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

I'm at 7.1 /ATI 2400 and have only ever been able to get up to 10.6.6. using the older video drivers.  I tried installing Lion but it freezes within 10 mins so as I've yet I've been able to try and install the older drivers using kexthelper. I guess in the grand scheme of things if only a few thousand of us are affected it's only a tiny percentage, but you'd think Apple would come clean, it's not like they are exactly short of money to address this sort of thing. 

Thanks for the replies.  I know Lion will be amazing, but not if I keep getting freezes.  I can always revert if I needed to but I may wait until there is a little more of a concrete fix, such as the kext file helper was.  If anyone has any ideas on moving those kext files into Lion, please let me know.  Thanks again

iMac 24" (8.1) with Ati Radeon HD 2600:

Have been using Lion since it was released without using kext files. Haven't got any freezes yet.

I have an iMac 24" (8.1) and still on 10.6.2.

I got up to 10.6.6 at one point and got so fed up with system freezes that I backed it out to 10.6.2. I initially thought it was a hardware fault and spent a lot of time investigating that side of things.

My iLife11 has been gathering dust since January but on 10.6.2 I know where I am. I appreciate there is the workaround with the kext files but have not been brave enough to go back.

I will await with interest to see if Lion is any more stable as I am now keen to move it on a few releases.

No freezes as of yet with Lion without any kext files. I'm on an 8.1 iMac 24" with Radeon HD 2600 Pro. I really hope this lasts. The entire OS seems snappier.

My 7,1 iMac with Radeon HD2600 pro just froze under Lion.  I just did a fresh install of Snow Leopard then installed Lion.  Worked fine for a few hours, then when in Mission Control, it when locky locky again.  Can still see cursor moving around but clicking stuff does nothing.  Neither does pressing any keys.  Also, I have smcFanControl installed and the fans set to max.  Also, I have not installed kext files (last time I tried, it wouldn't boot).  Very sad.  ;-(

I have the 7,1 mac as well.  When you say you "upgraded to a new graphics update after", what does that entail exactly?

I'm running 10.6.7 with the kext fix and not getting any crashes.  I don't dare move up to Lion until it can be more firmly established that it will work on my machine.

Thanks.

If your 7,1 machine freezes without the kext fix then lion will most likely not work.  My experience is the exact same as johnckendall .  Just enjoy your functioning 10.6.7 machine Tim.  It's not not worth it to go from a functioning computer to one that hard crashes every few hours just so you can try out Lion.  Lion doesn't have any upgrades that are any better than your current OS so it's not like you are missing much.

Hi Tim,

See the post from KrzysiuTurek - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2384136?threadID=2384136&start=300&tstart=0 .

The driver replacement process is 7 posts down on page 21.

It worked for me up to 10.6.6, I never had the guys to go any higher. I did try Lion but it won’t stay stable long enough to patch the drivers.  I’m on a 21” mid 2007 iMac with 7.1 and 2400 graphics card BTW

Hi Freezers,

could you plz check the rom revision of your radeons? (via Apps/Utils/System profiler.app)

mine is 113-B2250A-207

i had freezes until i re-used the 10.6.2 ATI kexts. after this everything was fine. i had 10.6.7 running rock stable.

and then i updated to lion, now the freezes are back.

there were two radeon firmware updates (1.0.1 and 1.0.2), but as i tried to install them,

i received a message that my imac does not need this (7,1 imac).

the funny stuff is however, that my other imac, same externals, same internals, same os (10.6.7)

does not suffer from gpu crashes. the gpu rom is the same too.

to be sure, as the freeze/spinning beachball of death kicks in, the box is still reachable via ssh,

however the screen does not react to anything, just the pointer moves. it can be restarted safely

via "reload", and then lion takes care of everything, running processes create a checkpoint and they

are back w/o issues, all with the unsaved changes.

before reloading i did a "sudo dmesg" and the last line was "gpu crash log end" or similar.

I have the exact same iMac as you and the same ATI Radeon HD2400.  My ROM revision is also the same as you mentioned above.  I am on 10.6.7 and mine runs great, with the kext file change of course.  10.6.8 is not stable with the kext replacement for me.  I get the good old Kernal Panic! I wish someone would figure out how to replace the kext in Lion so that we could upgrade.

Chris J. wrote:

 

I have the exact same iMac as you and the same ATI Radeon HD2400.  My ROM revision is also the same as you mentioned above.  I am on 10.6.7 and mine runs great, with the kext file change of course.  10.6.8 is not stable with the kext replacement for me.  I get the good old Kernal Panic! I wish someone would figure out how to replace the kext in Lion so that we could upgrade.

You have to change the kext like in Snow leopard, its the same to change the kexts on SL 10.6.7 or in Lion 10.7

Works for imac 8.1 and 7.1

not 100% sure, but i guess you should not replace the Lion drivers the ones you get from 10.6.2, as they are way different. even the 10.6.7 differs from 10.7.0:

lion:

crowley:~ bat$ kextstat | grep ATI

   72    2 0xffffff7f813f1000 0x186000   0x186000   com.apple.kext.ATISupport (7.0.2) <71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

   73    0 0xffffff7f81879000 0x40000    0x40000    com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (7.0.2) <72 71 9 8 5 4 3 1>

   79    0 0xffffff7f81577000 0x25f000   0x25f000   com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (7.0.2) <74 71 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

   99    0 0xffffff7f81862000 0x12000    0x12000    com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (7.0.2) <72 71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

whereas SL(10.6.7):

napsugar:~ dia$ kextstat | grep ATI

   72    2 0x5bed5000 0x32000    0x31000    com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.2.6) <71 14 13 7 5 4 3 1>

   73    0 0x5c0e2000 0x97000    0x96000    com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (6.2.6) <72 71 14 13 5 4 3 1>

   94    0 0x5c9e8000 0x215000   0x214000   com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (6.2.6) <75 71 14 7 6 5 4 3 1>

  103    0 0x5c2e7000 0x13000    0x12000    com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.2.6) <72 71 14 13 7 5 4 3 1>

and of course, just replacing may not have any impact, as the kextcaches are already built, after reboot one may check them versions via kextstat to make sure the new ones have been loaded. or boot to "safe" mode bypassing the caches (shift).

needless to say, osx is extremely mad about extended attributes, ownership and permissions when the game is about kexts. that may lead to black screen, as osx refuses to load the "invalid" kexts.

Harkaitz wrote:

 

You have to change the kext like in Snow leopard, its the same to change the kexts on SL 10.6.7 or in Lion 10.7

 

Works for imac 8.1 and 7.1

Maybe it works for imac 8,1 but it did not work for my imac 7,1 or for a couple other people's 7,1 imacs.  7,1 iMac owners beware of lion!  Odds are good that it will constantly crash your machine.

Oh no I'm getting freezes in Lion on my early 2008 8,1 iMac with a ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. It's not the same freeze as in Snow Leopard. No graphical aritfacts this time, now my screen just freezes, but I can still move the mouse. Can't click on anything though. Have to do a hard reboot.