Colorful Confetti...

[tommoran]

I have a late 2008 iMac which will slow, show colorful confetti (I call it) and then crash. Although there is an occasional gasp of processing, it will require a cold boot to recover.

This happens only when on multi media pages, but not all of them.

I am up to date with Symantec, have all the latest upgrades, have tried in safe mode, etc., and even reformatted the drive. Still the problems persists.

I realize the iMac is old and an upgrade might be in order, but I have no idea when the next iMac refresh will be, and otherwise the iMac works fine.

Can anyone offer any ideas???

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Sounds like a dying GPU but it could be a HDD problem. Try repairing your disk in disk utility.

If it's the GPU you could be looking at a failure fairly soon...

 

[tommoran]

Thanks. I've gone to the Apple support boards and see there was an issue with the graphics card backa few years ago.

I guess I'm lucky that the problem is manifesting itself so late in the life of the device.

However, one thing that makes me wonder is that it happens only when on a site with advertisements graphics.

Recently I editied a short video I made on my iPhone with no issues. I play YouTube and other videos all the time with no issues. Just it seems that this occures only on some sites, usually ones that are advertisement heavy.

BTW, this was the specific site which last crashed the machine:

http://www.ivillage.ca/relationship...e-i’m-glad-i-didn’t-give-the-idea-of-marriage

 

[Lankyman]

I have a late 2008 iMac which will slow, show colorful confetti (I call it) and then crash. Although there is an occasional gasp of processing, it will require a cold boot to recover.

This happens only when on multi media pages, but not all of them.

I am up to date with Symantec, have all the latest upgrades, have tried in safe mode, etc., and even reformatted the drive. Still the problems persists.

I realize the iMac is old and an upgrade might be in order, but I have no idea when the next iMac refresh will be, and otherwise the iMac works fine.

Can anyone offer any ideas???

I had exactly the same problem a few years back with a Mac Mini. Tests showed it to be the graphics card.