Apple and ATI aware of iMac freezing issue

Now they just need to figure out how to fix it.
Here is a post from today by one of the Blizzard mac techs on the Mac Support forum of the World of Warcraft forums:
There are at least two sides to customer support.
One is, identifying issues that need to be fixed. In this case (ATI
driver bug) that task is done. ATI and Apple are aware of the issue and
working on it, I confirmed that with them today.
Two is, finding a way to provide short term relief of the issue if at
all possible.
Since we can't make a driver update appear in seconds, bear with us if
we make suggestions that may in fact improve stability for you until a
more lasting fix is available.
"

wawalulu,
If you can wait a few weeks for Apple and ATI to sort out the graphics driver problems, that might be your best bet. With any new model it does take Apple a couple months to iron out the glitches so when this happens, you will have a pretty solid Mac.
I work supporting both Macs and PC's where the user base is in the thousands and I will tell you on the whole, Macs are definitely more trouble-free than PC's. However, I won't candy coat things like some of the posters on this forum. There WILL be issues that will crop up but usually Apple does the right thing and fixes them. Sending feedback and patience is the key. When the new Leopard OS (10.5) comes out this month, I guarantee there will be issues due to it's newness and lack of maturity. However, if Apple's past track record is any indication, it shouldn't have anywhere near the issues Windows Vista has. We won't even support Vista where I work because it's so troublesome!
BTW, my 20" late 2006 iMac I use at work has been rock solid. This is because it's a revised version of the original intel iMac Apple released so most of the bugs were worked out. The G5 tower I had before that was perfect as well as the G4 and G3 towers I used before that. All of these Macs were at least second revision of their respective model lines. If memory serves, all of them has some teething pains in their first revisions.
I have a new 20" aluminum iMac at home, breaking my cardinal rule to never buy the first revision of a new product and it does have the graphics freezing issue talked about in these threads but it's only happened twice. So, I knew full well what I was getting into and am patiently waiting for Apple to release an update and fix the issue. Why did it have to be so... darn... sexy?!
I'll end this post on the following note: I use Macs at home precisely because I don't want to spend time fixing things... because I do that all day at work! If there was a better computer and OS out there, I'd be using it!
Message was edited by: Martek

Similar Messages

IMac Freezing Issue -Need Confirmation...

Hey all,
I need confirmation on whether or not zapping the PRAM seems to stop the iMac freezing issue. I have had 3 freezes within 10 minutes. I restarted after my last preparation to installing Leopard and the screen saver kicked in, which is the 'Cosmos' slide show and the graphics froze up. Screen went black and I left it for a couple of minutes. I came back to it, and had an image on the screen, but it was still locked up. So I restarted it. After boot up, I opened Activity monitor, and locked up again.
So I zapped the PRAM on this 3rd restart and have not locked up since. I'd bet 100 to 1 that if I were to restart, without the PRAM reset, I would crash within 5 minutes of the start up.
I really believe without a doubt these iMac reboot issues are related to specific EFI versions failing to initialize graphics correctly.
Can anyone confirm this? If your iMac crashes, does Zapping the PRAM fix it?
I'll be calling Executive relations contact and telling her the bad news.
Okay, so first off, this isn't a solution to this iMac plague, but it should prevent the freezing and NO, it does not have to do with removing the ATI drivers.
I was asked to install Leopard by Executive relations at Apple and told her that, as soon as I do, my iMac will freeze. So, I have been preparing the Leopard install and have crashed 3 times, in a row... at that point I said, Leopard is going to be a no go but I needed to use my iMac without it crashing. So, zapped the PRAM like I did before and immediately the graphic freezes went away.
So

Here is my experience, iMac 24:
I bought in JR NY 2 weeks ago. I had to use it without internet connection (so no updates) and no freezes.
Then I connected to internet and installed the available updates and start to get the freezes, even trying the PRAM reset.
I tried to remove the extra memory, change memory slot but no lucky, video artifacts (like pixels not refreshing) when moving the mouse over the dock icons then freeze.
I had no other softwares installed at all, only the OS applications.
I formatted the HD and reinstalled the Tiger and didn't accepted any update, so I could use the imac for 2 days without a single freeze, but some black screens when screen saver starts.
Since no freezes, I decided to update the OS again and after the first boot the freezes came back very fast, I could start a freeze in about 10 seconds.
I tried the PRAM reset without sucess and my machine was ready to go to a tech person.
Yesterday I updated the OS to 10.4.11 and did a PRAM reset after the update and tested the machine for 2 hours without a freeze or video artifacts, looks very stable, but I have to test it more.
You guys tried the Tiger last update ?
Ulisses

IMac (2008) OS10.6.8 - Main menu freezes when running more than one application at a time. Apple and 3rd party applications - all freeze the main menu. Safe mode seems to work OK. Tried repairing permissions - didn't work.

