iMac (late 2009) keeps rebooting. Especially when in Photoshop.

[cAPS lOCK]

My iMac (late 2009) keeps rebooting suddenly when working on it. I've noticed it more lately when I'm in Photoshop CS5. It just cuts off, screen goes black, then the white boot screen comes up. It did it 3 times last night.

It's making me crazy. It's been doing this random reboot for quite a long time now. Over 2 years. It's not always when in Photoshop but I've noticed it there lately.

Could it be bad RAM? Is there a certain kind I should get? I did research what type to get from the Apple website when I upgraded it to 8GB a long time ago.

I've experienced this issue through different OS versions too. 10.6-10.8. I've done PRAM reset, updates etc. Nothing is fixing it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[maflynn]

Sounds to me like a hardware issue, maybe related to memory since PS tends to chew up ram pretty quickly.

I'd recommend a trip to your local apple store.

 

[cAPS lOCK]

I recently ran out of my AppleCare just a few months ago. (Of course)

What does Apple charge for something like this?

 

[Johnny Vegas]

Sounds like RAM to me. You can test it using memtest. Or you can remove one stick at a time and see if the problem goes away.

 

[MatthewAMEL]

Are there any messages in Console at the time of the restart?

When these reboots happen, is the iMac under load (applying filter/adjusting) or just loading a picture?

 

[cAPS lOCK]

I tested using Memtest several times from the console but it said all test passed every time.

Are there any messages in Console at the time of the restart?

No messages I can see. How would I see this?

When these reboots happen, is the iMac under load (applying filter/adjusting) or just loading a picture?

Usually almost no load at all. Sometimes I'm just changing the name of a layer and poof, screen goes black and reboot starts. This never happens when I'm juts surfing the web in Chrome or FF though.

 

[MatthewAMEL]

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/mac_os_x_using_console_to_troubleshoot_problems

 

[DLary]

Have you run the Apple Hardware Test? Do your fans seem to be running faster? An overheat could cause this problem.

 

[justperry]

I tested using Memtest several times from the console but it said all test passed every time.


No messages I can see. How would I see this?


Usually almost no load at all. Sometimes I'm just changing the name of a layer and poof, screen goes black and reboot starts. This never happens when I'm juts surfing the web in Chrome or FF though.

You need to run Memtest from Single User Mode, not when you are in OS X, reason is OS X needs memory and that memory can't be tested.
Go to the link below, click on guide, it will download a small User Guide in txt format.

http://www.memtestosx.org/

If the System crashes like that it probably has no time to create Panic Logs, but look in the main Library in the logs folder.

 

[cAPS lOCK]

Thanks for these tips. I will try them soon and get back.