Snow Leopard GPU Death?

Hello,
I own a 2008 iMac 24" 3.06ghz(Serial # QP8XXXXXXX) and a 2007 iMac 24" 2.8ghz(Serial # W87XXXXXXXX).
A few weeks after upgrading to Snow Leopard the GPU on the 2008 overheated and died accompanied by the nauseous smell of burning plastic. My local Apple store, ABQ Uptown, has had the machine since the 30th of September. They have informed me that they cannot acquire a new GPU replacement. They have had my 2008 for 12 days without making any progress. They have not presented me with any reasons why the GPU would have died. I do not understand why my GPU would suddenly die. After all, it is only 14 months old.
My 2007 has been overheating as well. If any 3D rendering is attempted on the machine, the GPU core temperature skyrockets to 170F within 5 minutes and after 7-10 minutes the iMac freezes and only comes to life after a hard reset. Scary!
I find it very odd that both of my machines, purchased 1 year apart, are having the same GPU problems at the exact same time. Especially concerning is the timeline between the Snow Leopard upgrade and the GPU deaths.
Just FYI!
Ambient temperature of the office space is maintained at 72 F. The area around and behind the desks have great airflow supplied by a ventilation duct. This should eliminate heat buildup of the environment from the equation.
This seems to be stemming from the Snow Leopard update. Also, why is there a shortage of replacement cards? Why can't an Apple store acquire a replacement?
Please release an update or hardware solution to this problem. I do not want to spend $600 for a new GPU only to have it die 4 weeks later.
Sincerely,
Milo B
PS - Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or ideas on what could be happening. I really want to get down to the bottom of this!

Since the Apple Store already has your iMac for service, you may want to call that AppleCare number anyways, to ask about the long time it is take to affect the repair and what can be done about it.
Finding out if other users have the same problem will not help you expedite repair on your iMac. You need to contact an Apple employee. If the employee at the Apple Store are not giving satisfactory service, you need to take it to the corporate support level (or maybe ask for the store manager).

Similar Messages

Snow Leopard Freezing showing GPU Debug in Console

I recently updated my iMac from Leopard to Snow Leopard and it began to freeze. I have reset PRAM, SMC, fixed the fonts and looked for anything suspicious in the console. When it freezes there is no obvious crash. It freezes in Safari, Finder and even in Console. The mouse moves, but I cannot do anything. Last freeze shows the time machine icon in mid spin. Console reports npvhash=4095 then GPU Debug info start and hundreds of lines of information. I had this happen on an older machine and the video card was failing.
There is so much chatter about this being related to Snow Leopard, I am wondering if I upgrade to Lion it will all go away?!?
How can I tell if indeed the video card is bad? It is out of warranty and I would like to do as much trouble shooting on my own as I can before, I take it in.
We did not see quite the same behavior in Leopard. Just endless beachball spinning and a few forced restarts. I figured a good clean out of caches, etc would solve the problem along with an OS update.
Thanks for any help and advice in advance,
Debbie

singerdf wrote:
I need to know more about what Safe Mode suggests when things no longer freeze there. I understand only apple stuff is on and only the minimal amount.
This is what Safe Mode is.
In particular what let your computer run normally in this situation is that many of the kernel extensions (aka drivers) are not loaded.
That also means that your Mac is not running at its best performances.
The good news is that at least runs.
I don't know how much this can help in determine the culprit, but have you run Apple Hardware Test?
The first Mac OS X Install Disc that came with your iMac, also contains the Apple diagnostic.
Insert the disc. Turn on the computer, and press D until the diags starts. Follow the on screen instructions to run the tests.
A brief note before ending this post.
Yesterday evening I was watching a streaming video in Google Chrome. When I installed Lion, I purposely didn't install Adobe Flash Player. So I use Google Chrome that has Flash Player incorporated inside the program itself to display internet sites with Flash contents.
After about twenty minutes the screen freezed. The mouse cursor turned into the "spinning beachball of death". The audio continued to play normally.
The /var/log/kernel.log file, uncovered the usual bunch of lines relating to the GPU
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: ** GPU Debug Info Start **
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x000094c8
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x000000d6
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x00000001
Dec 7 21:22:27 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x00000018
Dec 7 21:22:46 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x00000000
Dec 7 21:22:46 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0xc0016900
Dec 7 21:22:46 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: 0x0000008f
Dec 7 21:22:46 rfc-1918 kernel[0]: ** GPU Debug Info End **
About your question, "What I am going to do".
Well. As I wrote, this issue is not so frequent in my case. Also I planned to buy a new iMac next year around march.
But I sincerely hope next Lion update (10.7.3) could patch this misbehaver.

I upgraded my imac to snow leopard and now every time I click the mouse I get the spinning wheel of death

One morning a week ago I got the "White Screen Of Death" and my desktop imac wouldn't load so mac support told me I had to erase my history and upload imac again. We went through every senario to get it to work to no avai. I had a snow leopard disc so I uploaded that as well. In the last few days I click on my mouse and I get the "Spinning Ball Of Death" most every time I click. It lasts for about 5 - 20 seconds every time. I am not a "techie" at all. Is there any way to stop this. I am not sure what could be causing this. I erased my browers cache on Safari and that didn't help. I also turned the comp. off then back on and that didn't work either. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Step by step how to's? I am not totally ignorant in computer speak but not an expert by any means. Thanks!

