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Mid 2011 27" iMac keeps kernel panicking

rctneil

rctneil

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 29, 2013
203
100
Hey,

Yesterday evening my Mid 2011 27" iMac keeps kernel panicking. I'm working away and suddenly the display flashes, goes white and shuts itself off. Some of the time I can just turn it back on again and it boots fine, others I turn it back on and I see the Apple logo, the progress bar and after that a just off white screen that stays there.

If the boot is successful it will then kernel panic again after a random amount of time. I've not been able to determine what is actually causing it.

I've spoken to Apple Support and done PRAM and SMC reset but no luck.

All drives have been verified and repaired, no problems there.

Any ideas as to how I could proceed from here?

Thanks,
Neil
 
Sounds like graphics failure. The Radeons in the 2011 iMacs/MacBooks are pretty notorious for that. :(

You can try to download gfxCardStatus and force the OS to use the iGPU at all times. If it doesn't kernel panic when doing that, this would almost certainly confirm this: http://gfx.io/downloads/gfxCardStatus-2.3.zip

Just a heads up that the above application sometimes doesn't work and it'll switch to dGPU anyway. But it's worth a try.

You can also verify that all the RAM fitted in your machine is 1333MHz. And quickly check HDD SMART, why not: https://cloudfront.volitans-software.com/smartutility323.zip
 
^ Thanks. Once i've finished work i'll get back to the iMac and give both of those things a go. I'll report back!

Thanks again,
Neil
 
I can't even get the machine to stay on long enough to try those. I have an appointment at an Apple store tomorrow so i'll report back after that.
 
Took it to the Apple Store yesterday. It passed all Video and GPU tests but failed on Logic board ones. Quoted £484 to repair. Gonna skip the repair and get a new machine.

Anyone want to buy a 2011 27" iMac for parts?
 
So I did the repair I mentioned above. Bought the GPU chip replacement on ebay, removed the video card from my imac and sent it in. He sent my card back a week later with a new GPU on it. Installed it and my imac is working again! So far so good!
 
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