Occassional crashes on 24" iMac

[The Beardster]

Hi all

Adoring my new 24" iMac with the nVidia graphics card. Using mainly for Aperture plus some video editting with iMovie. Really enjoying the experience as a new switcher.

However - have had more crashes that I was expecting necessitating a hard switch off. These aren't too common - I have had perhaps 5 or 6 in the month I have had the machine.

Usually what happens is when using graphics intesnsive applications like Aperture a get a scrambled part of the screen where for example a dialog box or photo is. The system hangs and will not accept a force quit command.

I am expecting too much, or do I have a problem? Seems like it might be a Video Card driver issue - so is anyone else experiencing this?

Many thanks

 

[Kittychan]

I haven't got my new iMac yet but when you say it crashes, do you mean you get a kernel panic? If you do get a kernel panic a lot then there must be something wrong with your software (usually 3rd party softwares) that you have installed in you mac.

But it could be hardware failure as well, you can use the Mac dvd-disk to check the hardware whether it is in working order or not.

However, in your case if it just crashes with no kernel panic, I think it comes down to the cpu usage of particular programme. Eg, if you edit movie hard out of course your iMac would be running a bit slow because it uses up all the cpu and when you try to play with the other apps, your iMac cannot respond with the datas because of the cpu and ram limitation.

Have you tried to upgrade the Ram? I would suggest you upgrade the ram to 4 GB and see what happens.

 

[pwnographer]

Other people on the boards here have experienced similar issues: Usually it is a result of installing 3rd party RAM that is bunk. Did you happen to add extra RAM that came from outside of Apple? If so, most people just replace the 3rd party RAM with a different 3rd party RAM/the same if you can return it OR get new RAM from APPLE.

Hope this was helpful, if you scroll down a few topics you will see this issue being expressed

 

[The Beardster]

Thanks - no third party RAM

Thanks for the replies. Sorry - nto sure what a kernel panic is - I am a Mac newbie. All I see is that the screen glitches usually on a photo or a dialog box, and the machine hangs - will not respond to anything.

I have the pre-installed 2Gb of RAM and have no third party RAM at all.

Might try the hardware checker you suggested - thank you.

 

[Zephirus]

I too had 3-4 crashes in my first 2 days of using a brand new 3.08 model.
Happened a few times while trying to install windows, windows CD had a scratch or something so I got some random disc errors while booting up. I dont blame apple for that.

Safari and Firefox kept crashing when I oppened them so I did a reboot. WHen I did, all I could see was my background and a rotating circle. I waited 10 mins before force-restarting computer.

 

[Darkroom]

TAll I see is that the screen glitches usually on a photo or a dialog box, and the machine hangs - will not respond to anything.

sounds like your graphics card is the problem.

maybe you can try running some hardware tests to see if it comes up with anything.

 

[Kittychan]

Use the dvd-disk that comes with your box to check the hardware, and if everything is in working order, have you updated the firmware that is just released?

 

[Dartholomew]

Screen corruption and freeze while using a graphically intensive app? That sounds a lot like a heat issue to me.