For the past 60 days I've experienced Main Menu freeze when running more than one application at a time. iPhoto, Preview, Text Edit, Epson Scan, Firefox and Thunderbird are the apps I use almost daily. No matter what I do, when more than one is running they will freeze the Main Menu (top of the screen). I've tried booting is Safe Mode and I don't seem to have a problem. I've tried several suggestions from repairing permission (DiskUtility) to eliminating specifis login items. Nothing works. I've posted this issue on the Apple forum several times and no one else has experienced this problem. I hesitate to take my iMac to the Apple Store or a private Apple repair service until I've exhausted all of my options. Do I have any more options?

Question: Everytime an app crashes I have the option to report it to Apple - which I usually do. But I've NEVER reported a Main Menu freeze because it never asks me to
There's really no need to submit to Apple, it's just a round file cabinet on the other end, especially with 10.6 or earlier.
This sure sounds like a resource problem...
See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7029
Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?
How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.
Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.
In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

Is Apple or anyone aware of the security issue with the iPad 2, iOS 5, and Smartcover?!

See here for a demonstration of what I'm talking about...makes me very nervous:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLgQ22naQhE&feature=player_profilepage#t=139s

They most likely know and will be addressing the issue Ina bug fixing patch to iOS 5.
To submit this to Apple, please visit
http://www.apple.com/feedback

Another iMac Freezing Issue - pls help a newbie out

I understand this problem is not uncommon - I've been trying to read the many threads I see on the issue. However, most posts outline problems, suggestions are made, but then reported to not work. Also, many threads are 2 years old.
Could someone please suggest a step-by-step troubleshooting solution?
Here are my pertinent facts:
* Bought 20" iMac in July 07.
* Processor: 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
* Memory: 3GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
* Hubs installed the second memory stick a while ago (over a year and i don't remember this problem correlating with the new memory).
* Video: ATI Radeon X1600
* OS: Mac OS X 10.6.2
* HD: 250GB capacity, 31GB available
* I am using an external harddrive to back up my stuff (LaCie, connected by firewire)
* Frequently used apps: Firefox, iPhoto, Photoshop Elements, Parallels (Quicken for PC), MS Office for Mac, etc.
The problem starting occurring several months ago, while I was still running Tiger. Have since upgraded to Snow Leopard, with no improvement, in fact, things are getting worse.
I get display distortion ("artifacts"?) - horizontal lines, blocks of the screen distort, usually clearing after dragging that part of the app off the screen of view and then back.
Typically, if I start seeing display issues, a freeze up is imminent.
Sometimes I get a sense it's coming soon - things run more slowly. Other times, it seems without provocation. I click on a window and nothing happens.
Sometimes it's the wheel of death other times screen completely locks up with no spinning wheel. No option to force quit. Mouse is unresponsive. Keyboard appears to be, although I can toggle the Caps lock button on and off (light toggles). If I am streaming video, the screen will lock up, but the audio continues. If I wait (have gone to bed and come back in the am) it is still frozen.
If I am streaming video (i.e Hulu on Firefox) or working in memory intensive applications (Windows, Parallels, Photoshop Elements, etc.) Problem is more frequent.
I can go a day or so without problems, but if I am doing anything slightly involved, it happens much more frequently, as often as every 10 minutes or half hour or so.
Steps I have taken:
I always have to do a hard reboot. I have run disk utility multiple times, occasionally it finds and corrects stuff, but no fix seems to be permanent.
I have seen suggestions of resetting PRAM as well as doing a clean re-install, but also seen that those fixes haven't endured.
I don't have Apple Care and I'm not sure what steps I should be taking to fix this. Is there hope? I mostly see lots of problems reported, but not successful resolution.
It's aggravating because I can't use the system for the stuff I bought it for (ex: digital scrapbooking) without worrying about losing my data. I switched to a Mac because I heard they ran so great and were "cool" to boot. While there have been many features of the Mac i enjoy, *if this kind of performance is typical after 2 yrs of use, I will not remain loyal to Apple.*
If you have been successful in resolving the issue with Apple, what did you tell them and what did they do?
I am competent system "user", but not as good when it gets into the weeds. Would appreciate any advice, feel free to spell it out as tho I were an idiot.
I would appreciate a "try this, then try this" approach, especially if you have tried it and it has worked for you.
Thanks for the help,
Kendra

