Nowadays my iMac likes to slow down and its display suddenly goes black. why do these things happen?

I don't know why but a couple of days before, I opened a website and suddenly it became slow. Then the next day when I was opening something which I forgot what it was, and then it went black and I tried every button and suddenly the front row appeared. Today, after I logged in, I opened Safari and then it went black and when I pushed a random button, the log in box appeared. iMac is supposed to be immune to viruses right?

It sounds like you may have a failing hardware component. I would recommend you insert Disk 2 of your Original Installation disks that came with your iMac and boot from it by holding down the Option - D keys, and run the Extended Apple Hardware Test to diagnose what may be failing. It is unfortunately possible that you have an intermitent fault in your hardware that could be tough to find.
Hope this helps

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My iMac is less than one year old. Without warning, the screen suddenly goes black. It used to happen occasionally, but is now happening all the time without warning. What is Apple doing to correct the problem?

My iMac is less than one year old. Without warning, the screen suddenly goes black. It used to happen ocasionally, but now it happens all the time. Numerous people have posted about this issue. Why hasn't Apple solved the issue. For what I paid my computer, I expected more from the product than I have gotten. I was a PC person for years and most of my associates told me that I needed to get a mac...I am starting to regret having taken their advice.

Sorry you're having this problem.
A few years ago we had a similar issue on one of our machines, it was an early MacBook. Ended up being a cracked circuit connection on the motherboard. Changes in temperature caused the crack to expand and contract resulting in a shut-down followed by an automatic reboot. Sometimes over-and-over. I understood from AppleCare at the time that those symptoms could have also been any number of things including a intermittent issue with a powersupply.
If you take it back to the Apple Store at some point, I would ask them to have it run some CPU intensive tasks that closely resemble what you are doing when the screen goes black. It took us several try's to find the problem. Calling AppleCare each time to discuss it and troubleshoot before making the trips to the Apple Store really moved things along. In fact, it wasn't until the Apple Store had cracked the case from the inside that things kicked into a higher gear and AppleCare phone support sent out a pre-paid FedX package to send it to a refurbishing facility. Never a problem since and I know the people who have the machine today.
PS Can identify with the trip to the Apple Store, our closest one is in Knoxville, 2hrs from us.

20"iMac Display Suddenly Goes Black

While I am using my iMac, occasionally suddenly goes black. If I hit a key (usually the space bar), it comes back as if I had put it to sleep.
What is happening? What should be done? What can I do?
Thanks for your help and information.

"Answered on another forum"
What a way to be helpful! I went through your posts and searched "display" and I did not find this mysterious answer you talk about.
I'm having the same issues on my Intel Core 2 Duo 20" iMac. if ANYONE could post a solution, I'd appreciate it.
The computer is still working correctly. It is not on sleep mode. I've press the power button and it goes to sleep, but then when I wake it up it repeats the black screen a couple of times until it finally settles on letting me work.
What is the point of user support forum if there are no moderators around to help people out? :/

I make an screen shot and its suposed that goes to the desktop but nothing happens, help!!

i want to make an screen shoot and it must go to the desktop but nothing happens, help pls!!!

Click the Apple logo at the top left hand corner and go down to Force Quit. Then force the Finder to restart/quit.
Otherwise you can use the Command-Option-Escape short cut keys to open up Force Quit and force the Finder to quit.

My iMac 8.1 was slowing down and had permissions problems. I backed everything up, and then re-installed. Now all I get is a black screen. Power+D gives me a hardware error message: HDD-1336. Help!

My iMac 8.1 (10.6.8 ) was slowing down and had recurrent permissions problems, mostly with Java. I backed everything up, and then re-installed from time machine. Now all I get is a black screen which says I need to reboot. Power+D gives me a hardware error message: 4 MOT/1/40000003: HDD-1336 or HDD-1327. When I reboot from the OSX CD and start disc utilities everything checks out OK. When I reload 10.5.2 from the OSX CD everything seems to work OK and no more permissions problems. But then I loose all my email and safari stuff. Anyone have any ideas short of going back to my old PC?

