 1948 rpm (optical disk drive, appears nearest the GPU heatsink, I think); HDD 1200rpm (Hard disk drive); CPU 1554 rpm. Its not too noisy, but you can hear the whirrs.
    Running on 10.6.5 with all updates installed. I even reinstalled the last Graphics update, just to make sure. When I'm feeling masochistic I may turn down the fans and see when the freezes kick in, and report. Very many thanks for the Apple problem link, by the way, I just could not find it!
  • by Sorkin,

    Sorkin Sorkin Nov 22, 2010 9:52 AM in response to DazzaG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 9:52 AM in response to DazzaG
    Went back and installed 10.6, did the 10.6.2 Combo update. Installed Pro Tools 9 again. Been surfing in Safari a bit. No freeze yet. Fingers crossed....


    -Oex
  • by Sorkin,

    Sorkin Sorkin Nov 22, 2010 10:15 AM in response to Sorkin
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 10:15 AM in response to Sorkin
    Clean install btw...

    -Oex
  • by pika2000,

    pika2000 pika2000 Nov 22, 2010 2:28 PM in response to DazzaG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 2:28 PM in response to DazzaG
    I've been having similar stability issue after recently upgraded to Snow Leopard. My iMac is the 2008 model, never had a stability problem while on Leopard. I upgraded to SL recently to 10.6.5, and it will lock up randomly. The occurrence is random, sometimes even while I'm doing nothing, but the iMac will lock up (frozen entirely, mouse not movable, sometimes with a spinning beach ball seconds before, sometimes the iMac's screen just turns black) and my secondary display will show a green screen with some vertical lines (this happens all the time when the iMac locks up). Thing is, since it's random, I don't know how to get proper technical support. I did all the standard troubleshooting methods. I even ran the Techtool diagnostic, and everything is shown to be fine.
  • by KrzysiuTurek,

    KrzysiuTurek KrzysiuTurek Nov 22, 2010 3:41 PM in response to DazzaG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 3:41 PM in response to DazzaG
    First of all sorry for my bad English, I'm writing from Poland

    I'm currently testing Simon's solution with SMCFanControl... and in my case it works fine. My fans settings are:

    ODD: 1031rpm
    HDD: 1200rpm
    CPU: 1273rpm

    and my mac is running in 64-bit mode.
    No freeze from 3 days!!
  • by SeSam,

    SeSam SeSam Nov 22, 2010 11:11 PM in response to KrzysiuTurek
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 11:11 PM in response to KrzysiuTurek
    I have also tried SMCFanControl. For a while it seemed ok but after a few days I encountered another freeze. Fans were at 1200-1500 RPM each.
  • by eeemin,

    eeemin eeemin Nov 22, 2010 11:27 PM in response to SeSam
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 11:27 PM in response to SeSam
    @SeSam
    Try this setting.
    http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7425/screenshot20101123at426.png

    I haven't experienced a freeze for 6 days, which was impossible before.
    I updated 10.6.5 right after Apple released and as expected the freeze happened again. I CAN not understand why my system lock up while just surfing the web on Safari.
    So I installed SMCfancontrol again.
  • by Zachnap,

    Zachnap Zachnap Nov 25, 2010 12:20 PM in response to Simon Baker
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 25, 2010 12:20 PM in response to Simon Baker
    it won't work. I've had this problem since 2007-08 and my fan rpms are at 3600. You are lucky your system lasted this long.
  • by kingmatteo,

    kingmatteo kingmatteo Nov 25, 2010 3:08 PM in response to Zachnap
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 25, 2010 3:08 PM in response to Zachnap
    I have the same problem with my iMac 21,5" 10,1.
    Just from when i bought it, March 2010, i had experienced many times freezing.
    All the time when i surfed the web with Safari. In the first time i believe that Flash plug-in was the problem, but now i'm not sure about this.
    This mac is placed in my room and i usually work for just 2 hours 3/4 days at week. But when i work with iMovie for 3/4 hours no kynd of problem, when i'm using Safari ( and just one time with Chrome) freeze happens.
    I made all the test with techtool deluxe (except surface scan that i try to launch in this week-end) and no kynd of problem.
    After the surface test i will call Apple in Italy ( i bought an Apple's care program) and try to understand if something.
    Besides this, i have a question for all of you that have this problem: are you connected to the internet via Wifi airport or Ethernet Cable ?
    Bye
    Matteo
  • by KrzysiuTurek,

