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Jsh1971 Author

Level 1

8 points

Late 2009 27" iMac - Random freezes

The last several months my 27" iMac has been freezing at random times. I can't reproduce the freeze on my own and it only occurs maybe once or twice a day. When it does freeze the mouse can still move the pointer around but everything is unresponsive otherwise necessitating a hard reboot.

I actually rolled back to Snow Leopard at one point thinking it was an issue attributed to Lion, but still had the problem.

I will most likely have to take this into the Apple store but thought I'd see if anyone else has experienced the issue before I made that long trip...

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Feb 26, 2012 3:25 PM

Best reply

TeenTitan

Level 4

2,640 points

Posted on Feb 26, 2012 7:58 PM

Do you have any thing attached to the computer besides the keyboard and mouse? if so, have you tried disconnecting those extra items from the computer? if so, do you still have the items when those decies are disconnected?

Have you checked to make sure your software is up todate? (apple menu, software udpate)

Have you ran disk utility to verify the disk? dose it check out with no erros?

What is the smart status of the built in drive in disk utility?

Have you tried runng apple hardware test? Do you get an error message? if so, what error message?

when the computer freezes, can you use the sound up or sound down on the keyboard? if so dose it respound?

What about trying to force quit an application when the computer 'freezes'

Have you tried a safeboot?

Have you tried a SMC reset? have you tried a NVRAM Reset?

If you disable sleep, do you still have the issue?

Has the computer been ugpraded in any way?

What are you doing when the comptuer freezes? what applications are open? Dose it matter what applications you have open?

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17 replies

Dec 6, 2016 4:40 PM in response to Jsh1971

So I had this problem for over a year 1/2, and I finally was able to understand the problem, at least for my iMac.

I installed all kind of apps to find out what it was, added RAM, switched to a SSD HD, reinstalled a fresh copy of OS ......... but nothing fixed the issue.

Recently by a struck of luck, it froze on me while using the wheel on my mouse. I have it set up for fast tracking and right in the middle of the scrolling it locked.

That was the ticket. I then realized that the video card can not keep up with the amount of information that my mouse was requesting while going up or down the web page.

In fact I did some research on that and it confirmed that when the limit is reached, the video card just goes into a "locked" status. Everything that is not related to the screen will still work, but nothing that is supposed to be projected on the monitor will.

I am still running the ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 MB that came with the computer. I saw that there is an upgrade, one with 1GB but the price is quite high and at this point I do not see it as a valuable option considering the fact that after thousands and thousands of impeccable work, my beloved iMac might soon show the irreversible signs of age and it might have to be replaced.

One way I was able to get around the issue, is to use every scrolling capability at a much slower pace, and so far no freezing anymore.

So just a little extra patience might just put my great iMac in the position to help me out for some extra time.

I hope this helps.

Cheers

MichelPM

Level 10

80,980 points

Dec 6, 2016 6:38 PM in response to Simon Sobrero

I have a Logitech trackpad that I use with my late 2009 iMac with only a 256 MB VRAM GPU and I can scroll web pages very fast with this trackpad and my iMac doesn't crash.

Have you updated the mouse software to a more compatible version?

What web browser do you use?

If you are still using Google Chrome, Chrome is a SERIOUS resource hog on OS X.

You should be using a web browser that is less OS X resource intense, like Mozilla Firefox.

I, seroiusly, doubt that this is a GPU issue.

BUT, if your iMac appears to be having what appears to be a GPU issue, there is a possibility the your iMac's GPU maybe in the early stages of failing and you should have a backup of your entire OS X system, just in case, there is some issue with your iMac's GPU.

Late 2009 27" iMac - Random freezes