IMovie locks up, freezes

Question

Ever since I loaded the new iMove software about a year and a half ago, my iMovie software has been failing. I never had a problem with the original iMovie format, and my brother-in-law has no problems with his NEW iMovie software.
I can load pictures into it, and music. But after that, the entire program locks up. It "scrolls" through pictures, but the visual never changes from the very first picture in the series. The shape of the photo changes to match the next photo in the series, which is somewhat odd. The fan in the computer starts running very high and it stays there. It doesn't slow down, the computer doesn't do anything. It gives me the rainbow wheel, and won't let me click out of it to another program, it won't let me force quit. At that point, I can only force the shut down by holding the start button down. So my iMovie is useless.
If I load the new iLife software, do you think that will solve my problem?
I had the internal power supply replaced last year because the computer was going through a constant cycle of start, re-start, re-start, re-start, etc. The iMovie problems started around the same time. I also had 2 firewire ports that were dead and I could not successfully burn a video disc of any kind. When the power supply was replaced, the firewire ports came back to life. I was then able to burn discs with music and data, but I can't test anything involving video because iMovie just locks up as soon as I try.
I have about 14 GB of free space. iTunes works fine, internet runs smoothly. I can open documents, and garage band appears to function normally. So pieces of iLife are fine, but not iMovie, and presumably, iDVD. (I wouldn't know at this point.)
Thoughts?

Answer 1

I had a similar problem. I purchased "the new iMac" in Sept.'07 with iMovie '08. I used the computer for 7 months for photography in iPhoto without connecting to the internet so I was not keeping up with software updates.
After working with iMovie for 1 project it started to run slow and sometimes freeze and I would have to shut off power and re-start. I was getting a similar freeze in iPhoto during editing a photo, especially when I was zoomed in on the photo using the slider in the lower right corner of the screen. Sometimes I would get an error message telling me to re-start the computer. It was very frustrating having these problems with a new computer that had never ben asked to do anything but iPhoto and iMovie.
Last May I took the computer back to where I bought it. They looked at the logs and saw that the graphics bd was related to the panic errors. All they did was run all of the software updates that had come out between September and May, which included iMovie update 7.1, iMac software update 1.2.1, iLife support 8.2, iMovie update 7.1.1 and iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.3 among other updates not specific to iMovie or the OS. When I got the computer back everything worked beautifully. The tech noted that everything worked fine after the software updates and the EFI firmware update and there was no hardware problem. The machine is now connected to the internet and I am religious about keeping the updates current.
I am no expert, not even close (this is my first post) but I just wanted to say what worked for me. If you want to see what updates you have installed, in the Finder, click on the apple icon, then click on software update > preferences>installed updates. Here you can view what updates have been installed. Assuming you are connected to the internet I would run all the available software updates and see if that helps before you take it for service.
Maybe another reader of the forum can tell you if the other problems you were having with power supply could be related, or if your computer purchased this long ago is being asked to do too much?
Good luck.