Is my iMac dying?

Can you start the iMac in Target Disk Mode and connect it via Firewire to your MacBook (if that MacBook has Firewire)?
If so, you could troubleshoot from there, maybe some permissions are corrupted or maybe the HDD is dying. Do you have backed up all important contents of the iMac?

toastface5 said:

Hi,

My 2007 iMac 24 inch keeps freezing all the time. Two nights ago, it had it's first kernel panic. I cannot get onto the computer without it freezing, so I couldn't get to system profiler to copy the specs, so I am using my macbook pro to write this. I copied the model's specs from the MacTracker app and pasted them in pastebin here: http://pastebin.com/RY0BsBcr .

Can anyone help me? Or do I need to get a new computer?

Click to expand...

A common cause of KP's is RAM related. This can be:

• Failed RAM (yes it can fail)
• Incorrect RAM (did you update it recently?)
• Unseated RAM, simply remove and reseat.

KP's can be tough to find because they can be caused by hardware or software. I'd recommend reading

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/kernelpanics.html

to learn how to troubleshoot them.

If you're unable to complete the install because of the "freezing", you could be in for trouble. You'd have no working system, possibly.

Have you noticed any odd display issues other than the freezing? I say this because there were some iMacs from that era that have faulty graphics cards that would eventually do something like what you describe. Some make it a few years before the symptoms show up.

Does it run without problems a little longer if it has been off for a while? That would be a symptom.

I got one (that wouldn't run for more than a few minutes) working by installing smcfancontrol to increase the fan speed. I actually had to put the thing in front of an air conditioner for a while to get it to cool down so that I would have time to install it! With more fan speed (and a little more noise) it stopped crashing.