DonM. wrote:
Hi
Thanks for the help. No point in fooling around with it any more. Will I be able to use it as a monitor if I get a mimi mac?
Cheers. Don
No unfortunatley it's too old, you are referring to Target Display Mode which became avialble in 2009, your 2008 needs to have the HD replaced. I'd still do that if everything else is OK or you can simply buy a new MM and display or even a new iMac or an Apple refurbished iMac to save money.

How do I fix a Safari application that slows down and freezes everything?

Apple called last fall and said my particular Mac had a hard disk problem and they replaced it at the Apple store in late January 2013. I backed up the information on an external harddrive and used Time Machine before to transfer all the information to the new drive. Everything worked well and I finally put on Mountain Lion at 10.8.4. I also have Carbonite as a backup and it apparently was not enabled when I transferred the files until early May. In early May I had not used my iMac for about a month and when I started it I found about 40 named file folders on the Desktop that were empty. Some of those had named items in them but when I clicked on them they would dissappear. The actual files did exist and were not effected when I dumped the apparent alias folders. Safari started and would be ok at first but if I went away for an hour it would slow down. I took it in to the Genius Bar at Apple and they ran some tests and got rid of MacKeeper which they felt was causing the problem. I got my Mac back home and it still started slow but worked well at first and then started going slow. If I opened Word it would also start working at a slower speed. I needed to force quit Safari and the Word progran in order to quit or restart the Mac. I got an appointment for the next day and they ran all sorts of tests and the hard drive was working normally. They tried tweeking different areas and sent me home again. When I started working again it did the same thing, I would start out fine and eventually slow down and needed to be force quit to get out of it. A message came up indicating my MasOSX startup disk had no more space available for applications memory. I took it in a third time and the Genius went to the Activity Monitor and the Safari PID was 221 and %CPU 107, Threads 21 Real Mem 2.73 GB, Virtual Mem 22.00 Kind, Intel (64). I had no idea what that meant. I went home again and it still ran slow and couldn't run the programs for any length of time before it ran slow and affected the other programs so they would only quit if I used Force quit. I took it in for the forth time an they decided to keep it overnight. They ran ASD first to rule out memory. They noticed during the appointment the computer was slow to perform normal tasks such as showing boot options, booting into user, bootingto external user. If the ASD passed then they would perform erase and install and only restore users and application files from backup drive. They did this on Wed and Thur. night and I took it home Friday night, June 14 and it still has the same problem. Typing this message right now means typing and waiting for the words to appear.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software — potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions — they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are instructions to enter some UNIX shell commands. The commands are harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of the procedure suggested here, search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then copy it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign (“$”) or a percent sign (“%”). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Triple-click the line of text below to select it:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/{printf "%s %s\n", $6, $7}' | open -f -a TextEdit
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Then click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V). A TextEdit window will open. Post the contents of that window, if any — the text, please, not a screenshot. You can then close the TextEdit window. The title of the window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that. No typing is involved in this step.
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
{ sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix)|org\.(amav|apac|cups|isc|ntp|postf|x)/{print $3}'; sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook; } | open -f -a TextEdit
This time you'll be prompted for your login password, which you do have to type. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. Type it carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. Heed that warning, but don't post it. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
Note: If you don’t have a login password, you’ll need to set one before taking this step. If that’s not possible, skip to the next step.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)/{print $3}' | open -f -a TextEdit
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null | open -f -a TextEdit
Important: If you formerly synchronized with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, anonymize it before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of every login item' | open -f -a TextEdit
Remember, steps 1-5 are all copy-and-paste — no typing, except your password. Also remember to post the output.
You can then quit Terminal.

In "edit" mode, my movie speed is fine. Once published it seems to slow down and become all jerky. Any ideas? Thanks

In "edit" mode, my movie speed is fine. Once published it seems to slow down and become all jerky. Any ideas? Thanks

I have a revision a imac g5 with the same problem with only macbreak podcast. I know leo laporte said that the podcast was done in 1080p and my computer with its built in 64 megabyte graphics card might have trouble with this podcast but your machine must have a better graphics card than mine. 1080p requires at least 128 megabytes of graphics memory built in. My machine played this podcast on quicktime fine until they came out with the update to quicktime last week or two ago. I was going to upgrade my memory until I came accross your story and your machines doing the same thing with much better specs. I think it might be the quicktime update that is causing a problem. Maybe Leo will talk about this problem since he is doing a mac show about macs.