Greetings,
What do you mean by "events to update"? Do you mean invites to new events or changes to existing invites?
Troubleshooting:
1. Your profile indicates you are running 10.6.7, 10.6.8 is the current version Apple > Software update.
2. First make an iCal backup: Click on each calendar on the left hand side of iCal 1 at a time highlighting it's name and then going to File Export > Export and saving the resulting calendar file to a logical location for safekeeping.
3. Remove the following to the trash and restart your computer:
Home > Library > Caches > com.apple.ical
Home > Library > Calendars > Calendar Cache, Cache, Cache 1, 2, 3, etc. (Do not remove Sync Cache or Theme Cache if present)
Home > Library > Preferences > com.apple.ical (There may be more than one of these. Remove them all.)
---NOTE: Removing these files may remove any shared (CalDAV) calendars you may have access to. You will have to re-add those calendars to iCal > Preferences > Accounts.
3. Launch iCal and test.
Hope that helps!

10.6.2 Died - Blue screen of death for Snow Leopard?

OK. I upgraded Tiger via the SL Boxed Set yesterday. The install went pretty flawless - no hiccups or issues at all. It is a clean install. I had cloned Tiger to an external USB drive - that's why I'm able to type this message now. I upgraded to 10.6.2 this morning and still everything seemed fine.
I had the migration pretty much complete. I was getting used to some of the new features, I had moved/installed everything, etc. I have played games, used mail, internet, photo software, etc. with no problems. Today while using the computer, I noticed I would attempt to start a program, but the icon would just bounce in the dock and would not open. The programs that were already open were working fine - Safari, Apple Mail, and Google SketchUp. So, I finished up what I was doing and restarted my computer. That restart was the last time I ever saw the 10.6.2 desktop.
Upon reboot, I get the Apple logo with gray screen, then the blue screen, then it freezes. I disconnected all connected devices (USB/Firewire, etc.) and unplugged for 30 minutes - no luck. Booted from the SL CD and ran Disk Utility. Disk Utility found no errors and said all was great! I verified the disk and repaired it even though it said it didn't need it. Still no luck. Just the blue screen of death.
Any ideas where to go from here? I can boot via my USB external drive with 10.4.11, but that doesn't really correlate to my problem. I REALLY don't want to have to reinstall everything all over again - it took me ALL DAY to get it all moved over and I still have some to do. Thanks for any tips or tricks.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM51.0090.B09
SMC Version: 1.9f4

moze229 wrote:
I suppose the new install just wrote over all the files, and it appears to have left all of my settings in tact. Now, if I just knew which one or few files was the problem, I'd be really satisfied.
It might help to understand that the procedure affects primarily OS files, for instance by replacing the existing copies of the binaries the OS contains with fresh ones from the installer disc. It does not affect user created files & settings at all, except possibly for some system-wide settings that might have become corrupt. It won't affect third party items either, except that it may move a few of them known to be incompatible with Snow Leopard in a root level "Incompatible Software" folder, as explained in Mac OS X v10.6: About incompatible software.
So, the most likely cause of your problem was a damaged or missing OS domain file that the installer replaced. How the file got damaged or which one(s) were involved is hard to say. Some third party software can do this, especially hacks & so-called system enhancements that ignore Apple's Developer Guidelines for appropriate entry points into the OS. Improper shutdown, like from a sudden loss of power, can sometimes do it. User error may be involved, especially if you use the Terminal to modify system files & settings or otherwise make changes to the root level folders normally managed by the OS (/System, /Library, & the ones not normally visible from the Finder).

OS X Snow Leopard to Lion GPU question

I recently updated my OS from Snow Leopard to Lion and my PCs preformance has suffered in Video Games like Diablo III and Eve Online. I have a mid 2010 Intel i7 2.66 GHz 4GB RAM. Did the OS upgrade render my GPU incompatable? There isn't a driver download on the NVIDIA site for 330mGT that is compatable with OS X Lion. Should I "downgrade" to Lion. Or is there a way to utilize the GPU? Or am I just paranoid? Any thoughts or advice? Thank you!

I seem to have fixed the FPS and preformance problems by downloading the Gfxcard utility. Seems Lion likes to switch between HD and NVD330m. If there are any other ways to improve preformance please list them.

I cannot upgrade my iMac 2009 to snow leopard (it was deleted by mistake) now is running 10.5.8, the snow leopard dvd is not installing and the computer keeps crashing..If anyone have an answer, PLEASE Help me.

