What's wrong with my iMac? :'(

What's wrong with my iMac???

Not sure what happened... I came back home from a few errands, and like always, it was asleep.. So I tried to wake it up but it wouldn't.. So I turned it off manually, waited about 20 seconds and then turned it back on...

It boots up to the apple and the little spinning wheel like normal.. But after that, it'll just sit there at a white screen..

I'm able to select between the main drive and bootcamp by holding down option... It won't fully load win7 (ultimate)... It'll boot for a while, then hang at a black screen... BUT... It'll successfully boot into safe mode...

I've looked up possible solutions, but none have worked... I thought it might be my hard drive, but it's not. The same thing happens from my external..

I've tried safe mode in OSX, but I'll get the white screen after the lil bar at the bottom reaches the end..

I've tried "verbose" mode and I get all that stuff on the screen, but then just sits there after it's done...

I've tried "single user" mode but I'm not sure what to do there...

I've reseted the PRAM (holding option/command/p/r)...

I've tried holding down "D", but it'll just go back to the apple and spinning wheel again and start all over...

If it was the video card, would I still be able to see those options on the screen??

I don't have applecare.. I purchased this computer a few months ago used off of craigslist..

Mid 2011
iMac 3.4 27" i7 (EMC 2429)
1TB HD
8GB ram
2GB 6970M

I have a few pics of some screenshots.. Should I post them? Will it help?

jamesjingyi said:

It sounds like a HDD failure to me... Try safe mode, with the shift key and leave it a while... This happened to my old MacBook and I left it for ½ an hour and it finally booted. I then copied everything off and wiped the HDD and started again... The HDD was fine after that... Could have been overheating?

Click to expand...

I mentioned that I tried that already... It just sits there...

blueroom said:

Seems like an aftereffect of installing Mavericks, best bet is to re-install both OS's. Else it's the HDD failing as mentioned.

Click to expand...

I installed Mavericks but on an external, not my main drive...

I'm willing to restart my whole HDD but it won't boot up....

blueroom said:

Seems like an aftereffect of installing Mavericks, best bet is to re-install both OS's. Else it's the HDD failing as mentioned.

Click to expand...

WTF????? Maybe this was the problem???

jamesjingyi said:

Dopeyman said:

I mentioned that I tried that already... It just sits there...

Sorry, yes but leave it there for a while, mine took ½ an hour and that was an 160GB drive.. Maybe 1TB will take 3.125 hours?

Click to expand...

I restarted it in Safe Mode and just left it there... About 7-8 mins later, it booted it.... it was REAL SLOW, but it finally started up the auto-start apps...

Click to expand...

jamesjingyi said:

It sounds like a HDD failure to me... Try safe mode, with the shift key and leave it a while... This happened to my old MacBook and I left it for ½ an hour and it finally booted. I then copied everything off and wiped the HDD and started again... The HDD was fine after that... Could have been overheating?

Click to expand...

Overheating?? Maybe?? The back top part (where the facetime camera is located) does feel a bit hot.. But as I move my hand down the back, it's cooler.....

This is a screen shot of the temp and fan speeds per iStat Menus....

Do they look ok? Should I adjust them?

I'm on my iMac right now, and as of right now the temp is at 123...

Looks like I spoke too soon about being fixed... All of a sudden the screen all of a sudden turned white.... I've tried restarting it, but it's doing the same thing again....

jamesjingyi said:

Sorry, but could you clarify that this is in fact in degrees F? I work in degrees C... This is 50, which is good and should not be a worry. The HDD of the iMac is located in the top centre, however not fully top, which is true of both the old and new designs.

Image
^^New one
Image
^^Old one

The hard drive can behave irrationally under high heats, however 50/123 does not seem high enough. In sleep however the hard drive may have become corrupted if the iMac overheated. This would also explain the fact that it turned off automatically as well. How long did you leave the machine on its own and were you running any processor intensive applications? The processor should not get this hot however...

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Just a note actually, check this out... Check if yours is affected...

http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac-harddrive/

Click to expand...

The only thing that was running at the time was Mail and Firefox... Then the white screen... But I was able to do the screenshot of iStat Menus before it hit....

nufanec said:

GPU. The graphics card driver is disabled in safe mode hence the boot.

Click to expand...

After booting up in safe mode, I restarted it like normal and it booted up fine... But then got the white screen again...

jamesjingyi said:

I am actually really quite certain that this is what Apple is recalling...

http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac-harddrive/

Click to expand...

I'm in the US.. And I already checked my serial with this program... Mine is not included... Thank you anyways...

Right now I have it off to let it cool down and then try again...

jamesjingyi said:

Hmmm... This is really weird. The white screen of death usually occurs without the chime and you can't start it up. I think that since both windows and Mac OS is affected that this must be a hardware problem. Maybe the GPU is playing up? Listen to it next time it turns on, especially next to the HDD. Does it click?