    KrzysiuTurek KrzysiuTurek Nov 25, 2010 3:28 PM in response to DazzaG
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 25, 2010 3:28 PM in response to DazzaG
    Couple of minutes ago I try to reply to this post, and boom... - another black screen.
    But this time my iMac is connected to the external HDD

    Tommorow I will go back to 10.6.2.

    Message was edited by: KrzysiuTurek
  • by Tazthed,

    Tazthed Tazthed Nov 26, 2010 6:11 AM in response to kingmatteo
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 26, 2010 6:11 AM in response to kingmatteo
    It has nothing to do with WiFi or Ethernet Cable.

    It is probably the graphics card. Apple just doesn't want to solve this issue even though a lot of people are complaining!
  • by Mauricio Costa,

    Mauricio Costa Mauricio Costa Nov 30, 2010 6:56 AM in response to Tazthed
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 6:56 AM in response to Tazthed
    The problem is the location of the graphics card inside some iMacs. It happens that the CPU seams to be too close to the Graphics Card in the 2007 24" iMac (mine). The heat causes freezing and funny elements showing up. The solution I found (like many) was to bump the fans to the max by software (I use "Fan Control").

    But after 10.6.(I don't know exactly) my system started to crash again, specially when using Safari (?)
    My guess is that Apple is pushing the GPU use forward with the new versions of their OS and softwares. This is probably heating things up... And here in Brazil the whether doesn't help much

    Is there any chance for us to get organized and transform this in a "GPUGATE" or "FREEZEGATE" for the lack of a better name? Any suggestions??
  • by Mauricio Costa,

    Mauricio Costa Mauricio Costa Nov 30, 2010 7:05 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 7:05 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    Repeating what someone already said, please do a formal report to Apple:

    http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

    I'm doing mine right now...
  • by Mauricio Costa,

    Mauricio Costa Mauricio Costa Nov 30, 2010 7:37 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 7:37 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    Below I copied my report I sent to Apple:

    As you probably know already (we hope) the first Intel iMacs suffer from bad design/bad components resulting in freezing, crashing and "special effects" overall.

    Like thousands, I am a 24" 6,1 Model iMac owner (running 10.6.5), and like them, I had the same problems... (I thought this was something wrong I was doing!!) but later I identified that the problem as being a bad design issue - the GPU was too close to the CPU, what made the GPU too hot, resulting the issues described.

    After some research I found MANY people around the world share the same problem. And not only with the same model iMac!! I found also that controlling the fans by software I could reduce or in my case, solve the problem. It happened though that after one of the last System Updates, my iMac is freezing again... I guess the Apple engineers are not doing there homework (trying to be polite now).... wouldn't the extensive use of the GPU in OS tasks make the problem even worse for us??

    I'm a 11 year Apple devotee and I am deeply FRUSTRATED.

    Not only.... I really cannot trust if a new iMac would solve my problem...! How could I trust Apple again? You people don't even recall this machines!?!!

    If all this is so new for any of you in Apple (I hope not), please read this tread ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12680036#12680036 ) and many others that got archived.... they are just a fraction of the users... many are now thinking they installed a bad RAM, got some new virus or just weren't lucky.

    Please Apple, be honest with the people that gave you so much... Now it is time to pay back what you owe.
  • by Tazthed,

    Tazthed Tazthed Nov 30, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Mauricio Costa
    *Everyone who has a problem with the freezing on Mac should send a report to Apple:*

    *http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html*
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