OK, Mean, I mean Meanest, we have the same system (mine was purchased late 2006), and I can say we have identical symptoms. I agree with Paul_31 regarding disk space, but in addition, from all the posts on various Apple forums, it seems clear that the problem is due to the Radeon X1600 graphics card AND heat. These elegantly-designed Macs that we all love have a lot of stuff packed into a small package. Consequently they run hot, and over time the result is components bake and deteriorate. In our case, the weak link seems to be the Radeon card and since it’s not easily replaced, repair costs are nearly as much as the cost of a new iMac. A contributing factor is that over time dust will build up inside your Mac, and this serves as insulation, retarding heat transfer, and causing components to run hotter still.
OK, so that’s the sad tale, but what can you do? Assuming your system is not too far gone due to the ravages of heat over time, there are things you can do to help prolong it’s life, and hopefully get it to behave itself better until the time it finally fails completely.
In my case, the steps I’ve taken have resulted in a system that now “generally” runs for days at a time without locking up/crashing. A caveat: these are bandaids, not true fixes. I’m convinced the Radeon card will eventually fail and I’ll be faced with shopping for a new Mac – I’m only hoping the steps taken will give me a few more years of use before that happens. So, here’s my suggestions (basically they all have to do with getting your Mac to run cooler and being able to monitor temps so you know just how hot things are getting):
1. First of all, if you don’t already have one, get one of the free programs available to monitor your Mac’s internal temperatures. One of the most popular ones is a widget, iStat Pro. As I type this iStat Pro is showing my temps are as follows:
Hard Drive 92 deg. F
CPU 85 F
Ambient Air 69 F
GPU Diode (graphics card) 92 F
Hard Drive Bay 95 F
Memory Controller 90 F
Optical Drive 81 F
If you have iStat Pro and see that your temps are about the same as these, I would say don’t bother to read further – you may have a different set of problems. If your temps are 10-20 F (or more) higher, keep reading.
2. Try to clean out the internals of your Mac with compressed air. After 3+ years of use, I used an air compressor with an air gun attachment and blew through the vents at the back and bottom of my Mac with 60-80psi and actually saw a cloud of dust come out of my Mac. A more effective approach would entail cracking open the case of the Mac so you could really blow directly on the different boards/components. I haven’t done that, but I’m tempted to give it a try. Note: Some have suggested vacuuming and/or using a can of compressed air. I don’t think that approach is all that effective. You need a really strong flow of air to get that dust out of the inards.
3. Download the free program SMC Fan Control (v 2.2.2). It will allow you to adjust the fan speeds higher for each of the 3 internal fans. The Mac has firmware that ramps up the speeds of these fans as internal temps rise, but the general consensus is the Mac firmware is “too little, too late”. With the standard Mac firmware, the fans will run at their default settings well beyond the point where the components are already way too hot. SMC Fan Control allows you to set the minimum fan speeds higher than the Mac default.
Once you've done these steps, I'd suggest doing a SMC reset, then re-boot while keeping your fingers crossed.
This is getting too long so I’ll stop for now. Good luck...

Leopard ATI Radeon X1900 XT Freezing Issue, fixed with 10.5.2?

Mac Pro (8-core) original 3.0Ghz 8 core. Purchased October 2007. Ran Tiger 10.4.10 from the box. updated to 10.4.11. ATI Firmware update was not required as it was pre-installed. Never had a crash. Installed Leopard 2 days after release. Installed 10.5.1 the day of release. No problems so far...
A week later watching the "Jelly" iTunes Visualizer, the Screen froze, but iTunes kept playing... The machine was reachable over SSH but very much useless as a reboot command hung. Hard reset, went about my business. A day later unit froze during iTunes Jelly Visualizer again. this time music also crashed. As I approached to reboot the unit noticed very loud video card fan noise. Extracted the burning hot card, later compress air removed some clogging dust bunnies. Reinstalled card and no more freezes for 2 weeks. Freezes again, this time watching youtube in Safari. Made sure data backup is up to date. Performed an Archive and Install of leopard, ran all updates to 10.5.1. This time Mac Pro was fine for a week .... *Freeze*.
Called apple care, after having to explain to a rep what itunes visualizer was, referred to iPod specialist, who transfered me to Mac Pro specialist, 1 hour later, thoroughly explain issues to rep, who after 45 minutes was convinced issue with HW and not SW . Apple sends Do It Yourself repair video card. I replaced it. 4 days later unit Froze again. This time watching movie on VLC...
A week later 10.5.2 was released, and shortly thereafter Leopard Graphics Update 1. So far **nervously knock on wood** no more freezes. I am hoping that whatever black magic was included in these recent updates fixes the Leopard crashes with ATI Radeon X1900 XT. Needless to say this is the last ATI Radeon I "buy".
I need to know and track other users findings issues and experience with Leopard and the ATI Radeon X1900 XT on a Mac Pro. Been reading about a lot of issues with Leopard and the ATI Radeon X1900 XT on the these boards. Google turns up info galore. ...
I am holding my breath

