IMac crashes (black screen) while playing Diablo 3

Hi,
I've bought my iMac 27" i5 quad 2.7GHz 8GB in January. It's been working fine, being used mostly for some gaming and desktop apps.
2 months ago I started playing Diablo 3, and started having problems after the first update. Basically, I can play for some time (ranging from 10 minutes to 1 hour) and after a while the computer screen just goes completely black, the last fragments of sound start to play in a loop (about .2 to .5 second) and the computer is completely unresponsive. The only course of action is to force it to shut down by pressing the power button for a few seconds. After that, it's not possible to restart the computer right away, I need to wait for a few minutes before it can start. It even happened once that it started to play the startup chime and stopped midway, shutting down all by itself.
A similar problem also happened once or twice, when the computer was simply sleeping and it became impossible to wake it up, I had to shut it down and start it up again.
I've explained the problem to Apple and even took my computer to the store for checkup. However, after they ran some tests they said everything was fine and didn't want to replace any component (it would have been the motherboard or the graphics card). All they could tell me was that I should reinstall the whole system (Lion, up-to-date).
I might do that. However, tonight I tried again to play while monitoring the various thermometers and fan speeds, played in windowed mode so I could see the curves, and set up the computer to take a screenshot every second (AFAIK the monitoring app I'm using doesn't keep logs) so I could replay everything. I got my usual crash after about half an hour. What the screenshots showed is that the various temperatures raised, which probably isn't a big surprise. However, they also show that about 3 minutes before the crash the CPU fan, which had been very stable so far, started to speed up very regularly. While it didn't reach any abnormal speed, it's still weird to see how it began so suddenly and so shortly before the crash.
As one can see from the values in the monitoring windows, the temperatures don't seem to me to be scandalous, but I may not be a good judge. Before I start reinstalling everything, I was wondering whether someone might have experienced a similar issue (couldn't find much about it on the web) or if perhaps these "symptoms" may be meaningful to someone?
I'm grateful for any advice!
Pagod

The fans may not be the cause of the problem but it's definitely related. Now I'm running the hardware monitor every time I play D3 and it always warns me that the CPU fans is spinning up shortly before the crash, which may then occur within seconds or at most 2-3 minutes when I stay in fullscreen. I can't remember experiencing a crash after I went back to windowed mode after the alarm, but I also haven't pushed it much. Also, the temperatures reported really don't look awful at all, nothing exceeds 80°C, there's no sudden surge.
Interestingly, the computer actually keeps running after the screen goes black (but D3 is definitely out), and only when I press cmd-alt-esc does the whole system go completely down (looping sound).
I've checked the logs and couldn't find anything really significant, then again I may not know what to look for. The only suspicious entries at more or less exactly the time of the crash (although I can't tell whether it's when D3 crashes, or the whole computer) are the following in kernel.log:
12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: ** GPU Debug Info Start **
12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: 0x00006740
This is followed by 544 lines similar to the last one with various hex addresses over five seconds, although after line 436 only 0x00000000's are reported. The line just after that is at the time when I restart the computer and says
Jul 14 15:00:36 localhost kernel[0]: PMAP: PCID enabled
system.log doesn't report anything in this time frame, there's no crash report for D3 in CrashReporter... Is there anything else I could check?

Similar Messages

  • Black screen while playing video in itunes

    I am currently running itunes 11.1.2.32 on a windows 8.1 (64 bit) pc. I had to reinstall itunes when switching from 8.1 preview to 8.1 due to download issues. I now have a black screen when playing videos in itunes. Audio still works. Suggestions?

    I've had the same problem. Tried switching from the built in Intel video to an nVidia graphics card, reinstalled cursed a lot.
    Finally got it working the hard ware. Built a virtual XP machine (like the SP support system in Windows 7). Installed itunes in the virtual machine and can now watch my movies and tv shows. Both itunes and Windows 8.1 seem to be "not ready for prime time". I wish MS wouldn't have tried to make a computer look like a cell phone/pad.

  • Imac crashes black screen

    Imac Crashes leaving black screen, need to turn off and on again to remedy.... quite sporadic in any programme - can anyone help?

