I bought the 27" iMac 3 days ago. Tranferred Mavericks and all my applications, user profiles and files to it from my previous 27" iMac 2011 model. Yesterday night my new Mac experienced a complete system lockup and I had to press the shut down button to close it because everything was frozen. At the time of the lockup I had Firefox, iTunes, VLC and Skype open. I checked the log files for a crash report but there wasn't any! After the force restart I opened Activity Monitor to check everything and even performed an Onyx Repair Permissions! Is there anyone with lockups on new iMacs and how can I resolve this issue?
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Late 2013 iMac lockup!
- Thread starter athinamj
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I'm not sure how to resolve the issue, but I I've had my iMac about the same amount of time and with just iTunes opened I experienced a lockup with that program (not the whole system). I could not force quit the app so I had to hold down the power button to even shut down the iMac.
Just my opinion, your experience might be a one and done issue. It's possible the Mac was indexing and that caused the issue. I'm not saying it's good or we should like it, but I'd suggest a wait and see approach.
Just my opinion, your experience might be a one and done issue. It's possible the Mac was indexing and that caused the issue. I'm not saying it's good or we should like it, but I'd suggest a wait and see approach.
2010 iMac to a 2013 iMac
I also had problems with transferring my Time Machine back up (using Migration Assistant). It worked beautifully but then I had similar problem later on. I backed up my photo librarys and a few other essential files then did a clean install of Mavericks. It meant that I had to redownload all my apps (my iTunes stuff is on an external drive anyway), start over with my games BUT after this the iMac worked a lot better.
Unffortunately I fitted the wrong RAM (it was going cheap on Amazon) which cause increasingly frequent kernal panics. I then bought Crucial RAM (directly from Crucial) and I thought it had rectified the problem unfortunately about a week and a bit it had another kernal panic, it has had one since then but it is a lot better. I think I may of damaged the iMac by fitting the wrong RAM but I guess I'll just have to put up with it. I only have two 8GB modules fitted though and I'm hoping that when I eventually fit the remaining two 8GB modules making four 8GB modules maxing out the RAM at 32GB, the computer might have less or no kernal panics. Please heed this cautionary tale - DON'T FIT THE WRONG RAM.
I also had problems with transferring my Time Machine back up (using Migration Assistant). It worked beautifully but then I had similar problem later on. I backed up my photo librarys and a few other essential files then did a clean install of Mavericks. It meant that I had to redownload all my apps (my iTunes stuff is on an external drive anyway), start over with my games BUT after this the iMac worked a lot better.
Unffortunately I fitted the wrong RAM (it was going cheap on Amazon) which cause increasingly frequent kernal panics. I then bought Crucial RAM (directly from Crucial) and I thought it had rectified the problem unfortunately about a week and a bit it had another kernal panic, it has had one since then but it is a lot better. I think I may of damaged the iMac by fitting the wrong RAM but I guess I'll just have to put up with it. I only have two 8GB modules fitted though and I'm hoping that when I eventually fit the remaining two 8GB modules making four 8GB modules maxing out the RAM at 32GB, the computer might have less or no kernal panics. Please heed this cautionary tale - DON'T FIT THE WRONG RAM.
Okay, so you've downloaded and installed some "maintenance" software (Onyx) from a vendor.
I would not be the least bit surprised if you found out that Genieo (Israeli Adware/Malware) was on your hdd masquerading as MacInstaller.dmg or some other bait-n-switch spawn of Satan.
I would download both the free ClamX scan tool as well as the free Bitdefender scan tool and run a complete scan on your iMac.
Performing a reset procedure for NVRAM / parameter RAM couldn't hurt.
I base this advice not only upon your use of Onyx but that you transferred 'stuff' from your old iMac.
I would not be the least bit surprised if you found out that Genieo (Israeli Adware/Malware) was on your hdd masquerading as MacInstaller.dmg or some other bait-n-switch spawn of Satan.
I would download both the free ClamX scan tool as well as the free Bitdefender scan tool and run a complete scan on your iMac.
Performing a reset procedure for NVRAM / parameter RAM couldn't hurt.
I base this advice not only upon your use of Onyx but that you transferred 'stuff' from your old iMac.
The iMacs seem to be very finicky as far as RAM goes. My Mid-2010 27" iMac gagged on 16 GB of RAM but when I cut it back to 12 GB it ran like a champ. And this was Crucial RAM purchased via their Memory Configurator on their website. There are hundreds of posts about it on Apple's support discussions site.
While it might not be malware, I have found that the "maintenance" software being hawked out there as necessary is often the cause of a lot of these lockups and other issues. Unfortunately, instead of being objective about what could be the cause, it's often he case a user will see the lockups as even MORE reason why that software needs to stay there.
My experience has been that it's not the iMac, but the RAM. Crucial RAM isn't perfect, and bad modules get through now and then. Running Apple Hardware Test to check the RAM, and sometimes memtest86+, will usually identify a bad RAM module, and then you can hit Crucial up for a replacement under warranty.
I've got a 27 inch iMac running 16GB of Apple stock RAM plus 16GB of Crucial RAM with no problem... AFTER a bad 8GB Crucial module was found and exchanged.
See here, here and here. I had a long journey to getting 32GB of RAM to run stably on my Late 2013 iMac. I have 16GB of stock Apple Elpida to which I added 16GB. I finally ended up going with the Haswell iMac-certified Crucial DDR3L but got some bad modules on the first try and had to send them in for replacement.
That replacement has been running strong for the past two months with no further problems.
No, don't. That's a great way to impede performance with no benefit. There is nothing in the OP's description of the problem that suggests any presence of malware. Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released over 12 years ago. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which can be easily avoided by practicing safe computing (see below). 3rd party antivirus apps are not necessary to keep a Mac malware-free, as long as a user practices safe computing, as described in the following link.
Read the What security steps should I take? section of the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ for tips on practicing safe computing.