Spoke too soon. Today as I was leaving the house I set the Mac Pro to sleep. When I attempted to wake the machine upon return, display 1 became all garbled. Display 2 was still visible and the mouse moved, but I was not able to click any windows. I ssh'd in with my macbookpro and was able to do a "sudo reboot". In the process it got stuck and in a loop I received:
Feb 17 16:02:37 octagon kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log End **
Feb 17 16:02:38 octagon kernel[0]: ATIRadeon::waitfor_rbspace: Overflowed block waiting for FIFO space. Have 0, need 5. RBBM_STATUS 0x9001c100
Feb 17 16:02:50 octagon kernel[0]: ** ASIC Hang Log Start **
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 860:0x02090000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 861:0x00002808
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 862:0x00020004
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 863:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 864:0x00840000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 865:0x00008020
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 866:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 867:0x0a040000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 868:0x00010000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 869:0x00002808
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 870:0x00020004
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 871:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 872:0x00040000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 873:0x00008024
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 874:0x00100100
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 875:0x0a040000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 876:0x02090000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 877:0x00002808
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 878:0x00020004
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 879:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 880:0x00840000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 881:0x00009020
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 882:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 883:0x0a040000
Feb 17 16:02:35 octagon kernel[0]: 884:0x02090000
Feb 17 16:02:36 octagon kernel[0]: 885:0x00002808
Feb 17 16:02:36 octagon kernel[0]: 886:0x00020004
Feb 17 16:02:36 octagon kernel[0]: 887:0x00100000
Feb 17 16:02:36 octagon kernel[0]: 888:0x00840100
Needless to say I had to hard reset....

IMac freeze issue - Genius Bar

I took my iMac in which has frozen over 20 times in 2 days. This makes my computer nearly unusable (and I only use it about 4-5 hours a day).
I went to the store at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, CA. The Genius named Mindy said she never heard of the issue and that without replication, she wouldn't be able to help me. She ended up setting up a standard Apple diagnostic test for me (basic hardware test for any computer brought in) but that required my computer to be left there for 2 days. I decided to pass (an when I run the hardware tests, everything passes fine.)
Here are a few things she said:
-I pointed out the discussions and she said, well you can never go by those because people will complain for anything.
-She kept insisting this issue was specific to Leopard even though I had the issue with Tiger. Everytime I reminded her she said Apple will release a patch to fix it.
-She said it was a coincidence that so many people were complaining at once, and if anything, it was a software issue from Leopard.
-She said if it was a hardware issue, it was most likely bad RAM. I then said or a bad video card and she said, no because that is attached to the logic board. What the ?? Didn't make sense to me either.
I don't think she really cared to help me out and sounded robotic with her responses.
Anyways, I'm going to have to find a store where they have "heard" of the issue and don't deny it. It might be easier than trying to replicate a nasty random bug.

Wow! You got one of the few bad iMacs AND one of the few bad genius'. Now THAT's unlucky!
I just took my freezing iMac to Apple at Yorkdale in Toronto Canada. The young lady tech was very nice however hadn't heard of the issue. I had anticipated this so beforehand I took the liberty of formatting the hard drive and installing ONLY Leopard (no 1.3 update, no apps). I verified the freeze on next restart then packed up the machine and took it in. The aim was to demonstrate how a) the virgin installation freezes, and b) the update 1.3 actually makes it worse (knowing they'd try the update). Everything went like clockwork, froze on cover flowing the apps folder, then she installed the update and I could barely GET to the apps folder. I explained I get artifacts when watching movies then often either freezes or goes to black screen. She promptly ordered a new graphics card and I left the machine with them. Will chime in with the results next week when I get it back.
It took so long waiting for my appointment I was able to rigorously test every iMac in the store. They all worked just fine and seemed zippier than I expected (significant?). So if I got lines like that Genius Mindy in LA I'd be use that to illustrate your iMac must work with Leopard so it's their problem. But happily my Apple genius was A-O-KAY.