    The fans may not be the cause of the problem but it's definitely related. Now I'm running the hardware monitor every time I play D3 and it always warns me that the CPU fans is spinning up shortly before the crash, which may then occur within seconds or at most 2-3 minutes when I stay in fullscreen. I can't remember experiencing a crash after I went back to windowed mode after the alarm, but I also haven't pushed it much. Also, the temperatures reported really don't look awful at all, nothing exceeds 80°C, there's no sudden surge.
    Interestingly, the computer actually keeps running after the screen goes black (but D3 is definitely out), and only when I press cmd-alt-esc does the whole system go completely down (looping sound).
    I've checked the logs and couldn't find anything really significant, then again I may not know what to look for. The only suspicious entries at more or less exactly the time of the crash (although I can't tell whether it's when D3 crashes, or the whole computer) are the following in kernel.log:
    12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
    12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: ** GPU Debug Info Start **
    12-07-14 2:57:48.000 PM kernel: 0x00006740
    This is followed by 544 lines similar to the last one with various hex addresses over five seconds, although after line 436 only 0x00000000's are reported. The line just after that is at the time when I restart the computer and says
    Jul 14 15:00:36 localhost kernel[0]: PMAP: PCID enabled
    system.log doesn't report anything in this time frame, there's no crash report for D3 in CrashReporter... Is there anything else I could check?

  • Satellite L670: black screen while playing flash or avi from internet

    Hello,
    I have a problem with my Radeon.
    Each time, I play a movie (flash or avi) from Internet my computer block with a blackscreen, and I have to switch it off with the physical button.
    My computer is a L670 1L0 with Intel Core i3 CPU M380 @ 2,53 Ghz
    I have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470
    Windows 7 64bits (SP1)
    Thank you for your help

    Dont think that this is an hardware related problem because other movies from HDD or DVD can be played properly..
    Suggestion from this page:
    http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1209379
    If disabling of hardware accelerated playback did not help, try to update the graphic card driver.
    You could also check if you could resolve this by uninstalling adobe flash player plugin and then reinstalling the most recent version of adobe flash.
    By the way: can you stream videos from other pages like Hulu, Yahoo Video or similar?
    Here you can find solution provided by Adobe:
    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/839/cpsid_83952.html
    and here very interesting thread from adobe forum:
    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/821884

  • F.E.A.R. 2 black screen while using Soundblaster X-Fi

    This is my second attempt to get some support for a problem that is plaguing many trying to play F.E.A.R 2 with a Soundblaster X-Fi. We have been on the official forums for WBGames now for the past two weeks asking for help. Many were able to find solutions by updating their codecs however there are many of us that still cannot get into the game. WBGames official response it as follows...
    Dear, xxx
    Regarding your sound acceleration error and the sound cards you have used, we apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced.
    At the moment, we have been noticed that certain Creative sound cards (X-Fi, Sound Blaster and Audigy) and Realtek are presenting incompatibility issues with the F.E.A.R. 2 application. Unfortunately, Creative Labs have not yet released a patch to solve this situation, as other companies like Nvidia have worked on.
    F.E.A.R. 2 is designed to function with Windows XP/Vista compatible graphics and sound cards. Drivers for these devices are provided by Windows itself or the respecti've card manufacturers and may occasionally result in incompatibility problems beyond our control.
    If there is anything else we can do to assist you, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at [url=mailto:[email protected]">[email protected] m[/url] or by phone 080-0664-9456 (in Germany) during the hours of EST :00 pm - 0:00 pm, PST: 0am- 8pm MON-FRI.
    Thank you for contacting Warner Brothers and have a great day.
    Refund option
    If you are not satisfied with the performance of this product on your PC, you may return it with the receipt of purchase to the store from which it was purchased within 90 days from the original purchase date for a refund.
    If you purchased this product as an electronic download, please visit the following site for refund details:
    [url="https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4938-WTDF-9465">https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...4938-WTDF-9465[/url]
    I thought that someone with creative labs would be interested in either responding or releasing some kind of a statement in regards to this.
    The current problem for us is when we try to launch the game a small animated orb runs at the bottom right of the screen while the game loads. At the end of the animation we hear a small chime and the screen goes black as though it is about to load the intro videos. But we get nothing. The screen remains black. I have exhausted all of their solutions, I have updated drivers and tried the latest beta drivers from Creative. I have removed, replaced, and updated codecs. Video card drivers are updated, etc.
    Basically we are faced with the following dilema. We can disable the sound card in Windows and the game plays however with no sound. We can run the game in safe mode which manually disables the sound card and the game plays but with no sound. Leave the sound card enabled and run the game in normal mode and we get a black screen.
    PLEASE, can someone with Creative Labs respond to this? We are looking for answers and would very much like to play this game.Message Edited by djdouglas on 02-20-2009 09:39 [email protected]

