My iMac is about 3 years old. Intel, running 10.6.8. It crashes frequently, especially with iPhoto or Word running. Is the hard drive about to die? Often the screen turns black and sometimes comes back up, but not always. 275G used, 45 available. Lots of photos are on there, but iPhoto says only 285MB. iPhoto runs very slowly. 27 gigs on iTunes. Anything I can do to add new life to this oldie but goodie? It's too soon to buy a new one.
iMac (20-inch Early 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)
The next time the problem happens, note the date and time the problem occurred, then go to Applications/Utilities/Console and copy the log starting at the time of the crash. Paste the log in a reply. Please do not use a screen shot as they can be hard to read. If there are repeated runs of the same messages, please post only one run. Be selective about what you post and don’t post huge amounts. Make sure there is no personal data visible. Information learned from Linc Davis.
What type of crash are you referring to? An app crash (like Word or iPhoto) or an entire system crash?
e.g. a kernel panic as described at…
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742
A black screen that comes back up could just be an app crash?
It could be hardware that is failing so make sure you have a backup of the machine on an external disk, just in case it stops working. A good backup will let you troubleshoot safely.
It could also be years of accumulated software running on hardware that is overtaxed.
Some things to consider …
Have you got the original Apple grey install disks? These will have a disk with 'Apple Hardware Test' & instructions for booting into the hardware test written on the disk. Run the test & it may indicate something is wrong (or it may miss any errors entirely).
Boot into the most recent 10.6 install disk you have & repair the boot disk & verify the permissions. You have to click through a few screens to get the top menu to appear so you can select 'Disk Utility', just avoid doing the actual install 🙂
You can try to diagnose the possible fault via a process of elimination…
1. Try a safe boot, does it still crash?
Yes indicates a possible system fault
No points to something in addition to the system.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1564
2. Create a new user account & see if that user also crashes when you try similar tasks (it helps if you find a way to cause the crash, but don't keep doing it, crashes can damage data).
3. Generate an EtreCheck report to see if there is any software that looks out of date & can be removed.
http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
Post it here if you want some feedback.
4. Backup & reinstall the OS. Hopefully you can avoid adding everything back so that you have a little more free disk space, as disks are more full they get slower to read & write.
Thanks to both respondents; I will try your suggestions. I have also rebuilt the iPhoto library to see if that eases things. Yes, Drew, I agree that there could be a lot of old software there, which your suggestion #4 might help.
As far as the app crash, sometimes the screen comes back after it turns black (seemingly of its own free will) and sometimes it won't respond and I have to power off and reboot. I have backup on Time Capsule/Time Machine so should be okay. It will take me some time to try all this stuff, so I won't post all that soon.
Kathie Abrams
iMac crashing!
