IMac 20" sound and other problems

My dad has just bought me a 20" intel iMac for my 18th birthday, and has let me have it 2 weeks early, and I love it!
But yesterday i ran into various troubles. I turned my mac on, hearing the usual startup chime,but there was no sound at all coming from the internal speakers as soon as I got into Mac OS (fully updated as well as firmware 1.01) e.g. playing a song on itunes. Absolutely nothing.
When I plugged in my usual external speakers into the headphone jack, the sound was unusually low, and when turning the external speakers up there was a very distinct crackling sound along with the music that was playing.
This, I thought, was just a minor problem that could be easily rectified. That was until my screen went a dark transparent grey with a multilingual message telling me that I needed to restart my computer. So I did, and mac os booted up again telling me that Mac Os had encountered an error. I sent a report to apple at this point too. Then the screen went transparent grey again telling me to restart.
This continued, and I decided to quickly back up my files to a nearby pc (I'm recently converted to Macs), and I inserted my Mac Os install disk. I knew what I was doing as I'd formatted a few days ago due to accidently erasing my mac partition whilst trying out bootcamp . I did a full erase of the mac harddrive, and started the install process, when the grey screen happened again! This led me to beleive it wasnt a software fault. I restarted and attempted to install again. This time no grey screen, but a horrible noise came from the under the bottom left of the screen like a violent clicking. I turned the mac off straight away. I booted up again and installed Mac OS without any errors.
Still, no sound and still the grey screen popped up. I finally decided to phone Apple up with the number from the applecare box. The man on the other end guided me through various diagnostic procedures, getting me to hold applealt+RP, and got me to reinstall mac os, at which point we hung up.
Mac OS worked fine this time with no grey screens, but the sound still didnt work. I phoned applecare up again and a woman showed me the sound pane in system properties. The Output listing didnt show internal speakers at all and just showed Line Out. Well all in all my mac is in the same state right now, apart from I keep getting more and more grey screens, and it seems to be really unstable when trying to install software updates for example.
The woman on the phone arranged to have it repaired, but I was wondering whether anyone had any clue as to whats going on with my mac.
I'd really appreciate any ideas or comments about it. I'm sorry about the length of this post too!
iMac Intel 20"   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   2x 512mb ram

hey rob,
if your machine was okay, up to the point of your 'experiment' with installing windows, it looks like your problems stem from a dodgy reinstall after the bootcamp attempt [i did the same thing, duing the formatting prep for windows, erased the os x partition bahhh]...i reinstalled and i haven't had any problems since[trying to find a slipstreaming scheme with the older xp pro disk i have].
importantly, though is this clicking sound, not good.
i'd like to know, through looking in the apple system profiler what brand HDD your machine came with. there would be letters designating western digital, seagate or maxtor.
it may be, that this component is faulty. imho i'd prefer one brand over another that apple uses, other threads on the subject have different opinions about that...; ^]
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=384923

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    Observations:
    + I tried to start in safe mode but that made the startup procedure even slower, I was seeing the Apple logo and the grey spinning wheel for almost 10 minutes alone.
    + According to Activity Monitor there's always lots of free memory and CPU power.
    I'm really clueless as to what else I could do other than wiping the HD and reinstalling everything from scratch or sending the machine back to Apple. Any ideas would be *very much appreciated*!

    Hard to believe, the problem is back!
    Everything worked just fine last night. This morning I turn the iMac on and the problems are back: Extremely long time to startup, application hangs, everything super slow.
    Any ideas?
    I restarted in verbose mode and took some pictures, in case that helps...
    http://gallery.me.com/cjanz#100008

  • Registration requests and other problems with LE 8.0.2 upgrade from 7.2.3

    Great upgrade. Improved sound, look and features, but:
    1. When I switch between Logic Express 7 and 8, I'm forced to register each version again & again.
    2. If LE 8 is left open when I put my computer to sleep, it won't recognize an iControl at wake up. After deleting the device from the surface controller set-up, rescanning it & resetting midi drivers, the play button won't work. It took until OS X 10.4.9 for Apple to get the iControl to work in LE 7.2.
    3. The instrument plug-in window doesn't come up after selecting a software instrument even with the box checked in preferences.
    3. If you've used a lot of preset voices in LE 7, the upgrade will require a lot of reprogramming. Tones like Jangly Jack are gone completely. Some missing LE 7 voices like the Ubiquitous DX can be imported into version 8 and saved as a channel strip setting. Logic 8 & GarageBand 3 lack a good DX7.
    4. The word Strings is misspelled in the channel strip setting window.
    5. Some LE 7 keyboard commands are no longer available in LE 8. For example, at certain times, you could move around an environment window in LE 7 with shift-plus and shift-minus keys. There was no way to program that in LE 7 either.

    Hi Robby
    I don't know if you solved your 'register now' problem concerning LE7 & LE8. I suspect the error your making is trying to open up each project in it's initial program - i.e. 7 or 8. The computer sees it differently (concerning Library settings etc) and your problem will be solved (hopefully) if you open up things in the right order :
    1° Open Logic EX 8.
    2° Then open the old project from LE 7. This should then open in your new system of LE8.
    Of course if you wish to keep working on LE7 projects in LE7 then you'll have to change between each system as you go. You should remember that in terms of programs (with the same 'name/directory') that a computer works much like a tightly packed garage - if you wish to get out your old bike you'll have to move the new one first and vice versa!!
    Normally you won't be asked to register again, BUT ... remember that you have to decide if you're going to save in 8 (and so keep working in that format) or not and I imagine if you've bought an update this is certainly your idea. Of course if you now decide to close LE8 and then start clicking on files in LE7 you'll be back at square one ..... register now etc. Please also remember that LE7 projects can work in LE8 but not the other way round, so once you've opened a LE7 project and made adjustments using LE8 you can't reuse 7 - I suggest you back up all your LE7 first on external/DVD support for later/backwards adjustments or reference.
    Another small point to remember is that your computer will now be saving your project a second time in a LE8 format. So at some point you should remember that you'll be using valuable HD space twice over if you just convert and save in the new format - if you see what I mean?!

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