Macbook Pro laptop (early 2013) sudden slow down, and heats up while sleeping

Hi! I need help with my Macbook Pro laptop (early 2013) that suddenly slowed down, and heats up while sleeping. It slowed down 3 days ago. I want to know what checks I can do to find what is wrong with my laptop. Thank You

Hi! I did reset SMC but it did not work but thank you. Now, my hard drive crashed, bought a new one, but unfortunately my laptop does not detect the new hard drive so that where I'm at. Im not sure if I need to format the hard drive, replace an internal part like the connector of the hard drive to the logic board or the new hard drive is broken.

Why does my footage Slow down and loose audio when imported to after effects cs6?

Whenever I import video of any kind into after effects, it slows down and looses audio. It happens for every video. The weird thing is, it seems like it doesnt happen to anyone else on the internet. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME PLEASE!!!! I am about to cry. I cant do anything with this stupid software! If there is a solution please tell me. Its really annoying.
extra info-
On Mac
mov. Files
H.264 codec

Slows down when? When you preview? Do you know how to preview?
If you are pressing the space bar to preview the video then the behavior you are seeing is normal. AE will not playback in real time with autio unless you do a ram preview (look it up). You must learn to use the software.
Start with the three videos on this page: Basic Workflow
Or check out these resources: AE Basics

Slow down and crashing macbook pro

my macbook pro has suddenly been acting erratically, slowing down and occassionally crashing. I ran etrecheck to provide the data and would welcome any insight.
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,2
          1 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2 cores
          8 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 256 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.2 (13C1021) - Uptime: 0 days 6:1:39
Disk Information:
          TOSHIBA MK5055GSXF disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    ]ulia Morrisroe (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.25 GB (294.49 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
USB Information:
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Logitech USB Receiver
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
Thunderbolt Information:
Configuration files:
          /etc/hosts - Count: 1
Gatekeeper:
          Mac App Store and identified developers
Kernel Extensions:
          [kext loaded] com.Perfect.Driver.SystemAudioRecorder (1.0.0 - SDK 10.6) Support
          [not loaded] com.cisco.nke.ipsec (1.0.0) Support
          [kext loaded] com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver (1.0.3 - SDK 10.5) Support
          [not loaded] com.marvell.kext.USBGenericPrinterClass (1.0.0) Support
          [not loaded] com.microsoft.driver.MicrosoftMouse (5.3) Support
          [not loaded] com.sandisk.driver.CruzerDriver (15) Support
          [not loaded] com.wacom.kext.wacomtablet (6.0.5) Support
Startup Items:
          CiscoVPN: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN
Launch Daemons:
          [running] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
          [running] com.autodesk.backburner_manager.plist Support
          [running] com.autodesk.backburner_server.plist Support
          [loaded] com.autodesk.backburner_start.plist Support
          [running] com.cisco.anyconnect.vpnagentd.plist Support
          [loaded] com.cloudpath.maccmd.plist Support
          [failed] com.collobos.fingerprintd.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinblanker.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinserver.plist Support
          [loaded] com.logmein.raupdate.plist Support
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support
          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist
          [loaded] net.cloudpath.HelperTool.plist Support
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support
          [loaded] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist Support
          [loaded] com.cisco.anyconnect.gui.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeingui.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagent.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.logmein.logmeinguiagentatlogin.plist Support
          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support
          [loaded] com.divx.agent.postinstall.plist Support
          [running] com.ecamm.printopia.plist Support
          [loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist Support
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
          [running] com.hp.printerAgent.plist Support
          [running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist Support
          [not loaded] com.victorpimentel.TVShowsHelper.plist Support
User Login Items:
          Dropbox
Internet Plug-ins:
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          RealPlayer Plugin: Version: (null) Support
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 2.0.0.0 - SDK 10.7 Support
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.206 - SDK 10.6 Support
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.06 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20513.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.206 - SDK 10.6 Support
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0 - SDK 10.8
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.0.2 Support
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.06 - SDK 10.6 Support
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Check version
Safari Extensions:
          Awesome Screenshot: Version: 1.3.4
          The New York Times: Version: 0.1
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.26 Support
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Flash Player Support
          Perian Support
          Printopia Support
          TVShows Support
Time Machine:
          Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU:
               4%          Google Chrome
               4%          WindowServer
               2%          coreaudiod
               0%          TextEdit
               0%          fontd
Top Processes by Memory:
          188 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          164 MB          Finder
          164 MB          Google Chrome
          156 MB          mds_stores
          66 MB          Dropbox
Virtual Memory Information:
          4.07 GB          Free RAM
          2.20 GB          Active RAM
          628 MB          Inactive RAM
          1.12 GB          Wired RAM
          1.78 GB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