    Re: F.E.A.R. 2 black screen while using Soundblaster X-Fi?
    solace wrote:
    Pardon me but i'm looking your Quad SLI setup a potential culprit to your problems. Have you tried disabling SLI mode to see if the problem can be resolved?
    That was my first thought when I encountered this problem. I took the steps troubleshooting video. Disabled SLI, Physically removed one video card. Updated drivers, etc. I am currently running the 82.06WHQL drivers which are suppose to be enhanced for F.E.A.R.2 and other games.
    My next step was to try uninstalling codecs as their support team had suggested for people running into issues with the demo version (which btw worked perfectly for me). There were tons of reponses by the devs and community managers before the release of the game in response to people having issues (these same issues) on the demo. So they released a patch the day before the release of the game and when everyone installed the game the patch automatically installed. So for me and many others that enjoyed a smooth gameplay in the demo our rigs are now not working with the official release.
    Since release we have yet to see a response or fix or suggestion from a dev. There have been many others in the community that have helped each other out by posting their solutions. For most updating their codecs using Klite or Ace Mega codec pack has fixed their problem but for a select few of us these solutions have not worked.
    Basically I can launch the game successfully in safemode which disables sound. I can also disable the sound card and launch the game successfully although without sound. The codec that has seemed to be effecti've when replaced by others is the Microsoft IMA ADHCP codec. However for me I can disable that codec and get a hardware accelration error but still get a black screen. Re enable it and get black screen with no error. So I do not believe this to be the issue plaguing me. Ultimately it is coming down to a conflict with my sound board and the game.

  • R7870 TF III 2GB OC edition Black Screen while gaming (Guild Wars 2)

    Hello there mate,
    1st time post for me,
    i'm from Indonesia, and i just got my r7870 recently
    and i'm using it now for playing Guild Wars 2.
    1st i'm using the "auto detect" mode in Guild Wars 2
    where give me "high" setting for the graphic
    but after a few minutes i got a black screen.....
    that force me to shut down my system by press and hold the power button,
    then i try with "low" setting for the graphic (in Guild Wars2)
    but still got the black screen after another few minute..
    and i'm using CCC ver. 12.8
    i have been search and found some post with similar issue with this (black screen while gaming with r7870)
    what can i do to solve this prob ?
    Note : before using r7870, i used r4870 1GB, and have no problem playing Guild Wars 2 (in low setting)
    here is my rig :
    Main Board : MSI - Z68MA - G45
    CPU : I3 - 2120
    RAM : 2x4GB GSkill
    PSU : 650 Watt Seasonic
    HHD : 2x 500gb Seagate
    Graph Card : MSI - r7870 TF3 OC edition
    sorry for my bad English, hope you all still can understand.

    Quote from: Svet on 08-September-12, 07:20:56
    have you tried msi vga drivers for your card?
    do you have such issues elsewhere?
    well i haven't tried using the drive that come within the bundle yet
    but as i mentioned before, i did not have any problem playing GW2 and other games
    with my previous card (4870) and using exactly the same rig,
    so i don't think the problem lies elsewhere,
    but i think ill try msi vga driver that i got in the cd 1st,
    thanks for your suggestion, ill report again the result later.
    tried the msi vga drive (ver. 8.95) that come within the budle
    and well... still got the black screen problem.. (tested with guild wars 2)

