GaBeech

Q: Late 2006 iMac, Lines, Kernel Panic, Freeze, Reboot, Restart, Serial W8 ?

Hello,

Let me start by explaining the method I am initially going to adopt in my search for answers;

•All of the keywords and more that would not fit in the title space, relate to my problem.
•I think the *iMac Serial* holds the key to mine and possibly a lot of other peoples search for answers.
•My second post will explain what I know about the Serial and the information it provides.
•I have a strong feeling that a lot of people who have the same or similar problems to me will have a Serial that begins with at least W8.
•I believe that a lot of affected machines will of been produced between 2006 & 2008, yet not confined to that window in time.
•So, to round up, I am looking for people who have had/are having the same/similar problems to the ones listed below.

•Small graphical glitches; Thin lines in random areas on the desktop, growing in number and intensity over time.
•Graphical glitches on, in and around Finder windows. Again, growing in number and intensity over time.
•Horizontal lines across entire screen. Again, growing in number and intensity over time.
•The odd Software Crash/System Freeze. (Which does not happen very often on the iMac we've grown to love)
•More frequent Software Crashes/System Freeze's. (Maybe it's all that freeware and plugins I've been playing with)
•Kernel Panic's, never had one before... it was a new one on me.
•Frequent Kernel Panics.
•System Freeze, recovering after being put to sleep and then woken.
•System Freeze, unrecoverable. Hard reset required.
•Exactly the same behavior after a full reinstall of OSX.
•Exactly the same behavior after wiping system drive with zero's, then a full reinstall of OSX.
•Exactly the same behavior after wiping system drive with zero's, then a full reinstall with a previous version of OSX.
•System Freeze requiring hard reset on nearly every occasion Time Machine was accessed.
•Shut iMac down completely, never to respond to Power Button being pressed again, even after trying to reset the SMC.


The above is a simplified list of key events on a relatively short journey from Perfect Machine to, 'will not power up'.


If you or anyone you know has gone through anything similar, I would love you to join this topic.

Yours,
GaBeech

iMac (20-inch Late 2006) 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ~ x1600 Graphics, Mac OS X (10.6.3), Serial Number: W87070ACVUV (Check My Biography To See What A Serial Means)

Posted on May 26, 2010 8:36 PM

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Q: Late 2006 iMac, Lines, Kernel Panic, Freeze, Reboot, Restart, Serial W8 ?

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  • by elice82@,

    elice82@ elice82@ Nov 27, 2010 10:28 AM in response to Zachnap
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Nov 27, 2010 10:28 AM in response to Zachnap
    The best question ever! Made me laugh.

    My anwser is listen to Adele with Rolling in the Deep and Amanda Jensen with Look What They've Done To My Song and replace song with iMac.
  • by knorven,

    knorven knorven Nov 27, 2010 3:00 PM in response to Zachnap
    Level 1 (0 points)
    iTunes
    Nov 27, 2010 3:00 PM in response to Zachnap
    Take your Mac in to a computer technician (Apple or PC) and pay to have the GPU/CPU re-balled, ie the solder re-flowed. The technician confirmed (but not in so many words) that there is an issue with the solder's reaction to repeated heating and cooling. Shouldn't be too expensive. I hope he's right. Thank's Zachnap for the tip btw.
  • by dbax,

    dbax dbax Nov 27, 2010 6:10 PM in response to elice82@
    Level 1 (74 points)
    iPhone
    Nov 27, 2010 6:10 PM in response to elice82@
    elice82,

    It's a little difficult to put this in context since most of Zachnap's recent posts have been deleted by site moderators. Bottom line, it "may" turn out that all of these iMac problems might be traced to soldering problems. That would be nice - keep your fingers crossed.
  • by Alistair Windsor,

    Alistair Windsor Alistair Windsor Nov 28, 2010 10:11 AM in response to GaBeech
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Nov 28, 2010 10:11 AM in response to GaBeech
    My machine's serial number begins QP.

    I have small graphical glitches and systems freeze issues. These can be directly traced to processes using the GPU. The machine became essentially unusable with very frequent system freezes.

    After installing a preference pane to increase the CPU fan speed the number of graphical glitches has been reduced considerably and the number of random freezes has dropped. However both still occur.

    I definitely would like a resolution on this issue. Currently I own 3 macs; 2 iMacs and 1 MacBook and support a number of others.

    If there is a relatively simple fix (like reflowing the solder) then I think Apple should do it.
  • by Alistair Windsor,

    Alistair Windsor Alistair Windsor Nov 28, 2010 11:22 AM in response to R C-R
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Nov 28, 2010 11:22 AM in response to R C-R
    There are approximately 800 signatures on the petition on PetitionSpot. Add to that those like me that will not sign because they harvest Facebook Profile information.
  • by justinscottdixon,

    justinscottdixon justinscottdixon Nov 28, 2010 12:12 PM in response to GaBeech
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Audio
    Nov 28, 2010 12:12 PM in response to GaBeech
    Im having the same issues with an early 2006 iMac 20" intel core duo i just purchased from eBay.

    Totally hoping for a fix!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Apple why are you doing this to us ???????????????????????????
  • by Zachnap,

    Zachnap Zachnap Nov 28, 2010 5:15 PM in response to justinscottdixon
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 28, 2010 5:15 PM in response to justinscottdixon
    Oh, that *****. Someone put one of these systems on Ebay knowing it had a problem and said the system was working? Wow.