Mac pro 3,1 and ati hd5870 overheating (shut down issues)

Hi all I have an early 2008 mac pro 16gig ram and the ati hd 5870 on dual boot windows 7 64bit, it has been running brill for about a year but then I started getting random shut downs in windows and the occasional one in macOS 10.7 I upgrade to 10.8 loved some of the new features but the shuts down became unbareable in both OS I would also just get black screen on startup and have to do forced reboots etc.
If I took out the hd5870 and put back inthe original ati card everything worked as normal except the orginal card isnt supported in fcpX and I need this for my work when I take out the hd5870 card it is boiling hot so I have done some research and it appears I am not the only one with over heating issues.
I have seen there are several third party graphic card cooling options but mac being mac I dont seem to have any free additional power outputs to power a third party cooling device, so my question is this
1, is anyone selse having these issues and has figured out a way to stop the shut downs
2. has anyone or does anyone know how i can keep my card cool?
inside my mac is squeaky clean and so is the graphics card.
ps, typical it is just outside the 1 year warranty and the card is so expensive i didn;'t want to buy 1 every single year

@ Hatter
Yup prior card was 8800gt and new card is nice and snug. 10.8 was not clean install, was upgrade. Ill try safeboot although not sure how/why that will fix any long term issues i have (which are random).. Trying 10.7 i had the same issues and was hoping that 10.8 wld fix.. Why go back to 10.6.8 when it should work in todays day and age? :(
@ Grant
Have done that now although not sure why something like this is not in the owners manual?!
Thanks for the help/suggestions so far guys, much apprec.. Feels like my pro is dying on me slowly but surely...
Any other bright ideas?

IMAC Freezing continues on leopard

I bought leopard hoping that my IMAC freezing issue would be solved, within 15 minutes of installing my Mac froze!!!!!!!!!!

Come on, we have 2 topics on this already. No need for another?
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1195442&tstart=0
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1196966&tstart=0

10.6.8 freezing issues

We upgraded 300 MBP's to 10.6.8 and now we have sporatic freezing issues when opening the lid to their computers. Seems to be if safari or mail is open when they close and reopen their lid to their computer. Anyone know of a fix to this? I created a new image with 10.6.7 and set up the way I want and it is stable but the users are already at 10.6.8. I moved a user back to 10.6.7 and iphoto couldn't open the iphoto library cause it upgraded the database to accomidate 10.6.8. Anyone know how to move back to 10.6.7 iphoto? Yes I can pull the photo's in manually but it looses the alums created etc. There seems to be a lot of jabber about freezing and 10.6.8 but nothing definite.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
Be sure your Mac is shut down.
Press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup tone, but not before the tone.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including wireless networking on some Macs.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.
Test. Same problem(s)?
After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode.)

Yosemite upgrade issue - iMac freeze and cannot boot again

Dear all,
Two days ago I updated my iMac 27" (mid 2011) from OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion to 10.10 Yosemite.
Clean installation was done via USB, 3 user created one admin and 2 standard users (all with the option increase contrast option on). The following software installed:
Adobe Lightroom 5.7
Datacolor Spyder4Elite 4.5.8 (monitor calibration)
Microsoft Office 2011
PlayOnMac 4.2.5
iMovie 2.1.1
VLC 2.1.5
Google Chrome
After one day I had the first strange reboot, but than it seemed working fine.
Today while using it, something strange happened: the image on the screen "shifted" 5cm to the left, meaning that the 5cm on the left of the screen were moved to the right and than everything freezed. With a power off I rebooted.
Thinking the issue was related to the screen I uninstalled and removed Spyder4Elite.
I rebooted and it was working fine.
After a while, the screen went almost completely blank, I could see the very top first 3/4 pixels and recognize the top bar. Nothing. After a while I forced a reboot.
I tried to reboot, but the same appears. I turned it off for a bit.
Turinig it on again the following happened:
Boot screen
White screen flickering black
Black screen
White screen
Reboot
White screen stating the the computer restarted after an error
Boot screen with pink vertical lines (see image below)
White screen
Black screen
Reboot
Start again at #7
Image for #7:
Image for #8:
I then turned everything off and disconnected the plug as well. After turning on again now everything starts directly at point #7 into an infinite loop.
I tried to start and hold "D" key for the diagnostic tools. Nothing happens boot and whitescreen.
If I hold the option key I can select the boot options, choosing Recovery 10.10.1, white screen appears and than reboot again.
Does anyone know what happened?
Does anyone else had a similar issue?
Is there a way to run diagnostic tool to check hardware failures?
Is there a way to browse the HD content to save a file?
Any other suggestions or ideas?
The only thing I have, is the USB key with Yosemite on it.
Fortunately on the external HD I still have the "Install OS X Mountain Lion.app": is there a way to create a bootable USB key of Mountain Lion using windows?
Thank you for your kind support,
blp
ps: ah.. Apple care obviously expired in August...
PDC