  • IMac enters sleep mode while playing Blizzard games

    About every 20 seconds my iMac enters sleep mode while playing Blizzrard games.  When I click the mouse or touch a key on the keyboard the iMac wakes up and the game is still running.  This has been happening more frequently over the past six weeks.  Now it occurs every twenty seconds.  I have turned off my sleep mode settings, reset the SMC, loaded the TechTool Deluxe and ran a diagnostic.  When TechTool Deluxe came to testing the video ram the utility crashed.  I ran TechTool Deluxe a second time and it crashed again while testing the video ram.  My iMac only has this problem playing Blizzard games.  I have contacted Blizzard and they don't have an answer.  Is it my video card? I have the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512 MB graphics card.  Any help would be appreciated.

    Likely is the Video card, but...
    Have you blown the dust out lately?
    Get Temperature Monitor to see if it's heat related...
    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/12381/temperature-monitor
    iStat Menus...
    http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

  • Ipod 4g goes black out while playing games

    i dont know whether you guys have experinced this but my ipod 4g goes black out while playing some games. its like when im playing games half way, the ipood will auto close the app that im playing. Does this means that my ipod is having problem?
    Btw My IPOD 4G WAS JAILBREAK BEFORE.BUT I RESTORE BACK NORMALLY

    See:
    iOS: Troubleshooting applications purchased from the App Store
    Contact the developer/go to their support site if only one app.
    Restore from backup. See:
    iOS: How to back up              
    Restore to factory settings/new iPod

  • .mov from 4S is black screen when played with QT and QT 7/lion

    Q1. .mov from 4S is black screen when played with QT and QT 7 on lion/mac book pro.
    Q2   Also I want to burn it in DVD with common video format. Any recomment free burner software?
    Very very very urgent!! Please help.

    Hello there,
    I have a similar problem! Windows 7 shutdown unexpectedly and since that I can not reboot in windows anymore only with safe mode where everything is a mess.
    Also when it's trying to reboot in windows a blue window appears,says something about drivers  and it is counting something (79.78...till100)but  I m not able to read it cause it disappears immidiately and then black screen and then it turns to reboot in mac which works fine.
    I m sorry if I confused you with my english...
    If anyone knows please help!
    Thanks

  • Black screen while working

    last few days my mac got a black screen while working once ort twice a day. no idea why. it's only the screen and there is no way to wake him up. but the cpu didn't shut down and it sounds like he is working correctly. any idea? would make me happy!

    Hey enderci,
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
    If you are not getting video, this articl has as section for no video that should help.
    Apple computers: Troubleshooting issues with video on internal or external displays
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1573#1
    Have a nice day,
    Mario

  • Suspending the Screen while playing music...

    I noticed while playing music for long periods of time this bad boy gets hot. So I tried suspending the screen while playing music. The screen shut off but the music still plays ;0) (go apple). So now I shut the screen off when playing music and that seems to help the battery life as well as the heat it puts off.

    I have been looking for an answer for it myself and here are the opons :
    1.having an external diplay will disable slep mode with close lid.
    2.there are programs that will force it to not go to sleep (sleepless,insomnia ) - risky !!!
    3.turn off the screen (by dim all the way) and keep it almost closed ....
    i know non of the above are perfect for you and its realy nice to have it closed when not in use but apple will not give you service if you use the programs and it will overheat.....so dont. please,dont.
    tomer
    p.s. don't!

  • Imac  have black screen. Start Computer sound come on, no picture. The last time I used the computer I put it to sleep, it never came back.  i tried everything that was suggested including puting in the start up disk.  The disk would not eject.  Some one

    Imac  have black screen. Start Computer sound come on, no picture. The last time I used the computer I put it to sleep, it never came back.  i tried everything that was suggested including puting in the start up disk.  The disk would not eject.  Some one suggested how to remove it and that did work.  Computer going to Apple hospital Tues. July 3,  thank you for all the suggestions.
    Phyllis33

    There is nothing wrong with the OS update.
    Delete ALL your email accounts.
    Restart Playbook
    Put the accounts back and ensure they are all set with PUSH ON.  Manual (push off) will burn battery.
    Similarly delete your wifi connections and add back when required. 
    Turn off wifi is not connected to wifi. 
    Any "hunting for connection" in email or wifi will burn up battery.

