Help! iMac/OS X crashing more often than XP

Question

No not sensationalist but actually true for the past 10 days compared to my PC. I've been having all sorts of problems with my new iMac and I don't have enough knowledge / hands on experience to know how to fix it.
Here's a couple of problems by way of example:
trying to use Front Row to play a DVD - FR just locked up the iMac all I could do was reset by holding down the power button;
waking from sleep - all OK for a few days and then with no processes running except Address Book I woke the Mac and minimised the onscreen Address Book - this froze as it minimised and nothing could force quit the app (actually that's happened with both iLife and third party apps quite a lot in the pst few days).
apps refusing to launch - even though they were used a couple of hours earlier.
I've run the extended Hardware test to no avail. Repaired disc permissions via Onyx (actually an hour ago even that just hung and I had to cold boot again).
I have no idea where to go next, though I have one qestion for any one more experienced than me: could the problems originate from data pulled over from my iBook via Target mode? Am I at the stage where I need to reformat and reinstall and how should I go about it and preserve my settings and data?
I sincerely hope someone can help.

Answer 1

Hello Tenex
In case you have Adobe Software installed, the culprit could be Adobe Version Cue.
To solve it, boot in safe mode and remove the Adobe Version Cue folder from the Library/StartupItems and it should be back to normal.
Other things you can try:
Is your Ram build in by Apple or is it 3rd Party Ram?
Try it with one Ram Stick only, if it still crashes, try the other one.
SMC reset: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303446
Reset NVRAM: Press Option-Command-P-R until you hear two or three beeps
Safe Mode:
Hold down the Shift key during startup to force the computer to start in safe mode. Staring in safe mode does the following things:
* It forces a directory check of the startup volume.
* It loads only required kernel extensions (some of the items in /System/Library/Extensions).
* It runs only Apple-installed startup items (some of the items in /Library/StartupItems and /System/Library/StartupItems - and different than login items).
* Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It disables all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts .
* Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It moves to the Trash all font caches normally stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/ , where (uid) is a user ID number such as 501.
* Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger only: It disables any Login Items.
More commands: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303124