Before deciding that you can't replace the drive yourself, visit the following site and find the step by step instructions for replacing the drive yourself:
http://www.ifixit.com/
If you see the instructions and feel that you can replace the drive yourself, you will save money that way. I'm not that familiar with modern iMacs, but I know it was very easy to replace the drive in my old iMac. It may not be as hard to do as you think. If you want extra help, you can post questions on the iMac forum.
If you still don't feel like it is something you can do yourself, try looking for an AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) in your area and see what it might cost to have the AASP do the replacement. Often an AASP can do a repair for less money than Apple, and they will usually be willing to install a drive that you have obtained elsewhere for a reasonable price. From what I have read on these forums, many people have used AASP's to install bigger and faster drives on their machines.
Definitely contact Western Digital about your drive. Usually WD drives come with a 3 year warranty, and if the drive fails before then, WD will replace the drive. KT has mentioned that the drive apparently is not under warranty, but might qualify for some sort of an upgrade. Before shopping elsewhere, check to see if this upgrade might entitle you to a very good deal on a replacement drive or something of that nature.
Good luck!

I am quite fed up with Apple and my iMac - multiple issues

I've been a Windows user for years. I've suffered through all of the ups and downs of Windows over the years, mostly the downs. I have three Windows 7 computers, and quite frankly, both have performed quite beautifully, albeit without the polish of the Mac.
Earlier this year, I decided to buy an iMac for a few reasons. First, they are just so beautiful, and even if you are going to run Windows they are probably the best Windows computers out there. Second, I wanted to do more video editing and found the Windows tools weren't very good. I also wanted to run some karaoke software (kJams) that at the time was not available for Windows.
I was basically pleased with the iMac for a few months. However, there was one problem I could never solve: the wifi connection got lost periodically, even though I had made all of the system updates. I know this is a problem with the iMac, because my numerous Windows PCs and my two iPod toouches had no problem with a wifi connection. It appears from various posts here that this is indeed a problem many others have experienced since Snow Leopard's release, and as far as I can tell, despite many updates to the Airport software it has never been fixed by Apple. Strike 1.
A couple of weeks ago, my iMac started running slow for no reason I could identify. I don't have a lot of software installed on it, I didn't download anything pirated or questionable. I did install bootcamp according to Apple's instructions, and it worked fine (I wanted to run some Windows games). I tried doing all of the things that folks suggest when your computer is running slow - repairing permissions, running Onyx, etc. None of them seemed to do anything. I tried creating a new user, it had the same problem. I also noticed various other problems with the computer: it was slow to recognize a USB hard drive (and sometimes didn't recognize it at all), external hard drives would not appear in the time machine set up, and various other problems I can't quite recall. Overall, while presumably nothing serious should have been wrong with my computer, I decided I probably should simply reinstall OS X. Strike 2.
Now, quite frankly I would have been happy to simply reset the computer to its factory state. I would point out that nearly all Windows PCs come with a separate repair partition where it is very easy to do that with one click. I guess Apple is so confident in the reliability of its computers it doesn't think this is a useful feature. So, I had to install OS X using the DVD that came with the computer. It took quite a while to do this, and actually it wasn't at all clear to me that my settings would be kept (one would think that this is something the install screen would point out - Windows makes a quite clear distinction between a "clean install" and a re-install).
I was somewhat pleased when all of my settings were there. After the long process of reinstalling, I click on the "Accounts" setting I get a message saying that the Preferences application has quit unexpectedly -- clearly there are still problems. Quite irritating given that I just spent an hour trying to re-install the OS. I google around and again find others have had this problem, but unfortunately none of the proposed fixes I try seem to work. And my computer still seems to have other problems - it still doesn't recognize external drives very well. I will say that it seemed to be running a little faster though. Strike 3.
Anyway, I decide I need to do a full clean install. When I do that, things seem to be working better, although the mouse pointer is quite jerky - I'm thinking that maybe I need to just run software update to fix that. I start the software update - a nice 1gb download is required. Now ,the problem is that I STILL HAVE THE PROBLEM WITH WIFI DISCONNECTIONS. So no matter how many times I start the download, I CAN"T FINISH IT. And Apple, in its infinite wisdom, HAS NOT WRITTEN A DOWNLOADER THAT IS SMART ENOUGH TO CONTINUE WHERE IT LEFT OFF. How hard is this to do, really? Do I now have to lug my iMac across the house to put it on a wired connection? I've already wasted hours trying to get this piece of junk working.
And the sad fact is, once I am done, I will have a very beautiful computer that can't hold an internet connection.
I have to give Apple kudos for the iMac hardware. It's great. But the software? It's fine as long as it works. But it doesn't always work - and when it doesn't, it actually at this point seems more buggy and difficult to repair than Windows. Is this the last Mac I'll ever buy? Probably. Quite frankly, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Apple's best developers have moved on to more exciting pastures (iPhone for example). And given the number of unsolved issues posted on these forums (including the ones I mention here), it appears that Apple engineers are simply asleep at the switch.