I have a 2009 iMac 4,1 2GHz intel Core duo it says here I have 1GB of memory. I had it running on snow leopard 10.6.8 I still have the SN software that i bought to made the upgrade. Had some guest staying at my place and they deleted the running os and a lot of files and stuff..., now is running on leopard 10.5.8 and it's giving me a lot of problems because is soo obsolete, also hte computer is crashing all the time and every time I try ti install the SL dvd, the computer won't read the dvd and I'm keeps booting me off. Is not getting better at all and now when I restart the iMac before I get the grey apple screen, the folder of death icon flashes, (I already lost my Macbookpro due this situation. What can I do to resolve this aggravating and frustrating Issue. Need help now ..Please

Before we get too far, please clarify this part:
I have a 2009 iMac 4,1
A 2009 iMac cannot be an iMac 4,1; they are 9,1 and higher. Did you mean to type "2006?" That would be an iMac 4,1. We need to pin down the model issue before proceeding.
It could be the drive, not the disk, that is dirty. Try a drive cleaning disk, usually about US$5-15 at home entertainment, electronics stores and office superstores

Time Machine to Snow Leopard not working

Ok, so this issue appears to be multi-faceted so please bear with me as I try to fully explain what's happening.
I have a mid-2009 Macbook Pro with OSX 10.6.8, and I decided to give Yosemite a try since it was free. Before upgrading, I did a Time Machine backup on an external 500GB WD drive in case I wanted to switch back to Snow Leopard.
I did the upgrade, but wasn't very pleased with the results. Seeing as how the computer was older I figured it would slow down a touch, but what broke the deal was when I tried to run After Effects and had plugins - that never gave me trouble before - crashing. I decided to restore from Time Machine and rebooted into Recovery Mode. However, by accident I selected the External Drive with the backups as my boot disk. I quickly rebooted AGAIN and selected the Recovery drive, but the TM drive wasn't showing up when I tried to access it for the backup.
I rebooted back to Yosemite and found that the drive was not mounting despite lighting up and making spinny sounds. Disk Utility could see it but was unable to repair, so I used DiskWarrior instead. Everything seemed to work out ok and the drive was reading on my desktop as a TM backup. I rebooted AGAIN to recovery mode, selected the appropriate backup, and let the computer do it's work overnight.
When I woke up in the morning and checked in on it, I got an error message saying that the restoration had FAILED at some point along the way. I tried to reboot normally, but the grey screen of death would appear after a few seconds and I'd have to shut down.
I went back to Recovery mode, tried to access the TM drive, but once again it was not showing up! So I reinstalled Yosemite and was able to login to my desktop. The TM drive was still showing up, and according to a reinstalled DiskWarrior the drive was fine. I rebooted in Recovery, selected the TM backup, and it only took about 20 minutes before the restoration failed! This time the computer appeared to be wiped clean, with no OS.
Fortunately I still had my Snow Leopard install DVD, so I managed to reinstall it from there. However, now I CANNOT login. My username shows up but the password I've used for FOUR YEARS is constantly rejected. I can't even login to the GUEST account!
If you've made it this far, PLEASE HELP!!!!

Pondini - I have an issue too. And so I went to the troubleshooting tips you listed here and was not able to find a solution. Specifically, I don't get a message. I plain ole don't get nothing. After I installed Snow my first backup failed. Funny thing is the backup on my wifes computer also failed. She does not have an Intel Mac. It's a PowerBook G4. Hence no Snow Leopard there. I have a iMac 24 Aluminum. My Time Capsule backup worked fine until Snow. My TC is wired via ethernet. There is no latest date. When Time Machine backup starts the TM preference pane says it's "Making disk available" Something to that effect. And that's where it stays. If I then try to do anything with the preference panel - like close it - I find out the Preferences are not responding. So I force quit. I try to stop Time Machine backups and it's no good. The TM indicator - that little backwards running clock - in the menu bar just keeps on it's merry little way. The only way to stop it - shutdown. Strange thing is shutdown then refuses to - well, shutdown. I end up having to hold the power button for 5 seconds. I don't get error messages. I get nothing indicating what may be causing this problem. I have been searching these and other forums looking for an answer. I had hoped the user tips you listed would have a solution, but, alas, no. I deleted the timemachine plist in the "higher" library. No luck. I have powered down everything. No luck. Those were two ideas I saw that said they worked. So where do I go from here? Where do I look for error messages that will point me in the right direction? I'd appreciate any help from anybody.

Is there a way to boost Safari? Snow Leopard 10.6.8, Safari 5.1.7 is very slow, almost dead. Thank you.

Is there a way to boost Safari? I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.8, Safari 5.1.7 which has become very slow, almost dead. Many thanks!

