Morning, All,
I'll dive straight in:
I have a late-2009 27" iMac. It's the more powerful quad core model.
Since purchase it has run without problems. To be fair, the HDD has always been loud (and, frankly, seems to be getting louder--though that may just be paranoia) but I was aware that this was an "issue" with certain model HDDs.
Around a month ago a strange error started creeping in during normal useage (possibly, and I only mention this for full disclosure, around the time I ripped 20 or so DVDs practically back to back--prior to learning that this kind of thing can make a HDD feel unhappy).
The error is as follows: without warning, the machine appears to go to sleep--screen goes blank, doesn't respond to mouse or keyboard, but fans still on and HDD idling. The only way of dealing with this appears to be a hard reset. However, rather than causing a restart this, in fact, just seems to kick the machine awake--there's no load screen of any sort, and it fires back up with all previously open programs still running.
At this point, one of two things happens: it either immediately seems to go to sleep again (which is when I start playing tag with the reset button in the 3-4 seconds of operation I have every time I hit hard reset), or it carries on happily as if nothing has happened. Which of these results occurs seems entirely random. Also seemingly random is the frequency of the error--sometimes several times in an evening, sometimes not at all.
Using the disk utility, I see that no problems are reported.
I've searched the web for this problem and have found other users reporting it (although the threads I've seen on the Apple site all seem to be from last year and have no definitive resolution) and suggesting that resetting the PRAM and SAC are the first things that should be done. However, there's plenty of posters that say this does nothing. As a result, it's to Macrumors I go...
1. Has anyone else had this problem?
2. If so, how did you resolve it?
3. Are there any tech types that may be able to tell me exactly what's happening?
4. Dear god, please don't let this be my logic board...I am sans extended Applecare.
Any and all advice MOST appreciated.
Cheers,
Eoin
I'll dive straight in:
I have a late-2009 27" iMac. It's the more powerful quad core model.
Since purchase it has run without problems. To be fair, the HDD has always been loud (and, frankly, seems to be getting louder--though that may just be paranoia) but I was aware that this was an "issue" with certain model HDDs.
Around a month ago a strange error started creeping in during normal useage (possibly, and I only mention this for full disclosure, around the time I ripped 20 or so DVDs practically back to back--prior to learning that this kind of thing can make a HDD feel unhappy).
The error is as follows: without warning, the machine appears to go to sleep--screen goes blank, doesn't respond to mouse or keyboard, but fans still on and HDD idling. The only way of dealing with this appears to be a hard reset. However, rather than causing a restart this, in fact, just seems to kick the machine awake--there's no load screen of any sort, and it fires back up with all previously open programs still running.
At this point, one of two things happens: it either immediately seems to go to sleep again (which is when I start playing tag with the reset button in the 3-4 seconds of operation I have every time I hit hard reset), or it carries on happily as if nothing has happened. Which of these results occurs seems entirely random. Also seemingly random is the frequency of the error--sometimes several times in an evening, sometimes not at all.
Using the disk utility, I see that no problems are reported.
I've searched the web for this problem and have found other users reporting it (although the threads I've seen on the Apple site all seem to be from last year and have no definitive resolution) and suggesting that resetting the PRAM and SAC are the first things that should be done. However, there's plenty of posters that say this does nothing. As a result, it's to Macrumors I go...
1. Has anyone else had this problem?
2. If so, how did you resolve it?
3. Are there any tech types that may be able to tell me exactly what's happening?
4. Dear god, please don't let this be my logic board...I am sans extended Applecare.
Any and all advice MOST appreciated.
Cheers,
Eoin
