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

Same here Eminemdrdre00. Same iMac model (8,1 - Early 2008), same video card (ATI Radeon 2600), same OS (Lion), same symptoms (hung OS with movable cursor and no visual artifacts.)

Initially blamed iTunes, but now that you posted, I think it might be related to the age-old video issues.

I know it has been said many times on these forums, but why won't Apple do anything.  I understand that it isn't a large number of users expierencing these problems, but one user is one to many.  Yes, I know Apple can say that its the older iMacs that this is happening to and that its a hardware problem, but I have done Hardware test, and everything imaginable.  If is is a hardware problem, then Apple has used many many faulty graphic cards in these iMacs.  I for one do not have the money to go buy a new logic board/graphics card nor do I have the money to buy a new Mac.  My iMac is far from old and I just want to be up to date as long as possible.  I know that someone will come up with a way to bypass the problem so that us users that are having the problems will be able to update to Lion, I just hope it comes sonner rather than later.  I am upgrading my memory from 2GB to 4GB...maybe that will help...doubt it, but hey, it is worth a shot.  If it doesn't help, at least my iMac will be faster.

no, ram upgrade wont help. mine has 4GB already.

Hi there,

could you please post your mac's GPU firmware version?

i am trying to find "the" pattern :-)

again, it's not an OS level freeze, as OSX still runs only the display goes dead.

don't turn off via the power button, log in with ssh from another computer (i do it from my iphone),

and do a "sudo shutdown -r now" (it may take up to 1-2 minutes to complete the restart, be patient)

this way all application quits ordinary, which is way better than a power outage (switching off the box).

also, if you have Lion, when rebooting via cli, you get everything back as your mac restarts. all apps, all

open documents, everything.

no hard reboot please!

connect via ssh (aka remote login service) and do a "sudo reboot" or "sudo shutdown -r now"

this way lion can bring your apps back upon restart.

What you say makes a lot of sense Chris, This probably sounds corny but I'm wondering if we can all get together and approach Apple as a group rather than individuals ?   A well written (polite) letter to begin with a list of affected users with apple usernames, brief account of model/firmware/graphics set etc?

I'm in the UK but suspect there many of you in the mainland Europe, USA, Canada, Aus etc.  and I'm thinking the US Apple store would be the best to hit.

Or perhaps we all send the same letter on the same day or ask for a refund on our Lion downloads?

didn't figure it would, I just need to upgrade mine anyways

I am also having the same screen freezing problems with Lion as I did since 10.6.3 I have had my computer checked by an apple technician. There are no hardware issues. Just driver problems. As I write this there are small squares near the bottom right of the screen that look like a cutout from the pervious page.

What I did was use the Kext "fix" then when the snow leopard update came out that talked about "grapphic driver updates" updated to that. It replaced the drivers I had installed with newer ones. Then I just upgraded to lion. No freezes for me so far almost a week in (ok not really a wekk but w/e)

I agree Phil!  I am not one that want's to get on here and bash Apple and everything about them, I have been an Mac/Apple user for a long long time.  But, at a certain point the frustration for everyone on here will mount.  I like the idea of a letter or something such as that to maybe just maybe get a point across.  I can almost guarantee that everyone that is having these problems have machines that are almost identical.  Apple can't come back and say, well, you've done this or that and voided warranties and that is what is causing the problem.  Everything on my iMac works perfectly under 10.6.7 with the kext replacement.  It operates smoothly, I get no freezes, all my applications open and work great. 

I agree that a US Apple store would be the best bet.  If there is anyone on here that has connections to someone at an Apple Store then they would be the best bet.  I personally live a good distance from one. 

I just DO NOT buy that everyone is just having a hardware "failure".  There is just to much of a constant pattern for that

Which iMac do you have?  7,1 or 8,1 and which graphics card do you have?

CWGuide, can you be more detailed in what you did after the kext replacement. and also keep us updated on whether you have freezes or not.  Thanks!

I'm pretty sure I said this awhile ago but I have a 7,1 model with a ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 128 MB card.

yeah,

that's why i started to collect firmware version numbers from all affected machines.

some lucky fellows, who had the same issues and their gear was applecare covered

got it fixed: the mxm gfx card was replaced.

i still think it's a firmware issue, as the bundled diagnostic run doesn't find anything

when used.

i don't think that apple will ignore hundreds of not-really-satisfied customers.

btw, i noticed, that there are some very specific tasks that could be related to those

freezes:

- watching flash videos embedded in web pages

- vector image editing in omnigraffle, esp. dragging a huge set of objects

swmaster wrote:

 

yeah,

that's why i started to collect firmware version numbers from all affected machines.

some lucky fellows, who had the same issues and their gear was applecare covered

got it fixed: the mxm gfx card was replaced.

 

i still think it's a firmware issue, as the bundled diagnostic run doesn't find anything

when used.

 

i don't think that apple will ignore hundreds of not-really-satisfied customers.

 

btw, i noticed, that there are some very specific tasks that could be related to those

freezes:

- watching flash videos embedded in web pages

- vector image editing in omnigraffle, esp. dragging a huge set of objects

Imac 8.1 . Only stable with 10.6.2 kexts, radeon 2600pro

113-B2250L-259