If Safari is getting very slow:
(Presumably you regularly empty your Safari cache by deleting the following file:
Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/cache.db
and clear your History)
Adding Open DNS codes to your Network Preferences, should give good results in terms of speed-up as well as added security, (including anti-phishing and redirects) (Full information about Open DNS is here: http://www.opendns.com/home/nobloat ) and further independent information can be read here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57338784-263/free-dnscrypt-tool-enhances-ma c-web-security/?tag=mncol;txt
and here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1146064/troubleshootdns.html?t=234
If you are using a single computer: Open System Preferences/Network. Double click on your connection type, or select it in the drop-down menu, and in the box marked 'DNS Servers' add the following two numbers:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
(You can also enter them if you click on Advanced and then DNS)
Sometimes reversing the order of the DNS numbers can be beneficial in cases where there is a long delay before web pages start to load, and then suddenly load at normal speed:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2296
If your computer is part of a network:please refer to this page: http://www.opendns.com/start/best_practices/#your_network and follow the advice given.
If you use a Router, make sure it has the latest firmware installed.
One reason for a slowness in page loading may be the 'DNS Pre-fetching' feature of Safari 5.x as is described here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3408?viewlocale=en_US
You can cancel DNS pre-fetching by going to Terminal and typing:
defaults write com.apple.safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled -boolean false
You have to restart Safari for it to take effect.
If Safari seems to hang for ages:
If you have a lot of tabs open and/or a lot of pages running Flash, Safari can sometimes 'hang', requiring a restart of Safari. This can often be inconvenient, and as it is rarely Safari itself that is hanging but merely one of its plug-ins, usually Flash, there is a way using Terminal to restart the plug-ins (without restarting Safari and losing your tabs) by quitting the WebPluginHost process:
Open the Terminal from the Utilities folder in /Applications and type
killall -9 WebKitPluginHost
Note that this command kills all Safari plug-ins, not just Flash. All plug-ins should start back up when you reload the page.
Then go back to Safari and refresh any pages that were using the Flash plug-in. This also fixes the Beachball of Death. Try this whenever Safari gets slow or freezes. The later versions of Flash 10.1 onwards appear to have improved the situation somewhat, but haven't completed eliminated it.
For this and other reasons Apple switched their websites to HTML5 in January 2011:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/26/apple_revamps_its_public_website_u sing_html5.html
For Snow Leopard/Lion users this should also be read:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3408

Is there a way to down grade my Mac Pro 5,1 firmware so it will run Snow Leopard?

If so will it still run Lion?    I believe this machine is the same hardware that ran Snow Leopard 6 months ago.   Brand new Mac Pro 5,1 two months old.

HURRAY!!! Houston we have Snow Leopard!!
FatMac your post of the firmware data got me digging deeper....   To sum-up
Prior to the death of the old Mac Pro1,1. I was in the process of re-building my emergency boot disks.
As a result my Snow Leopard Emergency Boot Disk (SL EBD) was a fresh 10.6 install.
The old MacPro died before I was able to update the SL EBD to 10.6.8. This I of course forgot.
The new MacPro would not boot from the old MacPro hard drive (10.6.8). (It must have gotten taken out in the crash). And obviously would not boot off of the SL EBD.
Initially Apple told me that the new MacPro would run SL. But later conversations with tech support emphasized that it would not and it was standard practice to not make new machines backward compatible.
I assumed I was done-for.
Thanks to FatMac's firmware info, I investigated deeper and found my SL EBD was only 10.6.
The 10.6.8 combo updater will not run from Lion.
Now if I could somehow boot into Snow Leopard so I could do an update.
I stumbled across a Carbon Copy Clone sparse image of my old MacPro 10.6.8 start-up disk that I had made DAYS before the crash and burn of the old MacPro.   (Am I lucky or what?)
CCC'd the old sparse image on to a spare hard drive, restarted & Bingo! I was running Snow Leopard!
Ran the 10.6.8 combo udater and updated my Clean Snow Leopard install.   Now I have a virgin copy of Snow Leopard to boot from.
I guess I can toss out my Leopard 10.5.6 Boot disk.
Now I need to make a sparse image of the virgin Snow Leopard boot disk so I can re-install it at anytime in the future.
Anyone know how to burn an 8 Gig sparse image onto to several DVD's for archiving?
FatMac, the screen capture was the old fashoned way... I pointed a camera at it.
Thanks to everyone for their contributions.
Today was a good day!!!

