HELP! iMac Freezing/Locking

[Kamikaze]

Hello,
Our 1st gen 24" iMac was giving us Kernal Panics under Tiger 10.4.11 recently it all started two months ago.
We took it into the Apple store for a Cleaning and fresh install of Leopard.
When we received it back it locked/froze up immediately, forcing a hard restart. When I called the store they said one of my sticks of ram was not techinically bad but still suspect.
This is what I did after that call.
1. Checked the ram physically (the Apple store had placed my 512mb Apple ram stick in slot 0) which I thought very strange.
2. I corrected the ram, meaning I put the 2gb (suspect) stick in slot 0 and the 512 Apple ram in slot 1. Things were better it would take 10-15 minutes of use before locking up not 1-2 minutes.
3. I placed a new stick of Crucial (2gb from OWC) in place of the supect stick. that has had ZERO affect, our mac still freezes.
4. I pulled out the 512mb Apple (Micron) ram and replaced it with a 1gb Micron stick from OWC and that gives us roughly 20-40 minutes of time befroe freezing.

The software is up to date, I've max'd out the ram (new ram per Apple's request) and all we have running is iTunes in the background to stream to AppleTV and a few tabs of Safari open when this locks up.
Right before it freezes we notice lines arcoss the application windows almost as though there a distorted pixels.

When we took it in (running Tiger) the Apple Tech did check the drive and boot from their network and said our HD was not the issue, but it wasn't up long enough to cause kernel panic.
Should I take it back in? obviuosly we are just out of warranty too...$*@$*@!$ Bad Timing

If any of you Mac Gods can help guide me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks

 

[Hellhammer]

Try hardware test

 

[Kamikaze]

Well I must be retarded then. the hardware test article says to insert disc 1 or 2 to get to the hardware test. i have one disc for 10.5.6.
Also, plugging in my usb KB and holding the "D" key when rebooting does not start the hardware test application.

Any ideas?

Thanks again

 

[Hellhammer]

Well I must be retarded then. the hardware test article says to insert disc 1 or 2 to get to the hardware test. i have one disc for 10.5.6.
Also, plugging in my usb KB and holding the "D" key when rebooting does not start the hardware test application.

Any ideas?

Thanks again

Call Apple

 

[Kamikaze]

I did and the tech support said it may be the graphics card. I have no clue as to how a graphic cards can cause the DVD to not boot, but I have been wrong before.
I would let Apple look at it and realy do not mind paying a bit more for their products (cuz they ROCK) but I am not going to get bent over on a repair bill, so off to The Mac Outlet it goes!
They are a local independant Apple authorized repair center and they think it may be the graphics card also. I'll update you when they have time to physically look into the machine.

 

[SaSaSushi]

The graphics card is physically integrated into the logic board. When it goes bad the entire logic board is replaced. It doesn't matter who does the job it's expensive.

Hopefully yours will turn out to have something else wrong and not the GPU hardware.

Also, regarding the installation discs that have the Apple Hardware Test those are the TWO discs that shipped with your iMac. You referred to 10.5.6 which of course is Leopard that you must have purchased subsequently. It didn't exist when the first gen 24" iMac came out. Retail OS X discs do not contain the hardware test. It is only on the install discs that ship with the machines.

 

[indg]

most likely the logic board design flaw exasperated by heat. it's a widespread problem with the late 2006 intel imac that apple is refusing to acknowledge. instead they are charging $900 to replace the logic board, which makes no sense for a computer that isn't even worth that much on the open market.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1467276&start=0&tstart=0
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/imacrecall

 

[SaSaSushi]

most likely the logic board design flaw exasperated by heat. it's a widespread problem with the late 2006 intel imac that apple is refusing to acknowledge. instead they are charging $900 to replace the logic board, which makes no sense for a computer that isn't even worth that much on the open market.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1467276&start=0&tstart=0
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/imacrecall

Please don't cross-post the same thing to multiple threads.

I actually paid $550 for Apple to replace the logic board on my white 20" Core Duo iMac. It was still an unfortunate loss, being only 6 weeks out of the limited 1 year warranty.

I've got Applecare on my current iMac with a year's coverage left to go and will never pass on it for any future Macs again.

 

[indg]

i only cross posted to threads where my response would be relevant to the topic. i didn't originate the half dozen or so threads that describe the same problem. if anything, that should tell you how widespread this problem is.