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Freezing iMac Issue Due to Hardware?
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There is no proof.
There is no proof that you were right. While I had those screen-freeze problems when I first bought my iMac (aluminum 24" 2.8Ghz) I no longer have them. The only difference is that I upgraded to Leopard. Before and now my GPU temperatures averaged around 60˚C which is well below their rated maximum of 90˚C.
Again, there is no proof that this problem is at all thermally related.
There is no proof that you were right. While I had those screen-freeze problems when I first bought my iMac (aluminum 24" 2.8Ghz) I no longer have them. The only difference is that I upgraded to Leopard. Before and now my GPU temperatures averaged around 60˚C which is well below their rated maximum of 90˚C.
Again, there is no proof that this problem is at all thermally related.
I would say that you are having a heat problem yourself. My aluminum iMac is only running at 60˚C using iStat Menu and iStat Nano and I still had the screen-freeze problem before Leopard... but not since.
this might be the case with some people,i dont know
what i do know is that ive had my mac pro with radeon x1900 AND an imac for over 2 years. they BOTH worked almost flawlessly for that whole period with tiger. i really barely had any trouble at all and never a single 'artifact' problem
i installed leopard the day it came out and had graphics bugs within the 1st hour on the mac pro and within a day on the imac,which i use less so i noticed the problem later
now go look @
boards and see the same story thousands of times.the chances of this being a coincidence for me alone having both macs fail the day of leopard is next to nonexistent.the chance of it happening to so many others at the same time just after installing leopard is impossible.and like i said all of the mac friends i have with mac pros and x1900s saw the bugs right away too just after installing leopard.of course there are faulty graphic cards and bad 'apples' so to speak.thats a given with any computer type.and while some people here may have a hardware fault,i can say without a doubt that mine isnt. there is DEFINITELY SOMETHING WRONG WITH LEOPARD AND MANY GRAPHICS CARDS OR THE WHOLE GRAPHIC CODE IN GENERAL!
It's been happening with my August '07 vintage MacBook Pro 17", but not my May '07 vintage MacBook...
Identical setups... used migration assistant to copy things to the MacBook Pro.
Very Interesting and would explain a lot.Wonder if it has anything to do with this (although AMD denied such rumors):
Headline: AMD software let defective graphics cards slip into the channel
http://digitimes.com/mobos/a20070801PD209.html
I have EFI version xx.xx.212 and don't have any problems (yet). Also my graphic driver doesn't indicate XT or Pro, should it?
I was planning on buying a 24"imac for my wife. After looking at them in the stores, I quickly fell in love with the screen. My question is, is there anway to guess what percentage of the systems are experiencing this problem? Am I just over thinking this purchase b/c of the posts here? Also, has apple publically admitted a flaw exists? It is amazing to me that a company of their high standards released a product that sometimes crashes like this. On a serious note, where is the quality control?
Someone please reaffirm that these are small isolated reports. I really want to have more confidence before I buy. Thanks
Someone please reaffirm that these are small isolated reports. I really want to have more confidence before I buy. Thanks
Wow, a couple hours later with USB keyboard/mouse and no crash. Anyone else with the freezing problem have BlueTooth enabled? BTW, I shut it off from System Preferences -> BlueTooth -> BlueTooth Power. Looking good for me!
That article is from August 1st. Doubt if any defective parts have been in the channels for the last few months.
No one knows and Apple isn't saying. Apple admitted on Oct 4th (via MacWorld) that some iMacs were freezing and that they were working on a fix that would be out "most likely before the end of the month". That fix came on November 2 and didn't fix everyone's problems (most?). In fact it broke things for Tiger users and was subsequently pulled.
Bluetooth on mine is inactive and it still freezes.
It could also mean that that particular chip or batch of chips had a defect, not necessarly a heat issue. But anything is possible.
I like how this guy's solution to a problem in an Apple product is to buy more Apple products.
I'm all for Apple's minimalist design philosophy, but this is a good example of possibly sacrificing function for form. Yes, "thinner is better" in Apple's eyes, but at what cost? Do desktops really need to be as thin as possible? Personally, it wouldn't bother me at all if the iMac was half an inch thicker in order to better offset any overheating issues which could have adverse effects such as this.
