They're citing one user's experience? Well, here's another single user experience: my aluminum iMac stopped freezing after I installed Leopard. Although I chose not to install the last iMac "fix" since I didn't want to ruin the mojo of two consecutive weeks without a freeze.
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Freezing iMac Issue Due to Hardware?
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PMR
macrumors 6502
Appleinsider suggests that the freezing iMac problem may be related to overheating hardware rather than any particular software issue.
They cite one user who had their video chipset replaced on their iMac who found that the problems had disappeared.
While this remains speculative, it could mean that no software solution will be able to repair the issue. A similar but less publicizd issue has affected early owners ot the ATI Radeon X1900 video card for the Mac Pro. Some have noted these issues have become more prominent under Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) due to its increased dependance on the GPU.
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I doubt as the problem being overheating. As some users pointed, they get artifacts which leads to bad/overclocked vram, bad/overclocked gpu. Since none of these guys OCed the gpu/vram in OSX, this leads to a pipeline problem which it can't render textures as it should, hence the artifacts.
My gpu rises to 90ºC if I don't manually raise the fan speed to 2000rpm and I've never had a lock up. And the locks at the restart are due to what? Temperatures too low? 😀
I can only think in two problems:
- Random batch of bad gpus/vram which need replacement
- Faulty drivers (which is odd since a lot of us have the same set of drivers and some get lock ups and some don't)
PMR
macrumors 6502
Me too. US buyers are robbed by their laws if that's the case. As UE members, we have 2 year warranty. We may swap our macs without paying sh*t after 1 year and 364 days after the purchase date.
Yeah, they're robbed in that way, but they pay for their Apple products MUCH less than we do (good for them): USD to EURO conversion is 1:1 according to Apple, even if an EURO is actually worth almost 1,5 USD 😡. That means Euro prices are almost 50% higher than US prices... the 2 year warranty is the LEAST that Apple can do for us poor european bastards 🙁. It's not their choice by the way 😛.
Have you considered that the high prices there are partially due to your law? Apple is just putting the warranty costs directly into the price of the product. Basically, your law is forcing everybody to buy a 2yr version of the AppleCare.
I completely agree, I am getting real tired of these extra warranties and guarantees. Head to home depot, sears, best buy and lowes... everything they sell they offer you their extended repair and service plan.
What makes me buy AppleCare is that it was $169.00 to extend the coverage to 3 full years and this includes unlimited telephone support as well. I'm a technical guy and won't call for technical support, but calling when the machine dies or needing it serviced when the screen somehow got the shape of a baseball bat imprinted in it directly after it froze is nice.
My personal experience can confirm that it is overheating.
I can launch WoW on my 2.4 GHz 24" Al iMac, and it will freeze within 2 minutes of loading the game. However, I can then open a nearby window (only opening it about 2 inches) to the ~40 F Manhattan air, reboot, and reload WoW and have it work for hours. The airflow from the window appears to cool the nearby air down enough to eliminate the problem. Even without it, I don't tend to keep my apartment all that warm.
This is unlike previous Mac overheating issues that I am familiar with. Even from a cold boot, I can consistently get it to freeze in a couple minutes without some cool airflow.
So, I just crack the window open, fire up WoW, throw on some pajamas, and pour a nice 16 year scotch (Lagavulin for those interested). I'll eventually take it to have the video replaced, but I'll wait until I go on vacation.
I can launch WoW on my 2.4 GHz 24" Al iMac, and it will freeze within 2 minutes of loading the game. However, I can then open a nearby window (only opening it about 2 inches) to the ~40 F Manhattan air, reboot, and reload WoW and have it work for hours. The airflow from the window appears to cool the nearby air down enough to eliminate the problem. Even without it, I don't tend to keep my apartment all that warm.
This is unlike previous Mac overheating issues that I am familiar with. Even from a cold boot, I can consistently get it to freeze in a couple minutes without some cool airflow.
So, I just crack the window open, fire up WoW, throw on some pajamas, and pour a nice 16 year scotch (Lagavulin for those interested). I'll eventually take it to have the video replaced, but I'll wait until I go on vacation.
Luap
macrumors 65816
lol 😀 Well put! I did the same as you, and had much the same experience also.