Let me start by saying I don't use wireless so I haven't had to deal with it, and I assume you know your way around all the settings in your modem/switch and Windows 7.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Applewifi+signaldrops
Google turned up a 43 page thread, going on for a year, not very encouraging.
a href=http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2142725&tstart=0&me ssageID=12175855#12175855> Dropping Wi FI Signal
Well for weeks (months?) now, since two or three weeks maybe after 10.6.4 was released, I did not have dropped wifi until today. What is different? I applied the latest security patch less than 24 hours ago.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1094
Safari and DNS:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2227251
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20016549-263.html
Airport:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20012462-263.html
Joining an encrypted wireless network
When logged in, then AirPort menu bar icon shows the approximate strength of your wireless network signal. All four signal bars darkened means you have very good throughput. If you don't see this menu bar icon, enable it in AirPort preferences. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1126
If you can focus on networking, there are some excellent people that hang out there.
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1343
If you bought your iMac this year then it likely came with 10.6.3 and shouldn't have a whole lot of updates, outside of iTunes and Safari etc.
iMac Networking Discussion?
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1111
Support, tutorials, how to, etc:
http://www.apple.com/support/imac/intel/
Potential sources for interference with wireless
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1365
Bluetooth: If your computer stops recognizing your Apple wireless mouse or wireless trackpad, simply click the mouse button or trackpad surface to get it working again. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3048
And, sometimes just knowing what make of networking equipment (linksys, netgear, d-link, even Apple). USB ADSL or a USB wireless devices don't work with Macs. Checked for firmware update for the network devices?
Changing from WEP to WPA
How do I change from WEP to WPA security, which I have been told is better. I'm sure it is simple but i cant find it.
These settings are in your wireless router, so you will have to consult the manual for how to access the administration page and change the wireless security settings. Once you have WPA or WPA2 enabled, you will need to reauthenticate your computer with the wireless network since you will have a new password. If you have problems with persistent password requests popping up, you will need to open the "Keychain Access" utility and remove all keychain entries associated with your wireless network and password.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014188-263.html
Networking In networking utilities, the in-depth network troubleshooting and monitoring utility VisualRoute ($49.95) has been updated to fix a bug with the "whois" routine, and likewise the Wi-Fi hot spot finder AirRadar ($19.95) has also been updated with a small bug fix for the signal status not updating.
The network administration and security testing utility NetScan (free) has also been updated and now has a revamped interface and new features for port scanning as well as fixes for icon appearance and update-checking problems.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20013211-263.html
As for restore, it is different, won't be the same, but there are two ways to handle that on a Mac:
Apple TimeMachine
Clone OS X: bootable (yes, you can boot from 2nd or 3rd hard drive) - SuperDuper ($29) is superb and I update the backup (15 minutes) before applying updates.
That way I have my previous system with all data, not just an image, all my data and going back in time.
From another thread:
if you have issues when using an AirPort router, you've either got interference issues causing your problems or a system issue.
whenever possible:
1) Vist an Apple Store
2) Try your machine on their network
3) If the connection drops, make them fix it.
Reason being, I've tried and checked log after log and have never seen a connection drop inside an Apple Store.
My gut reaction would be interference but the easiest move may be to check it in an Apple Store if at all possible.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2142725&start=225&tstart=0
If you connect to the Internet or a network in several different ways (using AirPort or Ethernet, for example), you can change the order of the network port configurations your computer tries when connecting to the Internet or a network.
To change the priority of a network port configuration:
1) Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Network.
2) Choose Set Service Order from the Actions pop-up menu.
3) Drag a service, such as Ethernet, to the top of the list. When you try to connect, Mac OS X will try the port configuration at the top of the list.©
Tip: Any Network Device listed here that you'll never use for a Network Connection should be set to 'Inactive'.

