eMac freezes randomly, open window turns into broken up jibber

have the local Apple store (if any) open it up. If there are blown caps, the problem will be not merely visible, but obvious. If there's no local Apple Store or CompUSA or something like that, have someone who knows what they're doing open it up and take pics and send them to Apple.

Of course, if after it's opened up, there aren't any blown or leaking caps, then the problem may not be quite as easily resolved.

I still say that there was a bad batch of motherboards. There are too many people whose machines are have similar problems for this to be a coincidence. At the same time, there are far too many people who are having no problems at all to say that this is a general problem. Apple sold a whole lot of eMacs. If this was a general problem, the way the video harness was a general problem with the 1st generation eMacs or the analog board was a problem with the very first Macs (I had two analog boards die on me, and some people had more than that...) there would be a LOT moe noise about this problem (The analog board problem in early Macs was so well known that many 3rd parties came up with after-market add-on fans and power conditioners which fit into the Mac's carrying handle or on its back.)

Charles,

I really don't think anyone in technical support will be able to help you at this point. I would suggest you speak to Apple Customer Relations. Just call the support number and asked to be transferred.

Regards,
Peter.

My machine doesn't have the problem. At least not yet.

HI
I tried calling the guy at Apple who sold me the emac, also left messages and emails- so far no response, its been a week and a half. Will keep trying. Just a question- it says on the top of the page that this post has been answered and I was wondering what the answer is- that are machines are all broken and worthless unless under warrenty? Is that the answer? That seems like a wierd answer.

emac Mac OS X (10.3.4)

After a few calls and being transferred from one person to another, Apple Customer Relations, while still denying they know anything about a problem with the eMacs, did agree to pay for the part to repair my eMac, but I will have to pay for the labor. I have to take it to the Apple Store and go from there. It's not really fair, but it's the best I could negotiate with them, and an improvement from their original stance that the problem was all mine.

I will post when I know more, but I strongly recommend that everyone having this problem call Apple and graciously insist that they look into this issue. From all the posts it looks like machines bought in the summer of 2004 are the real suspects. The fact that they are all failing within weeks of each other seems to make it almost certain that we are dealing with a defective component.

Apple should make this right with no cost to their loyal customer base.

My eMac freezes randomly, open window turns into
broken up jibber (kinda looks like I put a photoshop
filter on it or something). I can't force quit when
it does this, no error message, I've repaired
permissions. Any ideas?

I am having the same problems, symptoms which are being described in this post. I too purchased my emac in the summer of 2004, June I believe. Serial number G84213 ***. Everyone having this problem should post time frame purchased and serial number.

I was steered in different directions by apple and the apple store when these problems began to arise late last summer. Pram, reboot etc...

I will and everyone here should contact apple in regards to this situation.

We have the same issue. We've been puzzled and we did take it to the Apple Store in Charlotte (we bought it at the Apple Store in San Diego/Fashion Valley) and the Charlotte store hooked it up at the Genius Bar, did some sort of reset of some kind of setting and it was working fine after that. We left it there for a couple of hours and they were able to play an entire movie DVD on it, which we are not. We can play one for maybe a couple of minutes if at all, and it freezes. Since it didn't act up at all while we were there (not online or in applications), we didn't have a choice but to bring it home thinking it was just the setting that he had messed with and all was well. As soon as we hooked it up at home, back the same issues.

We purchased it, IIRC the last week in August 04, right before we moved from CA to NC and it worked wonderfully until around the holidays (late Nov-early Dec. it started acting up).

Same symptoms as everyone, same frustration. Luckily it is not my main computer, but my kids can't use it and my DH can't either, it's really more theirs as my iBook works beautifully.

Machine Model: eMac
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.2f1
Serial Number: G8439J6AQQH

And I might add that we switched over to Macs all at once thinking our PC troubles were over. Well, they are, but I would hate to have to pitch this computer as we did pay more for it than we ever have for a computer, and we are a pretty loyal Apple family since switching. We have a total of 2 Macs, 3 IPods and a ton of Mac-only software. I really hope that they will alleviate this issue, even for those of us who went with the initial 90 days and not the Apple Care. We tried to purchase Apple care in fall, but had missed the deadline by mere days. No dice.

I'm adding my name to the list of folks who have this problem. The computer is still marginally functional, but it has become unreliable and I'm wary of using it for anything important. I can start it up and run some programs on it (Safari, iTunes) but other programs (like Mail) are much more dodgy. Often it is the small little spinning wheel on Mail (when it's checking for new messages) that seems to freeze (the pixels become distorted) or the dock as I'm moving my mouse over the various programs in the dock (again, the pixels of the dock become distorted). It'll freeze about 50% of the time that it goes into sleep mode. I did all of the usual tests and nada.

I bought mine in 11/04, although it was a floor model for the Apple Store so it had been used for a couple of months before the purchase date. The information is:
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 256 MB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.2f1
Serial Number: G8432A9FQJ8

I'm going to call Apple this afternoon and let them know I have this problem and give them a piece of my mind. I also have an iBook that has had the logic board fixed three times (in fact, I purchased the emac after the second logic board failure of the iBook so that I would have a backup computer to use as my laptop certainly wasn't all that reliable). This is just crazy.

Emac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I am on hold right now, and it's not looking good. The tech support guy said that Customer relations is telling them that since I am beyond my 1 year warranty, there's "nothing they can do about it". I did inform him that others have had some luck getting CR to help them with this, and he sounded surprised. He said that since Apple hasn't "said anything" about it, they wouldn't fix it.

What he did not sound surprised about, however, was the problem...and he is the one who finished my sentence with the words "logic board" when I tried to describe the issue.

He put me back on hold after I told him that Customer Relations knows about this issue and he said he'll try to transfer me to someone there. This isn't looking good so far, but we'll see.

You boys are getting me really paranoid now. My eMac does not have the problem, but... I bought it in August 2004, and my System Profile is:

Machine Name: eMac
Machine Model: PowerMac6,4
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.1)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.25 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.8.2f1
Serial Number: G84330E2QQJ

If serial numbers are handed out in any kind of sequential order, mine is in between a couple others, so if there's a bad batch of motherboards, mine is in the mix.

I don't like that thought. At all. Hmm... I just got some bumf from Apple about 'Pro Care'. I think I'll read it up and and see if 'Pro Care' means that I can get a warranty on this sucker. AppleCare is now available in Florida, (until about half-way through December 2005 it wasn't, due to a quirk of local law which would take too long to explain) so I'm going to check that out, too. Can't check either out today, I have to be somewhere for 18:00 and it's now 17:23, so I gotta fly

I'll assume that I'm meant to be Charles in this case and do so this week.

This could get interesting.

I'd appreciate it if someone else who makes this attempt could check and see if they know whether it's an issue outside the United States.

Temporary fix?

1. Boot up in Safe Mode by holding down the Shift key when starting up the eMac
2. Log in as the Admin account
3. Go to your hard drive->System->Library->Extensions
4. Delete all ATI Radeon drivers that aren't for the Radeon 9200 or General ATI Radeon drivers. Just for good measure, delete all GeForce drivers

This makes my 1.25GHz eMac usable and hasn't locked up yet (my kids use it all the time)...

Thanks, James.

However, you are correct.
It is a temporary fix.
The problem lies with the use of the ATI extension for OpenGL functions.
This seems to trigger the problem area on the logic board.
Remove this, and OpenGL is processed by the processor instead of the graphic chipset and the problem is avoided, although graphical functionality is reduced.
(Try playing Myst:Exile like that...painful)