  • Why mu brand new macbook air always black screen while i use it with battery?

    why mu brand new macbook air always black screen while i use it with battery?

    Press F2 key couple of times.
    Reset PRAM.  http://support.apple.com/kb/PH4405
    Reset SMC.     http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
    Choose the method for:
    "Resetting SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own".
    Is the battery charged?
    You can return a new Mac within 14 days of purchase.
    A new Mac is in warranty for 1 year from the date of purchase.
    A new Mac comes with 90 days of free tech support from AppleCare.
    AppleCare: 1-800-275-2273
    Call AppleCare.
    Best.
    Best.

  • I am getting a black screen while trying to play a game. Help me.

    So, I am trying to play a game on my Macbook, from Late 2007, model A1181, OSX 10.6.7
    Snow Leopard
    2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
    1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
    Using an Intel GMA X3100
    Now, this problem, I was actually running Leopard and trying to play Warcraft III: Frozen Throne and I was able to play it no problem at all. I reformatted my macbook recently and put in Snow Leopard and I actually played perfectly fine two days ago. I tried to play today, 2 of the times I tried, the screen turns black, but everything is still running, like I was skyping with a friend just to use the voice chat and then it just turned black and I was still able to talk to him. 1 of the times I tried, the computer just restarted itself and I tried looking it up online, but everyone's questions were for Windows on Mac or Macbook Pro and now I'm all out of ideas.

    Uh...I actually don't think so because I don't know how to do it. Haha. Can you tell me how to do it? But yeah, I used to play it all the time, and actually I was trying to watch Netflix, and then I full-screened it, and I also got the black screen, so I don't think it's just games anymore. Do you think it could be the fan?? overheating? and as for settings in the game goes, I put it all down, no shadows, uhh I think all medium settings, but yeah nothing is on high for sure.

  • ITunes with videos bad, Music & Regular! Crash, Black Screen, Tagging?

