I'm having a major issue with my 6 y/o iMac. It gets very hot (especially toward the top), slows way down, "lollipops" and eventually freezes up. Any idea what could be the cause of this or is this normal?
Also, usually when I force it to shut-down (unplugging), it sometimes has a problem finding the System Folder when starting back up.
Any help would be very appreciated.
Run Apple Hardware Test in extended mode 2-3 times and look for error codes.If any appear than indicates it's time to take it in for service. You should probably download iStatPro to get actual temps, then we can tell whether its running too hot or not.
Great news!
Glad everything so far has worked out!
🙂
Update: OK...the glory was short-lived. Upgraded RAM, eliminated the crapware, created a lot more room on the hard drive and verified permissions on my iMac.
It seems that when I first boot up the computer, it works fine until I get into a project in say, Photoshop or Illustrator, and switch from task to task. (Sometimes it will hang up even doing something simple like doing a search in Finder.) Then it will lollipop forever and I have to unplug it. When I try to start up again, it usually can't find the System Folder and I have to unplug it again - wait a half hour or so - then restart it again. Start - Run - Lollipop - Shutdown - Repeat.
Any ideas what could cause this?
Hi Cameron,
Just to confirm, can you go to the Apple logo in the top left of the main menu bar, click it, click About this Mac and confirm if your iMac sees all of the 6 GBs of RAM you purchased. Also, just to confirm, did you buy the RAM from OWC or Crucial?
And, also, just to make sure, when you start you iMac, open the System Prferences pane in the OS X dock.
Look for the Startup disc icon, click it, then select your iMac's internal hard drive with OS X installed and click this to make it the startup disc, then try starting your iMac, again to see if it will startup from the hard drive, by itself.
Let us know the outcome.
Michel,
Yes, it sees 6GBs. Set startup disk to my hard drive - it's the only drive. Restarted fine, but after awhile slows down and applications start not responding - Force Quit them when it lets me. When forced to shut it down by holding the power button for awhile and try to turn it back on, now it's only a blank white screen (before, I got the folder with a question mark) - no Apple logo.
In the past, when I physically unplug it for awhile (1/2 hr. or so), it'll start back up again. I'll have to do that again - thankfully I have my MacBook as back up, but this is extremely frustrating...
Before I decide it may be your hard drive failing, one more thing we can check.
i want to you to launch Activity Monitor in your Applications>Utilities folder.
Look at eveything and see if there is any process/es hogging RAM or CPU resources.
Report any process/es that are taking up an unusual amount of RAM or high CPU %.
Michel,
Since I wouldn't know what's "unusual," here are some screen shots
Cameron,
The only thing I notice that is unusual is the VM size of 256 GB. But I am not at my Mac, so I can't say if this normal or not. Everything else looks as it should.
How many applications do you run simultaneously in the background while working in another application?
You only have 6 GBs of RAM, so you still need to control how many simultaneous apps are up and running in the background at one time.
Also, have you tried just using your iMac for normal use other than running Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
Also, what version of Adobe CS are you running.
Is it just Adobe apps that are taking down your iMac?
And is it more or less Photoshop that is really taking down your iMac?
Michel,
I do a lot of work in Adobe - all the apps, actually - running CS3 except for InDesign, which is CS4 - plus Acrobat Pro. There are quite a few times when I have two or even three of them up at the same time, just because I never had this problem before and it was easier to jump between them.
Guess I'll have to make sure that I'm not running them simulateously and see what happens.
Thanks for helping me out - keep you posted!
Cam
Photoshop is the big computer resource user. Photoshop uses a lot of your iMac's system resources.
Also, if you notice your sytem slowing down more when using and working in Photoshop, I believe there are prefernces in Photoshop that you can set that will limit the amount RAM Photoshop will take from the system.
Thanks, Michel - I'll keep an eye on it!
Appreciate your help.
Cam
You're very welcome!
Keep us posted.
🙂
Well - still having same issues. Wondering about a few different possible culprits:
• Is Dropbox an issue?
• I've got more than 15k emails in my inbox, and usually when the computer hangs up Apple Mail is open
DropBox is an Internet service , so I see no issues there.
First, make sure Apple Mail's Trash is emptied.
Also, make sure that your Junk mail folder is emptied and that you empty the Mail app Trash, again.
If you are freezing when using Mail, I suspect it maybe time to start c leaning/thinning out the Mail app by either archiving and storing your old emails to optical disc or USB Flash Drives.
Delete old no longer needed emails.
When you are done deleting emails, make sure to empty the Mail's Trash to make sure you have actually Trashed and deleted off of your iMac and Mail.
Is there a faster way to delete old emails other than within the app itself? It seems to freeze up when I'm doing as you instruct.
I do have all emails backed up on an external drive.
No there really isn't.
Could you refresh my memory because I can't seem to find the info I need In any of this posting.
How full is your Mac's hard drive? How much free space is left on your iMac's hard drive?
Overheating iMac
