iMac (27" mid-2011, i7, Radeon 6970M) freezes up starting games

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iMac (27" mid-2011, i7, Radeon 6970M) freezes up starting games

When I try to start up a graphics-intensive game (e.g. Deus Ex: HR, Assassin's Creed), the graphics completly freeze up, and the computer requres a hard reboot.

I have Windows installed on another partition on the disk, and the same issue occurs there, at least with games (the only thing I run on that side). The screen goes "blank" (actually, grey with lines running up and down), and requires a hard reboot.

What's odd is that this really points to some sort of problem with the graphics card, but Apple Hardware Test reports no issues with the hardware. I've zapped the PRAM several times to no avail (reading somewhere that that would help), but it hasn't

Any ideas? Anything else that I can try to narrow down the problem before I bring the computer to the Apple Store for repair?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1), 27", Core i7, Radeon 6970M

Posted on Aug 26, 2012 8:56 AM

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Answer 1

rkaufmann87

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140,382 points

Aug 26, 2012 9:15 AM in response to gdecesare

It would be helpful if you advised how MS Windows is installed, you have many options to do so and I suspect your issue may be related to that. Do you use Boot Camp or virtualization software such as Parallels or Fusion? If these are Windows games then you need to repost in their respective forums. If your games are OS X games then please state that. You also may not have enough RAM installed, if you are running with the base 4GB of RAM almost certainly your system is starved for RAM. In that case I'd recommend looking over:

Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

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Answer 2

gdecesare Author

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Aug 26, 2012 9:23 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Hi,

MS Windows is installed via Boot Camp on this machine.

The symptoms happen with games on both OS X (I've seen it with Deus Ex Human Revolutions and Assassin's Creed II) and Windows (e.g. Elder Scrolls: Skyrim). The machine is running with 8Gb RAM (factory installed).

I've had the machine since June 2011, and played through some of these games with no hitch. The problem just started this past weekend.

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Answer 3

RRFS

Level 5

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Aug 26, 2012 9:31 AM in response to gdecesare

Could be heat related. Run Widget and post results after some game time.

http://islayer.com/apps/istatpro/

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Answer 4

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,382 points

Aug 26, 2012 10:34 AM in response to gdecesare

I doubt it's heat related but you can test. Did you use Activity Monitor to test, if so what are the results. Remember you have to be running the problem apps in order to get accurate results from AM.

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Answer 5

gdecesare Author

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Aug 26, 2012 10:38 AM in response to RRFS

At this point, the games don't get much past the intro screens before the video freezes up.

Here are the current temps, as reported by Widget:

HD: Macintosh HD 137

CPU 112

Ambient 79

GPU Diode 142

GPU Heatsink 137

Mem Controller 124

Optical Drive 119

Power supply 2 140

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Answer 6

gdecesare Author

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Aug 26, 2012 10:40 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Is there a way to get Activity Monitor to store the historical results -- something like Windows Reliability Monitor? The problem is that the games freeze up the hardware and blot out the display so that my only option is to power cycle the box before I can do any profiling via Activity Monitor

Windows 7's Reliability Monitor is reporting some sort of video hardware error when attempting to run the games. Is there an equivalent app on Mac OS X?

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Answer 7

rkaufmann87

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140,382 points

Aug 26, 2012 10:43 AM in response to gdecesare

Is there a way to get Activity Monitor to store the historical results -- something like Windows Reliability Monitor? The problem is that the games freeze up the hardware and blot out the display so that my only option is to power cycle the box before I can do any profiling via Activity Monitor

Windows 7's Reliability Monitor is reporting some sort of video hardware error when attempting to run the games. Is there an equivalent app on Mac OS X?

No AM only stores what is happening in the moment.

Are the temps you posted F or C??

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Answer 8

gdecesare Author

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Aug 26, 2012 10:47 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Temps are in Fahrenheit (and correlate very closely to what Temperature Monitor is reporting).

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Answer 9

rkaufmann87

Level 10

140,382 points

Aug 26, 2012 10:59 AM in response to gdecesare

Temps are absolutely normal.

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Answer 10

Ypresis

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Oct 1, 2012 10:53 AM in response to gdecesare

I've got the same problem while streaming video or with an intense graphic game on Mac OS. My temperatures look okay by the way.

I'm on a 2011 27" iMac with a 6970M.

I would really appreciate to see this problem solve.

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Answer 11

Oct 4, 2012 4:14 PM in response to gdecesare

Same issue here. Started yesterday night. Until now only when gaming.

iMac 27", i7, mid-11

3.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7

8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB

1TB Serial ATA Drive

AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2GB GDDR5

Macos: snow leopard

Windows 7 ultimate on bootcamp

Running world of warcraft on Mac side, skyrim on windows side.

No apparent overheat noted.

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Answer 12

gdecesare Author

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Oct 4, 2012 6:07 PM in response to Yorick_ibazar

I'll share what finally worked with me (after rebuilding the Windows partition 4 separate times to no avail):

Reset the NVRAM
Boot onto the Windows side, and run a full dskchk on your bootcamp partition.

I have seen the problem only once since, and in that case, I just deleted the (Skyrim) savegame that I loaded and went to an earlier one.

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Answer 13

Oct 4, 2012 9:55 PM in response to gdecesare

Thanks for the quick reply.

Sadly, after doing all those steps, after only about 2 minutes on world of warcraft, it crashed again.

I'm considering removing the bootcamp partition and give up on skyrim, also will try to restore a previous time machine backup. But that's for the weekend, probably.

I'll let u guys know if does any good.

Thanks once more, and cya later.

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Answer 14

gdecesare Author

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Oct 5, 2012 6:29 AM in response to Yorick_ibazar

If you remove the bootcamp partition, you'll still want to reset the NVRAM (I'd suggest doing it multiple times on re boot). As I said, I rebuilt the partition a number of times before coming across the dskchk idea. Did you run it with the "/f" or "/r" switch? On a 500GB partition, that dskchk should take about an hour to run.

Also, just curious -- did you run Apple Hardware Test (just to rule out a problem with the graphics card itself)?

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Answer 15

Oct 5, 2012 3:00 PM in response to gdecesare

I reset the NVRAM, but just once. Will try it a few times.

I ran the dskchk without any switch, it took about an hour to run, and didn´t find errors (It is a 500Gb Partition).

I have yet to run the Apple Hardware Test, not sure where the CD is, will try to find and run it tonight or tomorrow.

I´m even considering buying a regular PC for games.

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