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Post Snow Leopard

I bought my my imac jan 2011 - so thats my model it came with snow leopard...when Lion came along I upgraded but my mac crashed within minutes of starting Lion - through various tortuous processs I went back to snow leopard (dont ask my original install disk was chewed by the dvd player) - anyway funds became available and I bought a lacie external drive...I installed Lion on this and upgraded it to Mountain Lion...so now I have dual boots SL from the mac HD and ML from the lacie drive...here is my prob I can no longer keep ML running than I could Lion (about 5 mins before black screen crash)


So what is the problem? if someone answers hardware prob - how come I can run Snow Leopard almost perfectly?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Mid 2010 27" 3.2 Ghz Intel Core i3

Posted on Mar 29, 2013 7:15 PM

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15 replies

Mar 31, 2013 6:06 AM in response to Alan Lees

Alan Lees wrote:

stick with Snow Leopard until what?


Until the machine drops dead. 🙂




I am happy at the moment running SL but it wont last forever


Yes it will, until the machine drops dead that is.


If Apple drops support, which they won't soon because nearly 50% of OS X users are on Snow Leopard due to legacy software reasons, you can always install Deep Freeze, which upon reboot will set the altered bits back to the frozen state, thus if there was malware, there will be none after the reboot. 😉


Files are saved into non-frozen area or off the machine.


Firefox will still provide updates for as long as there is a substantial amount of that OS X version market share, which there is currently a great deal now and will remain so for many years before dwindling down to below 10%, even then there are other browsers and the web will function almost the same.


so is the 'most advanced operating system' going down the toilet?


In 10.7 and 10.8 it certainly is, why Scott Forstall was fired and hardware designer Jonny Iv'es is also doing human UI.


So if you want to wait out the abortion of the Lions for what's coming next and make your decision then, your most certainly welcome to join the huge crowd. 🙂



I'm kind of leaning towards Windows 7 myself, at least I know that won't change (and all my software with it) until 2020.


And in a virtual machine, I can run Windows 7 under Snow Leopard until 2020. It's the Internet where malware comes from, so Win 7 is used online for that and thus I have all my paid for Snow Leopard software working just fine until the machine drops dead, regardless if Apple drops support for 10.6.


Windows in BootCamp or Virtual Machine?



By 10.9 or 11.0 we should know better what Apple is doing, but I don't think people are going to like it much.

Mar 31, 2013 6:25 AM in response to Alan Lees

There is no reason a 2011, or 2010, iMac shouldn't be able to run Mountain Lion (or Lion, for that matter.) How much RAM do you have installed? I know ML is far hungrier for RAM than Snow. What ds store is telling you makes absolutely no sense.


Can you look in Console (All Messages, system.log, diagnostic reports (either system or user ) in Utilities for any messages from around the times of these events.


Black screen crash sounds like a kernel panic. Can you post the panic log if you can find one. It may be you have some incompatible (for ML) software item.


Can you also try creating or logging into another user and see if you have the same problem there.




Message was edited by: WZZZ

Mar 31, 2013 5:03 PM in response to WZZZ

Thx for replies DS and WZZZ - First I have 16gigs Ram and I have tested it with 3rd party software as well as apple software - no probs reported - 2nd there is a big issue here about compatible software which for me makes snow a must for some time - In the 5 mins or so I have in ML I will capture some console messages - meanwhile I will try creating a new user for ML - I doubt this will help - I might add I hadnt been in Lion or Mountain Lion enuf to install any extra 3rd party software it just crashes time and again before I get my feet under the table


I will report back with those logs when I have them

Apr 10, 2013 4:29 AM in response to Alan Lees

Can you look in Console (All Messages, system.log, diagnostic reports (either system or user ) in Utilities for any messages from around the times of these events.

When you open Console, you'll see a list of various logs. This is what I see in Snow Leopard; yours will most likely look a bit different. In mine, some of them are greyed out. If you are running from an admin account, they won't be. To get to a log you click the disclosure triangle next to it. (You may have to click several to get to the one you need, if they are nested.)


The most likely place to find the panic log is in /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports, but also look in System Diagnostic Reports.





User uploaded file


User uploaded file


We still aren't certain this is a kernel panic. Does the screen log like this when it happens?


Some further reading:


http://www.macworld.com/article/2027201/how-to-troubleshoot-a-kernel-panic.html


http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

Jun 1, 2013 5:33 PM in response to WZZZ

sorry for delay in replying - updates - since I last posted ......Snow L has started having frequent black screen crashes suspect number 1 seems to be using the internet particularly sites with flash content although iphoto is also a suspect - switching browsers has not changed this


Finder has become laggy


Control bar always shows full internet but in fact it is mostly dropped (Ican close and restart in seconds to get it back)


Intensive games like sims 3 however work fine and I never have a black screen crash running the sims


I downloaded Onyx which told me HD needed repairs -I successfully repaired and over a week HD smart status is confirmed ok - however black screen crashes still occuring


Tonight I logged in to ML long enough to install some updates and read email but it quit to black screen twice


Doing some research I have downloaded smc fan controller tonight and will see if that makes a difference


I exhaustively re-tested my ram using 'rember' (no probs reported)


Am thinking strongly this is a graphics issue


also am thinking there is so much crap (physical dirt) in my mac it needs to be cleaned out - to this end I have ordered the metro vac


All this is a real shame cos I came to mac in 1999 with a slot loading blueberry imac which is still running perfectly on its 6 gig HD

Jun 2, 2013 2:36 PM in response to WZZZ

yeh that software immediately identified a failing hard drive, fortunately I have time machine back-ups


However Im not sure that explains the black screen crashes which have occured intermittently since I bought this machine over 2 years ago - it also wouldnt explain why ML running on a brand new external HD crashes to black screen


I have large arcing smudges on my display this is dirt in the display not behind the glass (Ive removed the glass before and can confirm this) and I suspect the inside of my mac is really filthy


Could this in some way be affecting the

ATI Radeon HD 5670 and causing black screen crashes?


Thanks for staying with me on this - now I have a plan to clean inside the mac and replace the HD (I have read up on all the issues at some length)

There are still some suggestions of yours I havent yet tried so before I take this apart I'll try some of them for diagnostics such as changing user account and reinstalling original apple ram also the hardware test

I'll keep you posted

Post Snow Leopard

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