Tons of problems with Snow Leopard

Made this post over at my blog but I figure this would be a better forum for it in hopes we can get some of these issues resolved... it seems like Apple has pulled a Microsoft and released what appears to be a beta version of Snow Leopard! Inexcusable bugs are appearing left and right, and the supposed "improvements" have actually hindered my computer performance and productivity...
This really surprised me. After years of releasing amazing OS upgrades that seemed to make the best OS even better, it seems like Apple has taken 2 steps back with Snow Leopard. I can't tell you how upset I was to realize I was experiencing many problems that I previously only saw on PCs.
After one of the many bugs popped up again on my computer, I got frustrated and started combing the internets for a list of known bugs in the OS and the inevitable slew of Apple users registering their disgust. Unfortunately, my search didn't turn up anything but positive reviews of the OS and very limited complaints on a few message boards. To this end, I'm posting this entry to try and help other users who are experiencing similar issues and hopefully get Apple to clean up this mess of an OS.
Below I've created (and will be adding to) a list of problems I've experienced in OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. I encourage everyone to list your Snow Leopard issues in the comments as well, in hopes we can create a master list of problems.
I am using a 2 GHz Black MacBook (Core 2 Duo) with 2GB of RAM. Keep in mind Leopard (OS 10.5) was running flawlessly on this more than capable machine. I am currently running the latest Snow Leopard build, 10.6.1. I upgraded 10.5 with the retail version of Snow Leopard, integrating my current apps into 10.6 (did not do a clean install). I've organized my issues below by application. This post is less about third-party applications and more about Apple apps/built-in OS features, as Apple is fully accountable for these pieces.
APPLE APPS
Airport:
• Airport is now incredibly slow getting past the "searching" status message and into what was known as "scanning" status in 10.5 (now called "Looking For Networks…" status message). This issue occurs most often when I revive the computer from sleep. I have to turn Airport off and on again, then wait an inordinate amount of time to get past the useless "Searching…" message.
Volume and Sound:
• I rely on my volume control icon on the toolbar. I change my system volume dozens of times every day (due to my job)... previously, I could click the volume icon then simply roll the scroll wheel on my two-button mouse to adjust the volume. Now, I have to actually move my mouse down onto the volume slider area before my scroll wheel works! What gives? In allowing the user to fine-tune the volume levels, Apple removed this functionality for some reason? This is a real pain for me as the extra second it takes to do this really adds up by the end of the day.
• Sound now starts stuttering for no reason? When I wake my computer up from sleep and I have headphones or speaker plugged in, the audio stutters greatly. I have to unplug then re-plug my speakers or headphones to fix the issue! This is a problem I saw on many PCs due to sound cards not playing with Windows nicely, but was NEVER an issue I experienced using OS X.
• The Mac OS startup chime plays on my MacBook external speaker when I startup, even though I have speakers or headphones plugged in! It also does not matter if I had my system volume on mute when restarting • the OS seems to now decide what volume my system should be at when I start up!
Safari:
• Defaults to 64-bit mode silently, and this breaks most plug-ins (my issue was with download manager iGetter, specifically). I had to manually Get Info on the app, then switch back to 32-bit mode, which it seems Apple has not designed Snow Leopard to support properly?
• Freezes and crashes more often, most often when running Flash video. This occurs when I open multiple videos on YouTube, for example.
• Hogging memory even more than it used to (1GB of RAM to run the app?? Really?)
Stacks:
• Apple seems to have completely removed the functionality or sortable sub-folder listings? For example, if I choose to sort my stack by "Date Modified", the initial list of folders in the stack appear by date, but all my sub-folders appear in Alpha order, and there is no way to change this! Come on Apple, why remove this?
iPhoto:
• Freezes completely when I go to "Export…". My Export opens on the Facebook tab of the dialogue box, and it seems the issue occurs when iPhoto can't find the source image. Rather than an error message though, I get the color wheel of death.
Spotlight/Search:
• When I search from a Finder window, sometimes I get the new feature of sortable results columns to work, but sometimes I don't. Seems arbitrary when it works and when it doesn't.
System Preferences:
• More of an annoyance, System Preferences now has to restart the first time I click on any third-party preference in "Other". Some work, most don't.
Install:
• In previous OS X upgrades, Apple gave me the option to "Backup and Install". This option was not present on Snow Leopard, so not sure what a user can d if they do not have a Time Machine backup and their install fails.
Preview:
• Preview slows down considerably when opening multiple files.
THIRD-PARTY APPS
Entourage:
• Entourage froze up when I tried to simply delete one of my email accounts. The Accounts window went blank and the application froze.
CS3:
• Slower than ever, Photoshop is running at a snail's pace.
I hope everyone can contribute to this string and get Apple to fix these problems.

I can address some of these:
Safari defaults to 64-bit mode silently, and this breaks most plug-ins (my issue was with download manager iGetter, specifically). I had to manually Get Info on the app, then switch back to 32-bit mode, which it seems Apple has not designed Snow Leopard to support properly?
All applications, to the best of my knowledge, will run in 64-bit if they include 64-bit code. With most you'll never notice, but if an application supports plugins, then you have to pay attention to whether the plug-in is available in a 64-bit version. More and more are becoming available, but not all. If you have plug-ins that aren't, you need to set the app - Safari or whatever - to 32-bit mode. This is not a bug; it's necessitated by the conversion to full-time 64-bit support. The developer of iGetter claims that an update for compatibility with Safari in 64-bit mode is under development but no time frame has been given.
Snow Leopard is perfectly capable of running 32-bit apps. You just can't mix them, running a 32-bit plugin in a 64-bit app.
Freezes and crashes more often, most often when running Flash video. This occurs when I open multiple videos on YouTube, for example.
Have you installed the latest version of Flash? Flash is almost always a bit problematical, but I've had no problems running Flash content on any site with SL.
Hogging memory even more than it used to (1GB of RAM to run the app?? Really?)
This may just be an issue of not being clear on how Mac OS X allocates memory. This article may provide some insight:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342
More of an annoyance, System Preferences now has to restart the first time I click on any third-party preference in "Other". Some work, most don't.
This is normal if a preference pane has not been provided in a 64-bit version.
In previous OS X upgrades, Apple gave me the option to "Backup and Install". This option was not present on Snow Leopard
Actually it was called "archive and install" and was removed as an option as no longer necessary. The normal installation creates all necessary new files and more robustly replaces old ones, so having an archive of the old system folder was deemed to no longer be needed.
so not sure what a user can d if they do not have a Time Machine backup and their install fails.
To restore completely from a full Time Machine backup, you erase the disk using Disk Utility from the menu in the Installer, then choose to restore from a TM backup.
Preview slows down considerably when opening multiple files.
Seems to work OK for me. I've had as many as twenty open with no noticeable slowdown. But you may be opening much larger documents than I have.
Entourage froze up when I tried to simply delete one of my email accounts. The Accounts window went blank and the application froze.
Impossible to offer any advice here without knowing what version of Entourage you're using, whether it's been fully updated, and what type of email account this was.
Regards.