    So i have been using iTunes for ages and have been collection Music's CD's longer and i got to load them to iTunes a while ago. Music works great in iTunes but with my CD's i often got music video's included so i tried to play them and some regular videos in iTunes and got the following problems and issues (Almost all the tested video files was optimised for iProducts (All MP4 format)) :
    Can't use some of my music videos (mp4 format) in itunes but i can in Quicktime (Got black screen but good sound ). I have no idea how they coded iTunes but shouldn't they use the same codec's?.
    iTunes have a tendency to crash if i play music videos in a row. (Like to use random in a music video list, calming in the background. i know it's kind of excessive but i like it).
    Sometimes i need to play through a music video then reverse back to it to get a picture. (Sound works great tho) .
    Laggy! Sometimes the sound get out of sync with video and vice versa. (Usually the beginning.  Has a tendency to catch up but not always, sometimes a middle lane in the video freezes.)
    Can't you tag or sort video files better.? My computer sometimes crashes or get changed so i need to reinstall my media library from a backup. It would immensely help if i could ID3 tag media files the same way i can song so they automatically sort in to music video's, movies and Tv-series (media types!) without forcing me too change it in the advance tap at show more information. (This is off topic but i need this for audiobooks too (iTunes don't got my type of books so i am manually coping them from CD to MP3 format and transferring them to my iPhone))
    So i'm a trial and error person so i worked a little bit with the problems when i had the time and  when finally got somewhere and had some real questions so i created this profile and wrote this post.
    Please read the whole post before you go yelling: -Look at this!, Already Asked!, See this forum! It's your computer! I usually get to the point somewhere on this post. At the bottom of the post i have my current specs for my computer. So here comes the wall of text:
    I started with this http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1718?viewlocale=en_US and http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1717 which is what you get if you search a bit in apple's support site. Tried all the things there. Disabled Direct3D, Tried Safe Mode On (Note: These two made the performance worse not better.), Checked display colour quality (Maxed), Turned on DMA, (A slight improvement still issues.) and finally got to ReadyBoost. I have all my media on an external drive (Aha you says!) and yes i finally figured out that iTunes can't handle files of that size from a regular external (Observe i do not have ReadyBoost on my 1T drive, It says it don't have the necessary performance). So i moved my video files to my internal drive and it significantly improved in problems 2,3,4 (Not gone!), Also noticed that i need to have as short pathway as possible (smaller improvements yet again!) (None of this shows in troubleshooting, Apple needs to read my post i think.)
    I am now browsing web forums for a better suggestions on the problems and found that Apple either did not care about the problems or the members of this or other forums recommended other media player's to use for handling devices and media (MediaMonkey, doubleTwist and so on). Either as to further their own agenda or that they have giving up on iTunes as a media player for large number of media files. (Found a good media tagger, Magic MP3 Tagger, which worked wonders on some of my older albums with no or little information). So back to my problems or questions.
    What can be the trouble with a mp4 format?
    Tendency to crash, is iTunes really that unstable?
    Play through music video to see picture. Really iTunes?
    Laggy! don't know what more to say or fix. (iTunes take to long to buffer (got between 0-15 seconds delay after i come this far, better then before but not great)
    Sort video files better. (Tags). The only format i know to date that instantly recognise what media type it is, some movie format and the ringtone format m3u  (Useful to know is that you can make your own ringtones by creating a ACC with a limited play time in advanced tab (max 30 seconds)  then change the last file ending of the ACC file now created to m3u. Viola! (Don’t forget to change back to the regular playtime on the original file) your custom created ring/smstone in workable and high quality, but i digress).
    Sorry for the long read but i wanted to be as thorough as possible and please forgive any grammar and spelling problems. English is not my native tongue and the spelling checker did not work in my laptop (browser) on this website
    Currently using (The one with iTunes and the external hard drive) (But have had two different computers before with same problem, 1 PC & 1 Mac):
    Screen
    SyncMaster T240
    Videocard
    ATI Radeon HD 4870 (512Mb)
    PC
    ACPI x86
    Motherboard
    ASUSTeK Computer INC (P5G-PRO)
    Memory
    Type DDR2 Dual
    Size 4096 MB
    External Harddrive
    WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device
    IDE ATA/ATAPI
    Standard-Dual Channel PCI IDE
    Standard-Dual Channel PCI IDE
    Soundcard
    TerraTec Aureon 5.1 PCI
    AMD High Definition Audio Device
    Processor
    Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2,33GHZ

    This problem cropped up for me yesterday. I had just copied a new video to my iTunes library and was testing that it worked properly, but while the sound was playing, the screen was black.
    Pausing/pressing the Play button resolves the issue, until I select a new video/movie to play, when I have to do it again.
    I'm running MacOS X 10.6.6 and iTunes 10.1.1 (4). I tried reinstalling iTunes, with no luck. I also tried the old mainstay of replacing the Preferences file, but that also didn't help.
    There is ONE new wrinkle to this situation. Yesterday, I had installed a new app named AirView to stream videos over AirPlay to my iPad. This works fine, but after this, the issue cropped up, suggesting an AirPlay issue.
    I have two iMacs, so decided to try this situation on the Kitchen iMac and played a video on this other iMac just fine, video and sound. I then started up AirView on the iPad and initiated the video stream to the iPad from the Kitchen iMac. The movie played fine on the iPad. I quit AirView and went back to try the video on the Kitchen iMac, and yes, the video now failed to display until I reselected Computer from the AirPlay menu at the bottom of the screen, or used the pause/play solution, even though Computer was still selected as the default in the AirPlay menu. Doing this once seemed to be enough to resolve the issue for playing all videos on the Kitchen iMac, but not on the Office iMac.
    The only other difference between iTunes on these two iMacs is that one (the Office iMac) is running its videos from a FireWire 800 attached 2TB hard drive, while the Kitchen iMac's contents are on the internal hard drive.
    Deselecting the AirPlay option in Preferences/Devices to start videos correctly on the Office iMac is not a solution, since this iMac serves as our home server for our Apple TV.
    Since I have a practical option, however, and since this issue doesn't affect playing videos remotely using AirPlay, this is now a buggy annoyance, but no longer a problem for me.

Maybe you are looking for