I agree for the most part. There would be much less issues for sure. But something makes me wonder.. There are posts from folks in the MBP forum that have exactly the same freezing symptoms. Its not anywhere near as prolific as the iMac freezing problems. But still, the symptoms are identical, and those macs use Nvidea, not ATI.
morespce54
macrumors 65816
That's because you haven't updated yet to 10.5 😉😀
But seriously, I know it's not related but two of my Macs (which are still on Tiger) also started to act wonkly since October... My 10.5 Mac is doing good 'tho...(cross-fingers)
morespce54
macrumors 65816
morespce54
macrumors 65816
risc
macrumors 68030
My iMac is from early August and I've had no issues at all. I decided to stress it yesterday so from 7:30 AM until 2:00 AM the next day I had the Arabesque screen saver running, and a heap of apps running to get the CPU usage up to full. After all of those hours everything was still just running. So I'm calling no issues on my Mac. This machine is running Leopard 10.5.0 installed via erase and install.
A friend is having issues with his machine but he has ssh enabled and just logs on and reboots. I asked him to just log in via ssh and kill -9 the locked up app, he got back to me today and said he tried this and the machine just went back to normal. This sounds life a software issue to me.
Obviously there are some hardware issues with some people getting video artifacts on the screen.
A friend is having issues with his machine but he has ssh enabled and just logs on and reboots. I asked him to just log in via ssh and kill -9 the locked up app, he got back to me today and said he tried this and the machine just went back to normal. This sounds life a software issue to me.
Obviously there are some hardware issues with some people getting video artifacts on the screen.
lugesm
macrumors 6502a
I have been running my first Mac (24" iMac Aluminum) since September 5 without any such freezing. (Fingers crossed 🙁 )
I have converted from Tiger to Leopard in the last two weeks with no detrimental effects.
Having said all that . . . I recently upgraded my wife's Mac-Mini from 0.5 to 2.0GB memory. I am an experienced electronics engineer, and I must say that was a hair-raising experience. This comment goes to form versus function. After the mini memory upgrade I started thinking about Apple's apparent bias towards "cute-sie" products. The Mac mini could easily have been a little larger allowing better mechanical packaging internally, thereby a more reliable product . . . certainly more easily accessed for upgrades or repairs.
The already-large 24" iMac could have been a little thicker without compromising the appearance IMHO. "Larger" always allows for better heat management; and any design engineer can tell you that heat is the primary enemy of electronic components.
By the way, my 24" Al iMac never runs over 52 degrees C at any point, according to the "iStat pro" widget . Is this typical?
I have converted from Tiger to Leopard in the last two weeks with no detrimental effects.
Having said all that . . . I recently upgraded my wife's Mac-Mini from 0.5 to 2.0GB memory. I am an experienced electronics engineer, and I must say that was a hair-raising experience. This comment goes to form versus function. After the mini memory upgrade I started thinking about Apple's apparent bias towards "cute-sie" products. The Mac mini could easily have been a little larger allowing better mechanical packaging internally, thereby a more reliable product . . . certainly more easily accessed for upgrades or repairs.
The already-large 24" iMac could have been a little thicker without compromising the appearance IMHO. "Larger" always allows for better heat management; and any design engineer can tell you that heat is the primary enemy of electronic components.
By the way, my 24" Al iMac never runs over 52 degrees C at any point, according to the "iStat pro" widget . Is this typical?
I purchased a 24in 2.8ghz imac the day they came out (Aug 7th I believe). Had a kernal panic when booting up from an external firewire hard drive but that was only one time. Otherwise NO PROBLEMS, running 10.5 now.
craig1410
macrumors 65816
This is very interesting!
How do we get the MemVendorID? Is this in system profiler under Graphics/Displays just under VRAM where on my machine it says: Vendor: ATI(0x1002) ?
When you say they have a fix due for release, so you mean a software fix or a hardware fix?
Thanks,
Craig.
Damn this is frustrating, I need a new computer with my iBook dead, have been saving for ages for a new Mac.. but really am afraid to pull the trigger and have a freezer.
Despite my iBook dying I never once had to reboot it in about the 8 months I owned it, because of freezing or any other issues. In fact before it died I had 98 days of uptime, then the logic board crapped out.. so freezing/kernel panics are foreign to me on a Mac, and I really am hoping they aren't common now.
Despite my iBook dying I never once had to reboot it in about the 8 months I owned it, because of freezing or any other issues. In fact before it died I had 98 days of uptime, then the logic board crapped out.. so freezing/kernel panics are foreign to me on a Mac, and I really am hoping they aren't common now.
Freezing Macs
Ok, mellow out here!
