iMac takes a while to turn on....

[mikelegacy]

Im a little worried about my iMac. It takes about 60 seconds after I press the button to EVEN SHOW THE WHITE SCREEN. It just stays black. When it first started happening I was freaking out thinking my computer was fudged.

I recently added 16 GB of RAM to the iMac, but it ran fine with that for a while. Once on, this thing is damn fast with 20GB of RAM total, but I just don't know why the boot time is so slow.....

It also just shuts off...randomly. I don't know if my cats are playing with the surge protector, or if this RAM is faulty, cause I know RAM can cause comps to shut down sometimes...

Anyone else had this issue?

 

[comatory]

Sounds like RAM issue, take out the new RAM and see if it helps.

Try resetting PRAM too.

Maybe your RAM isn't seated properly and slid out since the installation.

 

[mikelegacy]

I forgot how to reset PRAM, I've done it before...it's gone while bootup is happening, I remember.

I'll google it, but thanks man.

It is possible the RAM slid out a little, even though it's pretty snug in those slots, but I'll move the ram around, switch the two 8GB sticks with the two 2GB stock apples ones. See if that helps...

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Is there any particular reason you are using 20? While the iMac can handle it, it states 16gb max (which is usually way more than enough for most users).

And what kind of ram sticks are you using? 2x8+2x2? Sometimes different ram amounts can work against you. If you were all flush (ie 4x4), it could make a difference. Have you tried just the 2x8? Does it do the same thing?

And have you read the macrumors ram guide? http://guides.macrumors.com/Testing_RAM

It has all the hardware and ram tests available. Check em out.

 

[mikelegacy]

Is there any particular reason you are using 20? While the iMac can handle it, it states 16gb max (which is usually way more than enough for most users).

And what kind of ram sticks are you using? 2x8+2x2? Sometimes different ram amounts can work against you. If you were all flush (ie 4x4), it could make a difference. Have you tried just the 2x8? Does it do the same thing?

And have you read the macrumors ram guide? http://guides.macrumors.com/Testing_RAM

It has all the hardware and ram tests available. Check em out.

I am using as much as I can, because I am a developer/designer.

On a low productivity day, I at least have photoshop, illustrator, Sublime Text, Coda, and Parallels (running windows 7, Visual Studio 2012), plus a ton of browser windows for reference and testing.

All running in coherence mode on parallels of course.

So it's a lot of intensive stuff. It runs like a dream...while its on. It just sort of turns off when inactive for a while and just takes a while to turn on. I'll try resetting the PRAM and moving around the chips first.

 

[DoubleVision19]

Do you hear the "chime" after you press the power button?

If yes, it takes about a minute before you see the Apple logo?

Sounds like a hard drive issue to me. Try see if you can boot off from an external copy of your hard drive (provided that you cloned one previously).