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

Just reporting back now that it's been over a week and my computer has been working great in Lion. No freezes and it seems to be rendering things faster and has it's zip back.

The 10.6.2 kext files have worked wonders.

i'm on lion 10.7.2 with an ATI 2400x,

i was so tired of the imac freezing constantly, i was about to smash it on the ground ... but thank god i found this thread and used the fix provided by KrzysiuTurek ...

Just strated tonight and the imac is working flawlessly ...

Thank you man , i owe you one !

Well, it seems my issues were the logic board and video card, both of which were replaced under Apple Care.  Just fired it back up, so I'll update if I have any further issues.  Seems to be running great now.

So far about 36 hours with no issues whatsoever.  Looks like mine was a hardware problem.

I just thought I would chime in and say that I'm on 10.7.2 with the 10.6.2 kext fix. My iMac is a 7,1.

3 days with no freezes!

I have the same problem on imac 7,1 with ATI Radeon 2400 running 10.7.2 but I have no idea how to get and install those kext files from 10.6.2 if I'm already on 10.7.2. Does anybody can explain how (step by step please)?

thanks!

I've been in the same boat since upgrading to 10.6.3 and eventually to Lion.  I tried what KrzysiuTurek mentioned, as it seemed it helped some folks.  I downloaded a zip file with the 10.6.2 kext files for my imac7,1 with ATI2400, and after loading them with the kext helper tool, I rebooted.  The system would only display a grey screen, nothing more.   So I'm hoping its the files I downloaded that were not quite right.  I will have to dig them up from a 10.6.2 backup I have and try again.  In the meantime, I have 3 hours left on my Lion recovery!  Ug.

@friedmania - in your case it will be those files:

ATI2400Controller.kext

ATIFramebuffer.kext

add ATISupport.kext

If files from your 10.6.2 backup will work please let us know

Success!  Helps if you change the ownership and permissions on the kext files!  Since my display was messed up, I had to ssh in and do stuff via command line.  I did have one issue though.  I copied these three files over, put them in the right place, changed perms and owners, and rebooted.  The display hung at the apple logo, and in the log I saw:

com.apple.kextd[10]: Can't create kext from cache: /System/Library/Extensions/ATI2400Controller.kext is already open and has a different CFBundleVersion from identifier->path cache entry 4.

I had to clear cache, but did not see the files other mentioned to delete, so I ran:

kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel 

kextcache -system-caches

And rebooted...

came up clean, and the older drivers are loaded, and no hangs in 30 minutes...  (which is longer than I was getting lately)...

All I can say is thank you thank you thank you!   The iMac lives!

$ kextstat | grep ATI

   72    2 0xffffff7f81898000 0x45000    0x45000    com.apple.kext.ATISupport (6.0.6) <71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

   73    0 0xffffff7f81bcb000 0xca000    0xca000    com.apple.kext.ATI2400Controller (6.0.6) <72 71 9 8 5 4 3 1>

   75    0 0xffffff7f818dd000 0x261000   0x261000   com.apple.ATIRadeonX2000 (7.1.2) <74 71 9 7 6 5 4 3 1>

   91    0 0xffffff7f81c9f000 0x12000    0x12000    com.apple.kext.ATIFramebuffer (6.0.6) <72 71 9 8 7 5 4 3 1>

Where can I find those .kext files? I have the same problem you had with iMac 7,1 running Lion.

thanks in advance!

Another user posted them here:

http://krzysztof-turek.com/apple/1062atikext.zip

Let us know if you have success!

Thanks for the files! So I just have to load

ATI2400Controller.kext

ATIFramebuffer.kext

ATISupport.kext

with kext helper and that's it or I will also get the green screen?

I was very glad as i discovered this thread! Thanks a lot!

After installing the three Files everything workes fine without any problem an without any freezes.

My Setup:

iMac 24-inch, Early 2008

2,8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

6 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (4 GB DIMM 0 and 2 GB DIMM 1)

ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

Regards from Germany

.J-Peter.

@KrzysiuTurek

It's been two months or so since I installed the 10.6.2 kexts - and everything works flawlessly. Not a single crash! What's more, though perhaps it's not related, my iMac (2 GHz, Radeon 2400, OS X 10.7.2) seems to be working faster when it comes to graphic-intensive tasks, and starting up faster as well...

What a pity Apple can't fix this thing themselves - I suppose the problem will return when I install a new OS update, so I keep the .kext files on my computer, just in case...

Anyway, good thing there are the fantastic people here, who solved a bug which Apple has yet to aknowledge it exists...

KrzysiuTurek (Krzysiu Turku?), wielkie dzięki!

Mikołaj

I have the same problem identified many times above (2008 iMac, complete freezes after recent upgrade to Snow Leopard). I just went through the process described by KrzysiuTurek on page 28. The installer said it was a successful install, but I see that the version recorded for the three files hasn't changed, although the files indicate they were modified today. Should I be seeing the same version numbers as before (1.6.36.10)?  If not, does this have something to do with owners and permissions as mentioned in your Dec 9 post? If yes, what do I need to do to deal with this? I'm not too technical so would appreciate help to understand and address this. Thanks.