How can I keep my MacBook safe is Apple is no longer supporting Snow Leopard? My MacBook was purchased in 2006 and cannot be upgraded to the newer operating systems.

I have a MacBook which I purchased in 2006. It cannot upgrade to newer operating systems.Since Apple has stopped support to Snow Leopard, how can I keep my MacBook safe? Buying another computer is not an option. Any ideas or suggestions? Many thanks.

Klaus1 wrote:
Apple still sell, and therefore support, Snow Leopard.
For what it's worth, from my reading of the Snow Leopard EULA (and I would assume that there is similar language in the EULAs for all other operating systems, as well), I'm not seeing any obligation on the part of Apple to provide Security Updates of any kind, period/full stop. The wording appears to be completely "use at your own risk." I have no idea whether this "use at your own risk" would survive a legal challenge, or if such a legal challenge would depend on whether or not Apple is still selling (or even giving away for free) an OS, or whether local law would, according to this, override the EULA. Perhaps this is why Apple never formally announces EOL or discontinuance of support for an OS. They can always claim that they are still supporting an OS, whether or not in any practical sense, they are. There was even a very late Flashback detection and removal script which Apple issued for 10.5 well after it was clear that they had stopped supporting Leopard. This hardly constituted ongoing support, but perhaps it was to deter the threat of legal action, or maybe it was simply out of benevolence. I don't know.
Besides that, even when Apple was still actively "supporting" Snow Leopard, which I don't think it is any longer, "use at your own risk" would still have applied to a case where Apple may have been late with a patch, or a response, or an adequate response, to a zero-day threat, such as Flashback was, which was constantly evolving. Many thousands were affected by that, and, to my knowledge, at least, there was no legal action directed at Apple throughout or after that episode. If there was any, I don't think it succeeded.
7. Disclaimer of Warranties. YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, USE OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND ANY SERVICES PERFORMED BY OR THROUGH THE APPLE SOFTWARE (COLLECTIVELY “SERVICES”) IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”, WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND APPLE AND APPLE'S LICENSORS (COLLECTIVELY REFERRED TO AS “APPLE” FOR THE PURPOSES OF SECTIONS 7 and 8) HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND/OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY, OF QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. APPLE DOES NOT WARRANT AGAINST INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES, THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN, OR SERVICES PERFORMED OR PROVIDED BY, THE APPLE SOFTWARE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, THAT THE OPERATION OF THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT ANY SERVICES WILL CONTINUE TO BE MADE AVAILABLE, THAT THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES WILL BE COMPATIBLE OR WORK WITH ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, APPLICATIONS OR THIRD PARTY SERVICES, OR THAT DEFECTS IN THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES WILL BE CORRECTED. INSTALLATION OF THIS SOFTWARE MAY AFFECT THE USABILITY OF THIRD PARTY
SOFTWARE, APPLICATIONS OR THIRD PARTY SERVICES. YOU FURTHER ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE NOT INTENDED OR SUITABLE FOR USE IN SITUATIONS OR ENVIRONMENTS WHERE THE FAILURE OR TIME DELAYS OF, OR ERRORS OR INACCURACIES IN THE CONTENT, DATA OR INFORMATION PROVIDED BY, THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES COULD LEAD TO DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY, OR SEVERE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION OR COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, LIFE SUPPORT OR WEAPONS SYSTEMS. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN BY APPLE OR AN APPLE AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY. SHOULD THE APPLE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR LIMITATIONS ON APPLICABLE STATUTORY RIGHTS OF A CONSUMER, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION AND LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
8. Limitation of Liability. TO THE EXTENT NOT PROHIBITED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL APPLE BE LIABLE FOR PERSONAL INJURY, OR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE APPLE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES OR ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE OR APPLICATIONS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE APPLE SOFTWARE, HOWEVER CAUSED, REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) AND EVEN IF APPLE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR PERSONAL INJURY, OR OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. In no event shall Apple's total liability to you for all damages (other than as may be required by applicable law in cases involving personal injury) exceed the amount of fifty dollars ($50.00). The foregoing limitations will apply even if the above stated remedy fails of its essential purpose.
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/osx_snow_leopard_sec_upd.pdf

Install Disk for Snow Leopard will not boot on an iMac 27in

My Install Disk for Snow Leopard will not boot on my iMac 27in. The Apple Logo is the only thing the user will see. The current OS on the system is 10.6.6. Upon placing the Snow Leopard DVD in the system, the DVD players spins for a few seconds and displays the Apple Logo. Nothing happens after 20 minutes.

