To cut a long story that I've already posted on the Apple forums short...
I've had my iMac since mid-2011. It's a 27" with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, and AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB graphics. I was experiencing what seems like graphics issues while playing World of Warcraft. What few games I play I have always played with the high graphics settings, and since 2011 this has been fine - but earlier this year it seems like it was taking some toll...
I took my iMac into an Apple Store and spoke to a geniuss about the problem potentially being this already noted graphics issues with mid-2011 27" iMacs.
They tell me no problems can be found with any of the hardware upon their standard/ basic checkup that they run infant of you at the store, but they took it in for further tests. A week later I get called in and am told after extensive testing, they couldn't find any issues with the graphics card but there was an issue with a hard drive fan. So I paid to get that fixed.
I get my iMac home and over the past week and half have experienced nothing but constant crashes.
I've kept a log with what I was doing, and what I had open, and when the crash happened over this time - and there's no correlation. I could be a couple of minutes into playing Diablo 3, I could be watching Netflix, I could be browsing safari, and my iMac will crash.
The crashes specifically occur like this: the screen with stutter in a glitch like fashion, and then the whole screen will turn either a single colour (black, white, orange, brown etc..) or a single colour with vertical stripes. Like this:
![Unknown.jpeg]()
If I have music or a video playing at the time, the audio will skip in the background, until the iMac shuts itself down and restarts. This usually happens within a minute.
The crashes are so sporadic however - for instance today I've been able to write this all out without a crash, and the other day I was able to play a good 4 hour session of Diablo 3. But last night I wasn't able to get more than a few minutes into even have a few programs open before it crashed. 4 consecutive times within 20 minutes!
Any ideas how I could fix this? I would have just taken it into the Apple Store again but I don't have a lift into the city and carrying a 27" iMac on public transport is a pain...
Thanks MacRumours! Looks forward to hearing what you have to say
I've had my iMac since mid-2011. It's a 27" with a 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, and AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB graphics. I was experiencing what seems like graphics issues while playing World of Warcraft. What few games I play I have always played with the high graphics settings, and since 2011 this has been fine - but earlier this year it seems like it was taking some toll...
I took my iMac into an Apple Store and spoke to a geniuss about the problem potentially being this already noted graphics issues with mid-2011 27" iMacs.
They tell me no problems can be found with any of the hardware upon their standard/ basic checkup that they run infant of you at the store, but they took it in for further tests. A week later I get called in and am told after extensive testing, they couldn't find any issues with the graphics card but there was an issue with a hard drive fan. So I paid to get that fixed.
I get my iMac home and over the past week and half have experienced nothing but constant crashes.
I've kept a log with what I was doing, and what I had open, and when the crash happened over this time - and there's no correlation. I could be a couple of minutes into playing Diablo 3, I could be watching Netflix, I could be browsing safari, and my iMac will crash.
The crashes specifically occur like this: the screen with stutter in a glitch like fashion, and then the whole screen will turn either a single colour (black, white, orange, brown etc..) or a single colour with vertical stripes. Like this:
If I have music or a video playing at the time, the audio will skip in the background, until the iMac shuts itself down and restarts. This usually happens within a minute.
The crashes are so sporadic however - for instance today I've been able to write this all out without a crash, and the other day I was able to play a good 4 hour session of Diablo 3. But last night I wasn't able to get more than a few minutes into even have a few programs open before it crashed. 4 consecutive times within 20 minutes!
Any ideas how I could fix this? I would have just taken it into the Apple Store again but I don't have a lift into the city and carrying a 27" iMac on public transport is a pain...
Thanks MacRumours! Looks forward to hearing what you have to say