Click to expand...

Nope.. No HD clicking... And like I mentioned earlier, it does the same thing when I try to boot up with my ML external...

keysofanxiety said:

Hold 'Alt' as soon as you press the power button. Click into the Recovery partition (normally called Recovery HD). Open Disk Utility and click 'Verify Disk' for Macintosh HD.

If you've got red, try to repair it. If it won't repair, it's a faulty HDD.

You can also try a repair in Single User Mode. Let me know what happens.

Click to expand...

I deleted the recovery partitions on both my main drive and my external...

How can I do/run the repair via single user mode?

macthefork said:

What are your Console Logs showing after this occurs? Console can be found in Applications > Utilities > Console.app

If it happens when booting from an external HDD it probably isn't the internal drive.

Try holding down the Option and D keys to start Apple Hardware Test, to see if that works rather than just the D key.

Click to expand...

I'm not able to boot into the computer, so I can't access the Console Logs... It always goes to the white screen after the lil circle on the bottom of the apple is done with it's thing... And everything stops... I no longer hear the internal HD working... And even with my external, the lil light stops flashing/blinking when it hits the white screen...

Holding Option-D worked... I'm in the hardware test... It's gonna take a while cause I chose the "Perform extended testing".... I'll post some results when it's done...

Thank you all for all your help and input...

UPDATE - Well, I hit restart after it finished with the test and same results... It starts up to the apple and lil wheel working on the bottom, then the white screen....

I was also thinking that it might be a heat issue cause after the test, the top part was pretty hot... But then again, I left if off overnight and it still didn't boot up this morning...

This is pretty frustrating!!!

Well after the hardware test, I shut it down...

I just turned it on right now (about 3 hrs later) via Safe Mode and it's working.... But I noticed via the iStat Menus that the memory is real high... Is that normal? No apps are running.. I attached a pic..

jamesjingyi - I just checked.. Yes, those degrees are in Fahrenheit...

Also, I turned up the speed of the fans to keep it cooler...

After sending this message, I'm gonna restart normal... Hope it works....

UPDATE - I just restarted and it's working... I have Mail and Firefox open.. My memory is at 35%.... Temp is at 99 degrees... Let's see how long it stays on before the white screen...

Another update - It was on last night up until about 2:30am.. It was running at a temperature in the high 80's, low 90'sI was able to re-boot into my ML external and run Disk Utilities... My main drive is ok.. After that, I re-booted into my main and again had Mail and Firefox... After about 10 mins, the screen freaked out and turned white..

I haven't been able to boot into it since.. It gives me the white screen again after the apple and spinning wheel stop spinning....

So how will I know if it's my graphics card that's messed up?? Would I still be getting the screens that I get? Would it still be able to boot up from time to time??

Also, I can't find the guy that I purchased this iMac from... How can I find out when it was purchased? Maybe I can still get applecare?

196josue said:

One thing I would suggest if you're able to get it booted all the way is to download smart utility. It will tell you power on hours, errors and bad sectors. From my experience it sounds like a had failure. Even if it has no errors or bad sectors, if it has more than say 15000 power on hours, it's probably failing.

Another way to test is hold option+R on boot to start Internet recovery (since you erased the recovery partition). Once downloaded you can reinstall an OS on a known good external hard drive.

Cheers.

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Also, based off of your screenshot, your 1year warranty is up. Once it's up you typically can't buy full AppleCare.

From what ive seen, if graphics card goes dead, it won't boot all the way.

Click to expand...

I already have a good external ML startup... It does that with the external drive as well... Once it hits that white screen, there's no more disk activity....

So if it is my GPU that's gone, it'll behave the way it's been behaving now? It'll go to the first apple with spinning wheel then after that it's the white screen...

AppleNewton said:

are you performing any of these resets with a wired keyboard? wireless works but not always.
maybe the bluetooth wasnt waking the machine in time, and it seems like you prematurely shut down the system. which could have caused inadvertent damage to the logicboard.


which is my guessing since both your internal and external drives are not working.

Did your mac happen to come with Snow Leopard? If so I'd try booting using the discs that came with the machine...and see if it boots normal there.

Otherwise try Command Option R to boot into internet recovery (this will bypass any attached storage device and boot to Apple's servers) and attempt permissions repair and see if you can download and do an archive install of the OS, shouldnt erase your data but put a clean copy of the OS and system files on your system.

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a wired keyboard... The newer extended aluminum ones..

No discs... I bought the computer 2nd hand... The dude said it came with ML and it had recovery....

I tried the internet recovery as well... It does what it has to do (the world spinning, etc.) then it gets the white screen afterwards...