You've heard a lot of fluff on this forum and almost all of it is pure speculation. Obviously there are several different problems that seem to have the same symptom. Interestingly enough, there are also several different solutions.
First off, heat is hardly likely to be the problem. In my own case and my wife's case, our iMac aluminum computers had the freezing issue from the week we purchased them... on the day they were first announced in August. It wasn't a constant thing like some of you are complaining of, but it happened at least once a week on both machines.
We tried troubleshooting a number of different ways, including pulling down iStat and simultaneously monitoring processor usage, drive activity, network activity, fan speeds and internal temperatures. All of these points were monitored dynamically for extended periods.
At no point did any of these components operate beyond their rated capabilities and their temperatures stayed WELL below 100˚C, usually less than 50˚C.
Apple has claimed there is a software problem and I have to agree with them. Why? Because in the course of upgrading and using OS X 10.5 Leopard the problem has disappeared for me... Neither machine has frozen once in over two weeks!
Yes, I know some of you claim increases rather than decreases. My guess is that the new version of Darwin has changed permissions in several areas and your machines are running into software conflicts based on these permissions, rather than any real hardware issues. I would recommend running the Disk Utility on your hard drive and fix permissions; see if that doesn't alleviate your freezeups.
The actual video drivers have been fixed, or seem to be. I would expect that the next update to 10.4 will carry that same fix.
Ok, mellow out here!
You've heard a lot of fluff on this forum and almost all of it is pure speculation. Obviously there are several different problems that seem to have the same symptom. Interestingly enough, there are also several different solutions.
First off, heat is hardly likely to be the problem. In my own case and my wife's case, our iMac aluminum computers had the freezing issue from the week we purchased them... on the day they were first announced in August. It wasn't a constant thing like some of you are complaining of, but it happened at least once a week on both machines.
We tried troubleshooting a number of different ways, including pulling down iStat and simultaneously monitoring processor usage, drive activity, network activity, fan speeds and internal temperatures. All of these points were monitored dynamically for extended periods.
At no point did any of these components operate beyond their rated capabilities and their temperatures stayed WELL below 100˚C, usually less than 50˚C.
Apple has claimed there is a software problem and I have to agree with them. Why? Because in the course of upgrading and using OS X 10.5 Leopard the problem has disappeared for me... Neither machine has frozen once in over two weeks!
Yes, I know some of you claim increases rather than decreases. My guess is that the new version of Darwin has changed permissions in several areas and your machines are running into software conflicts based on these permissions, rather than any real hardware issues. I would recommend running the Disk Utility on your hard drive and fix permissions; see if that doesn't alleviate your freezeups.
The actual video drivers have been fixed, or seem to be. I would expect that the next update to 10.4 will carry that same fix.
DMann
macrumors 601
Ati
Do you know if it's the 2300 XT or the X 1600? Either way, you're better off, for now, until the aforementioned fix is released........
Do you know if it's the 2300 XT or the X 1600? Either way, you're better off, for now, until the aforementioned fix is released........
Not heat related
I own a 20" 2.4 Core 2 Duo and just started experiencing this problem. I was using a couple of programs and then the system just became unresponsive except for the mouse. I also use bootcamp and run very graphic intensive games and its never froze even though the iMac became very hot. I hope this is a software issue and either apple or ATI can fix it
I own a 20" 2.4 Core 2 Duo and just started experiencing this problem. I was using a couple of programs and then the system just became unresponsive except for the mouse. I also use bootcamp and run very graphic intensive games and its never froze even though the iMac became very hot. I hope this is a software issue and either apple or ATI can fix it
Luap
macrumors 65816
This MemVendor/RevisionID thing is the first decent evidence i've seen in 3 months that really looks like its homing right in on the cause of the problem.
But of course it creates a new question too..
Is this issue with the ID code itself? Or the VRAM from the supplier that this code presumably points to?
Im guessing/hoping it is the former, as suggestions of a forthcoming software fix would indicate as much. That being the case, then Hurrah! 😀
If the latter, then its crappy VRAM. So hardware... In which case.. Boo 😡
Anyway, thanks for posting your info samt14 🙂
But of course it creates a new question too..
Is this issue with the ID code itself? Or the VRAM from the supplier that this code presumably points to?
Im guessing/hoping it is the former, as suggestions of a forthcoming software fix would indicate as much. That being the case, then Hurrah! 😀
If the latter, then its crappy VRAM. So hardware... In which case.. Boo 😡
Anyway, thanks for posting your info samt14 🙂