I just got my Mac Pro repaired from Apple but I am experiencing the same issue: Screen freezes and shows funny rectangular bars. I shut it down manually and when I try to turn it back on it beeps 3 times. I know its the RAM but is there a way I can fix it

I just got my Mac Pro repaired from Apple but I am experiencing the same issue: Screen freezes and shows funny rectangular bars. I shut it down manually and when I try to turn it back on it beeps 3 times. I know its the RAM but is there a way I can fix it

If you just got it back and it isn't fixed or something else is wrong with it take it back and have them do the repair correctly.

MacBook Pro was having Finder/Freezing issues, Tried restarting and now it wont reboot. Been stuck at the apple logo/loading screen for over an hour.

MacBook Pro was having Finder/Freezing issues, Tried restarting and now it wont reboot. Been stuck at the apple logo/loading screen for over an hour.

Step by Step to fix your Mac
Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive

Question about freeze and ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT

Hi,
I have an aluminum 20-inch iMac 7.1 OSX 2.0Ghz intel Core 2Duo, mid 2007 running SL 10.6.8.
Some months ago it started having a random freeze problem that happened sporadically and then increased to happen from around 20min in 20min.
-mouse moves but nothing happens and I have to shut it down on power button.
After extensive troubleshooting not working I took it to repair, they tested my hardware and said it was perfect so at the end I did a clean install,ran repair permissions and brought my documents from my back up without using time machine nor migration assistant and installed all my apps from scratch.
It got much better, and first I thought it was a problem with Little Snitch app so I uninstalled it.
Also I had noticed that while using latest versions of Firefox the graphic display would have a strange glitch, such as brief instances of pixel artifacts that can also appear on my display when out of the browser.
- I turned off hardware acceleration on the browser's preferences and it seemed to disappear.
Although this freeze is still happening, specially when I wake up the mac from sleep and yesterday I got a black screen.
I think I may have a problem related to my ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT and I would like to ask if anyone here has a similar problem or if anyone knows about a fix .
I tried to update the ATi from apple’s site but the update’s installer said I don’t need the update.

Hi
@dmaude and George, thank you both I am glad there are more people now coming forward with this problem.
George, I believe you are right, I came to that conclusion several months ago, it is a problem with the GPU and my ATI RadeonHD 2400 and something wrong with the driver, maybe a kernel extension.
And I came to that conclusion when I noticed that if I turned off Firefox "hardware accelaration" the browsers prefs would not freeze but it happens with,e.g. Photoshop, when I use tools that pull from the GPU.
I am going to read the link you left here.thanks
dmaude: I installed Techtools and Diskwarrior, and now ran it periodically after my radical clean install where I brought all my files manually without using time machine nor migration assistant and installed all my apps from scratch.
I am a web artist thus I am not even using much of my 250GB, I have 200GB free and 3GB memory.
No bad blocks, no problems with fans nor temperature, I download all updates, absolutely nothing.
It is a virtual freeze and I am almost sure it started with snow leopard 10.6.3 update.
What I did though that seems to alleviate the problem was to install this tiny program/app called "caffeine" that stops my imac from entering sleep and so I still get the freeze but it happens less times. I leave here the link, maybe it helps you because I got so tired of this problem that I did not even want to upgrade to Lion.
http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/
I filed many bug reports to Apple, no response. I found a link from 2007 related to something similar and where Apple finally confirmed it was their bug, as stated there:
"Apple technical support has already confirmed the issue with several users, according to the threads, and the problem reportedly has been narrowed to the ATI Radeon HD cards inside the iMac."
Read more: http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/10/04/imac.freezing.redux/#ixzz1yQ8CLgsg
I can't say I trust Apple as I used to...

Apple and ATI aware of iMac freezing issue

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