    There are a couple petitions one of them had 4000 signatures, this doesn't include the 6 threads on these forums - one of them locked because it had 50,000 views and 50 + pages of posts, three getsatisfaction threads, blog posts, etc.
  • by justinscottdixon,

    justinscottdixon justinscottdixon Nov 28, 2010 5:14 PM in response to Zachnap
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Audio
    Nov 28, 2010 5:14 PM in response to Zachnap
    yepp,,, and there is an abundance of them up there now....

    but really,, its a mac issue that seems to be curable.. after reading for hours it seems to the firmware update... i'm not sure if a systems firmware can be reversed, but if so the new firmware could be the reason for overheating and could of ultimately fried the hardware?????????
  • by Zachnap,

    Zachnap Zachnap Nov 28, 2010 5:23 PM in response to justinscottdixon
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 28, 2010 5:23 PM in response to justinscottdixon
    It has absolutely nothing to do with firmware. Its a hardware issue that has been identified. There is actually nothing in the hardware that is "fried", just solder that should not be used for GPU ball-grid-arrays. Many of you are joining the party late, A large chunk of these systems started going bad around the 18 month mark. So, we've been through firmware updates, Tiger, Leopard, Badger, Wombat, ThunderCat, etc.

    If it was firmware, there would already have been an update. What I regret is that I bought my system with a credit card, so I had a two-year warranty but didn't use it - I wasn't aware at the time.

    Message was edited by: Zachnap
  • by shoeboxford,

    shoeboxford shoeboxford Nov 30, 2010 5:48 AM in response to Zachnap
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 5:48 AM in response to Zachnap
    All I know that's a shame. It's a big shame Apple can't tell me what is wrong with my 2006 Imac. It's been almost an year now dealing with that problem. I just can't use my computer anymore. Apple should care about it because I won't spend the U$650 dollars they are charging me here in Brazil to replace the motherboard where the video card is attached. This is a SHAME! Those computers used to last for life. All my G3 are still working well, as the G5. What's wrong with Apple?
    And most of all, replacing the motherboard solves the problem? Does anyone here had the experience?
    Apple, I'm really upset.
  • by panchoavila,

    panchoavila panchoavila Nov 30, 2010 7:28 AM in response to GaBeech
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 7:28 AM in response to GaBeech
    Apple is not interested in solve this problem because there's no press talking about
    it.

    I've wrote a lot of emails to TUAW, Gizmodo and Mac Stories but you know...is
    hard to be listened from south america, and the fansboys behind that websites are
    even harder to convince

    Message was edited by: panchoavila
  • by elice82@,

    elice82@ elice82@ Nov 30, 2010 7:37 AM in response to panchoavila
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 7:37 AM in response to panchoavila
    It's hard to get attention. They probably think is a small problem.
    I did write to Wired and Boy Genius Report. They have no idea how big this problem is.

    Message was edited by: elice82@
  • by Zachnap,

    Zachnap Zachnap Nov 30, 2010 8:31 PM in response to elice82@
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 30, 2010 8:31 PM in response to elice82@
    A couple years ago some Mac site mentioned the problem on their podcast. Do people even do podcasts anymore?
  • by Sparky4504,

    Sparky4504 Sparky4504 Dec 4, 2010 7:27 PM in response to GaBeech
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 4, 2010 7:27 PM in response to GaBeech
    Finally, others with the same issue I have!! My 2006 24" iMac has been having graphics issues for a year now (since late 2009). I've got:

    Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
    Type: GPU
    Bus: PCIe
    PCIe Lane Width: x16
    VRAM (Total): 128 MB
    Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
    Device ID: 0x0395
    Revision ID: 0x00a1
    ROM Revision: 3021

    I've been suffering through the freezes, the graphics problems and who knows what else as a result of this issue.

    I had originally called in late Fall 2009 and created a case that was later "lost" (ie. they have no record of me talking to "Zephram"). As i recall, i was told to run the hard drive utility on the OS disk (it said no HD issues). I was also told to upgrade to Snow Leopard and that that would do the trick for me... goes without saying, it didn't. however i kept plugging away thinking i was doing something wrong...

    After months of frustration and worsening Mac conditions, I called Apple again in Feb 2010 (case #: 152598308) for assistance & spoke to "Stephen". I was again told to run the hard drive utility on the OS disk (& again, it said no HD issues). Stephen said this was good news since it indicated this was a software issue and since my Apple Care plan was expiring in MAR10. i was told to use compressed air to blow any dust out of the vent (did that). i was also told to use Time Machine & then erase & reinstall. Did that a couple of times -- didn't help at all. In fact the Mac kept crashing during reinstall, so to this day i'm still not sure what i brought back or left behind on TM. (Thank god i backed up my family pictures and iTunes music on an external hard drive!! God Bless you Western Digital.)

    So to sum it up, i bought a top line Mac, added Apple Care to ensure trouble-free computing, and yet have had an increasingly frustrating experience with my beloved iMac over the past year. I'm seriously thinking of going back to my old "blueberry" iMac for home use. At least the kids games still play on that without issue...

    For the record, I'm steamed to find this issue seems to be a rather common one with this model, that the Apple techs didnt mention it &/or didnt know about it, and that Apple seems to be doing little to address this as this issue has continued to mushroom.
  • by Jan-TheHague,

    Jan-TheHague Jan-TheHague Dec 5, 2010 3:33 AM in response to GaBeech
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 5, 2010 3:33 AM in response to GaBeech
    Hi GaBeech,

    I am suffering from similar problems for the last 1,5 - 2 years

    Ser no W86xxxxx
    Type 24inch iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2,16Ghz
    Gcard NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT


    The frequent spinning ball freezes are mostly preceded by graphics artifacts

    With the fans at high rpm's through smcFancontrol the freezes are less frequent. It definitely seems to be (partly) related to the internal temperature.

    On another forum I found a tip to remove the graphic libraries. This seemed to make a significant difference but if I do this I cannot run programs like Aperture any longer.

    I really think Apple should use some of its huge cash pile to compensate the folks with these problems.

    Kind regards, Jan
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