A thin machine is great, but only if it works properly.
That I have to agree with. To me having a thin machine is not as important as stability.
Reminds me of when the MacBook Pros came out in the redesigned case and you couldn't get a DL DVD burner because the case didn't have enough vertical space inside after Apple made it thinner to fit current technology DL drives. It wasn't much thinner, but the last version of the old case you could get a DL drive. So you either had to get a G4 laptop, or wait.
Posted are the temps for my new Aluminum 24" iMac. The top of mine gets quite hot, but I haven't experienced any artifacts on the screen or lockups. I did have an issue with it kernel panicing on shutdown every once in a great while. Ever since I erased the hard drive and put Leopard on it, I haven't experienced that issue since. Must have been a bad OS installation from the factory which isn't an uncommon thing.
The only thing that is kind of hot on mine for the temps is the power supply. The CPU and GPU isn't as hot as I would think it would be for as hot as the case gets on the very top.
This is a brand new 24" iMac. I got it in August. Its a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3 GB DDRII RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics (256MB).
My dad has a brand new 20" Aluminum iMac with a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon 2400 XT (128 MB) and his doesn't get hot at all. The top is just warm.
The only thing that is kind of hot on mine for the temps is the power supply. The CPU and GPU isn't as hot as I would think it would be for as hot as the case gets on the very top.
This is a brand new 24" iMac. I got it in August. Its a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3 GB DDRII RAM, ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics (256MB).
My dad has a brand new 20" Aluminum iMac with a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon 2400 XT (128 MB) and his doesn't get hot at all. The top is just warm.
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A 24" iMac, being the largest, has more empty space inside it's case, temperatures wouldn't reach as high in it as they would in a 20".
What kind of logic is that? think! it takes more power and heat to run a 24" display then a 20 thats why the 24" is burning near 300 watts at max vs the 20's 200.
Agreed. But they also may have skimped on the thermal paste for the video card's heat sink.....I recall some company doing that and it fried some of the video cards, the fix was to add more thermal paste.
Funny, I didnt realise the freezes were UI hangs with the mouse-pointer still moving. XD
My G5 started doing this *occasionally* since the leopard upgrade, and I'm using a flashed ATI 9800 Pro.. Haha. It doesn't happen when graphically intense things are happening though so I'm assuming its completely unrelated.. Maybe ATI drivers do need more work, or maybe mine is USB related (all my issues in the past have been).. Interesting.
My G5 started doing this *occasionally* since the leopard upgrade, and I'm using a flashed ATI 9800 Pro.. Haha. It doesn't happen when graphically intense things are happening though so I'm assuming its completely unrelated.. Maybe ATI drivers do need more work, or maybe mine is USB related (all my issues in the past have been).. Interesting.
The display itself is larger, but the rest of the components aren't. Just because the display is using much more power doesn't mean the heat output is proportionally higher. Remember that we're talking about an LCD screen, too. They don't generate nearly as much heat as CRT displays do. The motherboard and graphics card are the same physical dimensions. This is basic computer building, you'll get better airflow in a larger case because everything isn't cramped in such a small space. Hence heat wont be such an issue.
Remember about past cooling issues in 15" Powerbooks, but the 17" monsters weren't having as many issues. Many sites pointed out exactly what I'm saying, the 17"ers didn't have as much trouble because the components were not as cramped inside as in the 15" models.
USB Problem or software bug
My 24" iMac has been ok (1 freeze only in iPhoto), but my friend's identical machine has had more freezes (both are on 10.4). My friend was able to recover from the freeze (locked mouse) be unplugging the keyboard/mouse and plugging them in the other USB port. No problems since. His freezes started around the first software update.
My 24" iMac has been ok (1 freeze only in iPhoto), but my friend's identical machine has had more freezes (both are on 10.4). My friend was able to recover from the freeze (locked mouse) be unplugging the keyboard/mouse and plugging them in the other USB port. No problems since. His freezes started around the first software update.