Yes, it is ridiculous how it is impossible to install Snow Leopard. I have two Snow Leopard DVDs: one that I purchased for a Macbook soon after it's release (10.6.0), and one that came with my iMac (10.6.4). Both of these boot up my Macbook (running 10.6.7) just fine. My SL 10.6.0 DVD mounts onto my iMac (Lion 10.7.0), but you cannot run the install. I attempted to boot from this DVD and got the infinite white screen and Apple logo, as some have reported above. The other SL 10.6.4 DVD will not even mount in Lion, and will not even show up as a bootable drive when I attempt to select it after holding alt/option on reboot.
I created a bootable external drive from SL 10.6.0, attempted boot, same infinite white screen/apple logo.
I created a bootable external drive from SL 10.6.4 on my macbook. I attempted to boot from this drive, and got the white screen of death, except that this time I actually got the loading symbol underneath the Apple logo. After about a minute of attempting to boot, the Apple logo changed to a circle with a diagonal line through it (the "NO!" sign).
I took my iMac to the genius bar. They inserted SL 10.6.0, which would not boot. Then they determined that my computer had to run 10.6.4 and later. So, they restored an image of SL 10.6.4 onto my partition (not an install from an image, but an image of SL already installed). Hurray! Snow Leopard was successfully shoved onto my iMac!
I then deleted a third partition on my hard drive I did not need anymore, which somehow screwed up my SL partition (even though it said "Will not erase partition SL or Macintosh HD). Now I am back at square one, and I guess I need to take my flippin iMac back to Apple for them to do what I should be able to do.
I like Apple, but sheesh do I hate Lion right now.

I have a Black Macbook 4,1, penryn 2.4GHz, snow leopard 10.6.7 with 8GB Ram

Yes 8GB Ram. It all goes great until it enters in screensaver or sleep mode (i can't detect) or else i try to run some virtual machines (it doesn't matter if it's virtualbox, fusion or paralles). The van start get all crazy like the computer it's about to lift off and them the operating system freezes. How i resolve this? I know that it's related to the RAM but i would like to know why. Why the system recognizes the RAM and boots and works with it and them "oh my god i have 8GB.No way.Let do something to freeze up! Hammer time! Can't touch this!"
Another note. A friend of mine who is a developer as Mac OS X Lion on a external disk and we boot my macbook with. So far so good, nothing to report, but i didn't try yet with virtual machines. I need some kind of tool or expertie to analize my problem can somebody help me?

My apologies for forgeting to tell this part of my experiences. It all started in Mac OS X Leopard with 2GB and this is the evolution until now:
.Mac OS X Leopard - RAM:2GB
.Mac OS X Leopard - RAM:4GB
.Mac OS X Snow Leopard - RAM:4GB
.Mac OS X Snow Leopard - RAM:6GB (4GB + 2GB)
so far, so good, with 1 hdd, with 2 hdd, with RAID0 stripe, with RAID0 stripe + USB boot, with RAID0 stripe + Firewire boot, you named i tried it. Them the ultimate upgrade:
.Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.5 - RAM:8GB (4GB + 4GB) After an undetermined time "Oh dam!!!Ups there it go!!"
.Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 - RAM:8GB (4GB + 4GB) "Hummm!!!So far so good!!" - what changed?
.Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.7 - RAM:8GB (4GB + 4GB) "Hummm!!!So far so good!!...and ... little dam!!!" - what changed?
And them ladies and gentlemen the King of the Jungle:
.Mac OS X Lion Dev Prev 2 booting from firewire - RAM:8GB (4GB + 4GB) - life is good. What changed?
See, my point! I know something is fishy around here! I know that some configuration are theoretical not supported, but i want to find out why.
JoeyR says is the hardware, but wich piece? The graphics? And even so it's not the function os the bios/efi to allocate the memory to the hardware? Does the hardware has some limitation to access more memory than 6GB? Why is that? Isn't the bus of my computer a 64 bit like the CPU? Even if it is 32 bit the limit would be 4GB (2^32). How it can access 6GB and does complain?
Just to remenber i have a Macbook Black verson 4,1, CPU Penryn T8300 (Dual 2 Core) 2.4GHz with a GPU Intel X3100 (which *****!).
Now, with all that can somebody tell me of a tool or method that i can use to analize this stuff and find it out who provokes the crash/freeze/"oh dam!"?

Snow Leopard 64 bit kernel on Mac Pro - Personal Experience.

Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to install Snow Leopard on clean external USB drive (this is a rather slow drive, I believe it is only 4500 RPM), but good enough to test things out.
I formatted the drive before installation in Leopard (HFS+ Journaled, GUID partition), booted off the install DVD and proceeded to install on this external disk. Installation took about 50 min (this is not upgrade but clean install).
After the install was finished, I manually copied over some applications from my Leopard install (together with their application settings and preferences files in ~/Library and /Library). All of them functioned properly.
I am happy to report that Photoshop CS4, Nikon Capture NX 1.3, Sling Player, MacVIm (without ATSUI text renderer), iDefrag, Toast Titanium 9, Transmission etc all worked with no issues.
The color profile for my 30'' ACD screen looked a little too bright and less contrasty (this is gamma 2.2 profile I created for Leopard some time ago), but it is rendered differently in Snow Leopard. Which brings me to another point. My ancient Monaco Optix XR screen calibration software (with USB spectrometer) works with Snow Leopard as well. It does require Rosetta though.
Next thing I tried booting in 64 bit kernel. That worked fine, but now I wanted to add my printers. HP LaserJet 1300 was recognized instantly and added for me, so I guess Apple already provides 64 bit driver for it.
Next is the Epson Stylus Photo R2880. It was recognized (as in type and model) but no driver was available for it. However, Epson has just recently released the driver for it. The question was is it 64 bit as well. As it turns out the installer for the drive requires Rosetta, which wasn't very encouraging, but once installed the driver works just fine with 64 bit kernel. So I guess they do provide 64 bit driver as well.
As a final step I did X bench performance comparison:
This is the result for Snow Leopard
Results 209.29
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6 (10A432)
Physical RAM 32768 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WD 5000BEV External
CPU Test 199.19
GCD Loop 329.53 17.37 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 159.06 3.78 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 131.91 4.35 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 314.56 54.78 Mops/sec
Thread Test 841.97
Computation 1155.73 23.41 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 662.20 28.49 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 213.36
System 336.79
Allocate 606.04 2.23 Malloc/sec
Fill 247.60 12038.67 MB/sec
Copy 310.68 6416.90 MB/sec
Stream 156.13
Copy 157.24 3247.78 MB/sec
Scale 157.88 3261.67 MB/sec
Add 155.20 3306.02 MB/sec
Triad 154.28 3300.33 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 216.11
Line 192.80 12.84 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 237.36 70.87 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 204.41 16.66 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 229.12 5.78 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 223.22 13.96 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 96.71
Spinning Squares 96.71 122.69 frames/sec
User Interface Test 356.31
Elements 356.31 1.64 Krefresh/sec
And here is the equivalent test for Leopard 10.5.8
Results 252.74
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.8 (9L30)
Physical RAM 32768 MB
Model MacPro3,1
Drive Type WDC WD3200AAJS-41VWA0
CPU Test 190.72
GCD Loop 327.96 17.29 Mops/sec
Floating Point Basic 160.63 3.82 Gflop/sec
vecLib FFT 134.16 4.43 Gflop/sec
Floating Point Library 235.57 41.02 Mops/sec
Thread Test 830.59
Computation 1124.19 22.77 Mops/sec, 4 threads
Lock Contention 658.59 28.33 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads
Memory Test 202.30
System 284.32
Allocate 314.73 1.16 Malloc/sec
Fill 243.49 11838.90 MB/sec
Copy 306.07 6321.67 MB/sec
Stream 157.00
Copy 160.48 3314.67 MB/sec
Scale 157.71 3258.27 MB/sec
Add 155.89 3320.85 MB/sec
Triad 154.07 3296.01 MB/sec
Quartz Graphics Test 243.39
Line 219.20 14.59 Klines/sec [50% alpha]
Rectangle 295.86 88.33 Krects/sec [50% alpha]
Circle 240.56 19.61 Kcircles/sec [50% alpha]
Bezier 235.66 5.94 Kbeziers/sec [50% alpha]
Text 238.06 14.89 Kchars/sec
OpenGL Graphics Test 185.37
Spinning Squares 185.37 235.15 frames/sec
User Interface Test 351.35
Elements 351.35 1.61 Krefresh/sec
As you can see the overall system performance has degraded quite a bit. Snow Leopard performance is only about 82% of Leopard performance.
Close inspection shows that some things are actually faster in Snow Leopard, e.g. CPU has higher score, Thread test has higher score, Memory test is faster. However, quartz test is slower, and Open GL text test is 2 times slower.
This is quite a degradation in performance, and I'm hoping it will be addressed in GPU driver upgrades.
Also, I also noted the dreaded choppy animations, esp for dashboard, which is so choppy it is embarrassing. Like I said, this will probably go away with better driver.
I hope someone else finds this useful.

I plugged the external drive with Snow Leopard (it's set to always boot in 64 bit kernel), and booted up iMac with it. It started fine, but it decided to use 32 bit kernel anyway. This is iMac version 7.1 with 64 bit EFI and 4 GB of RAM. It should technically be possible to boot 64 bit kernel, but doesn't work. I won't even try my Aluminum Macbook .

Problem after upgrading to Snow Leopard from Tiger

Hello all!
I have an old macbook pro 15" purchased on 2007. It's model is macbookpro3,1 and it runs Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11. Recently I upgrade the system to Snow Leopard. Everything seems to be fine except the laptop runs much hotter.
At first I don't know why but then I found out that on the Energy Saver menu, there is no options to select between the intel onboard graphics card and nVidia 8600M GT. And it seems the system selects the 8600M GT as the default card, therefore my GPU temperature is always about 60 Celsius degree.
Another problem is the Airport card is also hot, it's always about 60C degree (according to iStat Pro)
So anybody has same problem with me? It'd be great if you could help me figuring out these issues.
Thanks a lot!!!

TonyHeli wrote:
At first I don't know why but then I found out that on the Energy Saver menu, there is no options to select between the intel onboard graphics card and nVidia 8600M GT.
Are you sure there is an Intel onboard graphics processor in your MacBook Pro? AFAIK, Mac laptops do not have multiple graphics processors -- MBP's have a single fairly powerful one with dedicated video memory & regular MacBooks have only a somewhat less powerful one that use shared system memory.
For example, the MacBook Pro (Mid 2007, 2.4/2.2GHz) Technical Specifications make no mention of an Intel GPU.

Snow Leopard GPU Death?

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