morrisroe,
were any of the crashes due to GPU panics?
It looks like something has modified your /etc/hosts file — do you know which of your apps has done that?
Did you ensure that all of your installed third-party apps are compatible with Mavericks before upgrading to Mavericks?
Your Silverlight plug-in is out of date; you can download the latest version (5.1.30317.0) from here.

Flash html5 - How can i make an internal movie clip slow down and stop when it get to a certain frame?

I am creating an automotive braking system using flash and have a wheel turning. I want the wheel to slow down and stop after the brake pedal is pushed at a certain frame. I know I could do this with frame by frame animation but was hoping there was a short cut - javascript?? If not the slowing down portion then is there code for just making the internal movie clip (wheel turning) to stop when it gets to a frame.? Thanks

you can use the ticker class to create a loop that you use to control the wheel's rotation or frame, TweenJS v0.6.0 API Documentation : Ticker

Why has my hp deskjet 2050 printer and scanner suddenly slowed down and printing one line at a time

why has my hp deskjet 2050 printer and scanner suddenly slowed down and printing one line at a time

This is usually indicative of a defective print cartridge. Suspect the black is low in ink or defective. Please check all cartridges.
Say thanks by clicking the Kudos Thumbs Up to the right in the post.
If my post resolved your problem, please mark it as an Accepted Solution ...
I worked for HP but now I'm retired!

My computer slows down and hangs after installing oracle 10g

My computer just slows down after installing oracle 10g. I have a pentium 4 3ghz with 512 memory (32 mb used by graphics built in card). It slows down and hanged even if I agjusted the swap memory to 800 mb. I have two swap file/page file - in drive c and drive d. I even cannot shut it down because it takes maybe 30 minutes just to see the "shut-off/log-off" screen.

Before starting up Oracle, when you go to the task manager, how much RAM does it show actually free? 512 MB is pretty small to run Oracle in the first place-- Windows and Office can use a fair chunk of RAM themselves, depending on which Office apps you are running. You may also be suprised by the amount of RAM that a web browser, email client, and the various other apps that folks generally install can use.
Justin
Distributed Database Consulting, Inc.
http://www.ddbcinc.com/askDDBC

[Solved]Computer slow down and freeze during data transfer syncing

Hello,
Everytime I make a data transfer, my computer slow down, and sometimes freeze during a few seconds, work for a fraction of seconds and freeze again. I don"t understand why.
As an example, here is a bench of files i transfered during a syncing with Grsync
It took about 12h to sync 64Gb.
I've read a lot of topics talking about this problem but nothing works. I tried to switch off the SWAP and setting the vm.dirty_ratio and vm.background_dirty_ratio but nothing works.
I'm making the trasfer between two Western Digital USB 2.0 external hard drive in NTFS.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
Thanks in advance
Last edited by Neldar (2015-03-04 15:54:29)

It seems it was beacause one of my external hard drive was about to die. I performed the same operation with 2 Western Digital external hard drive 1To USB3 and it works perfectly.

Hello, I'm pretty sure my fan on my 2009 mac book pro has stopped running. Would this cause the computer to slow down and take for ever to boot up and show the color wheel every time I select an application ?

Hello, I'm pretty sure my fan on my 2009 mac book pro has stopped running. Would this cause the computer to slow down and take for ever to boot up and show the color wheel every time I select an application ? how involved to replace fan ? cost ?
thanks

Not directly, but if the CPU overheats because of incompatible software, that would cause slowdowns. Do not allow the computer to run if the fan is not working unless you wish to fry your motherboard. Please make a Genius Appointment and take it in for service.

Nowadays my iMac likes to slow down and its display suddenly goes black. why do these things happen?

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