ISight Problems With New iMac

Question

I just purchased my first Apple computer, after 27 years of PC use. Its a 24" 2.8GHz and it has been great. The built-in camera was working great, until yesterday (week 3). My video blanked out (black screen) when I was using iChat. Then I opened Photo Booth and got a green screen - no video. After a while, some video came back, but they consisted of frozen frames with lots of video noise (lines across the video). I quit for the evening, and when I turned it on the next day, I had the same bad video (frozen frames with noise). A quick chat with the Apple Care folks soon had me reinstalling the OS. My concern is that I have no clue as to the cause of the problem - which means it will probably happen again. Has anyone else had this issue or know a probable cause?

Answer 1

Welcome to Apple Discussions, tkd_jo99
Once you have installed a known-good copy of Mac OS X, Reinstalling Mac OS X again will likely not be required unless you damage the system in some way. (It is generally a bad idea to move, modify, rename, or delete any item outside your User > Documents folder unless you are an experienced OS X user or are following directions from someone you trust.)
"Why" iSight gives problems can be different for different users. Here are the solutions that help most users who encounter the variety of green-screen problems avoid a service call. None are complicated, but, unless you like troubleshooting, the simplest way to find which one will work for you is to try each one in the list until you find the one that fixes your Mac. If none of the fixes in (0) through (4) below works for you, you may have a hardware problem that requires the services of an Apple Service Technician.
(0) Restarting your Mac may get iSight working again.
(1) Check your System Preferences as explained in this kbase article about Built-in iSight camera produces blue or green pictures.
(2) If your System Preferences are set correctly, try every suggestion re: Built-in iSight in the "How to Troubleshoot iSight" article.
Be sure to include the checks for whether the problem is "application-specific" and "user-specific".
If you need help creating a new user account to check whether your problem is "user-specific" during Troubleshooting, see this Help article.
(3) If resetting or the other suggestions do correct your problem, try the following:
• Backup your Home Folder, or at very least, your important files.
• Repair permissions. (Click here if you need help.)
• Then download and apply the Mac OS X 10.4.10 Combo Update v1.1 (iNtel).
• Finish with another Permissions Repair, and then check your iSight again.
Users have reported fixes to a variety of audio, video, connectivity, and software conflicts and unreliability issues after properly applying Combo Updates.
(4) A few iNtel Mac laptop users have also reported success after unplugging their Macs, disconnect EVERYTHING, including both power and peripherals, and leaving the battery out for half-an-hour to overnight. To date, no desktop iNtel Mac users have reported that disconnecting has helped them, but you could try disconnecting everything for several hours (no battery removal needed for your iMac) to see whether yours might be the first.
(5) If none of these suggestions help, contact Apple or your Apple-Authorized Service Provider for a professional service .
(6) If your Troubleshooting from step (2) above shows that the problem is "application-specific" to iChat and you cannot find the solution yourself using Apple's iChat Support page, you should search or post about your particular problem in iChat AV 3 Forum. You will get best help fastest if you include all the information requested in FAQ 4 When do I Post a New iChat Topic ? in your initial post there.
EZ Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.10)    G5 DP 1.8  External iSight