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What hardware is failing on my 24" Early 2008?

B

Big Dave

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 27, 2007
314
25
Crestview, Fl
At least once a day my 24" Early 2008 iMac crashes to a white screen. I have to hold the power button down to reboot. I am running up to date Lion. I am usually listening to iTunes or have music playing in Quicktime.

Is this a hardware or software problem?
 
Do you still see the mouse cursor? Does it still move? What video card does your iMac have? About when did this start happening? When it is in its white crashed state, can you still access it via the network with over file sharing or SSH? Does it kernel panic at all?
 
Intell said:
Do you still see the mouse cursor? Does it still move? What video card does your iMac have? About when did this start happening? When it is in its white crashed state, can you still access it via the network with over file sharing or SSH? Does it kernel panic at all?
Click to expand...

1. I do not see the mouse cursor. Totally white screen.
2. ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
3. Once or twice over the years but every day over the last week.
4. Haven't tried SSH, will do on next crash.
5. Is there a log I can check for a kernel panic?

When I reboot, it takes a long time and all windows that were open before the crash open on reboot.
 
Last edited:
The reason why I asked you all of those questions is that I was checking if you might have the iMac ATI 2400/2600 GPU crash bug. This crash bug mostly affects mid-2007 20" iMacs. I do not believe you have it.

There wouldn't be a proper kernel panic. If you open the Console app and go to the kernel.log, look for the lines
Code: 
kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
and
Code: 
kernel[0]: ** GPU Debug Info Start **

followed by lots of gibberish. If you have these lines, they sometimes appear after a freeze, then you have the crash bug. If not, something else is causing your problem.
 
Intell said:
The reason why I asked you all of those questions is that I was checking if you might have the iMac ATI 2400/2600 GPU crash bug. This crash bug mostly affects mid-2007 20" iMacs. I do not believe you have it.

There wouldn't be a proper kernel panic. If you open the Console app and go to the kernel.log, look for the lines
Code: 
kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **
and
Code: 
kernel[0]: ** GPU Debug Info Start **

followed by lots of gibberish. If you have these lines, they sometimes appear after a freeze, then you have the crash bug. If not, something else is causing your problem.
Click to expand...

I have the first one but not the second.
Code: 
May 10 22:43:22 localhost kernel[0]: ** Device in slot: SLOT--1 **

Right now I am going through the repair disk permissions on my internal and external drives.
 
Last edited:
The Device in slot: SLOT--1 is normal and appears at startup. If the second one appears directly after that, then you have the crash bug. But because it doesn't, it is likely that you do not.
 
Well I am hoping for a new iMac when the refresh happens. I wanted to sell this one, but I don't know if I could do it in good conscience if it is crashing.
 
I had another crash last evening. This time the screen didn't go white but rather it became frozen. Showed my desktop normally but I could not interact with it. No mouse nor keyboard response. I tried SSH but failed. It wouldn't even return a ping.
 
Then it definitely isn't the GPU crash bug. Could be a failing hard drive, but unlikely. I'm not sure what could be causing the problem. Did you fully reinstall Mac OS X?
 
Intell said:
Then it definitely isn't the GPU crash bug. Could be a failing hard drive, but unlikely. I'm not sure what could be causing the problem. Did you fully reinstall Mac OS X?
Click to expand...

I haven't done a reinstall. This system is actually original Leopnard with upgrade installs through SL and Lion.

It may be time for a fresh install.

I might make a weekend project with that.

If it is a failing HD, then I am going to wait out the refresh to see if I want to spend a couple of hundred on an SSD or a couple thousand on a new iMac.
 
forty2j said:
Just for clarity.. this is actually the 2007 model. You probably bought it right before the 2008 refresh (like I did :p).
Click to expand...

The early 2008 24" iMac came with the ATI 2600 as the standard card with the Nvidia GeForce 8800 being the optional upgrade.
 
Intell said:
The early 2008 24" iMac came with the ATI 2600 as the standard card with the Nvidia GeForce 8800 being the optional upgrade.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Didn't know that. In my mind I always just associate the 2008's with the Nvidia driver problems. Thanks.
 
Big Dave said:
I had another crash last evening. This time the screen didn't go white but rather it became frozen. Showed my desktop normally but I could not interact with it. No mouse nor keyboard response. I tried SSH but failed. It wouldn't even return a ping.
Click to expand...

Have you tried running Apple hardware test?

You could download SMART Utility to see if there's any HDD problems. Disk Utility isn't too good at indicating a failing HD.
 
forty2j said:
Just for clarity.. this is actually the 2007 model. You probably bought it right before the 2008 refresh (like I did :p).
Click to expand...

Under system profile it lists it as Early 2008.

----------
Gloops said:
Have you tried running Apple hardware test?

You could download SMART Utility to see if there's any HDD problems. Disk Utility isn't too good at indicating a failing HD.
Click to expand...

I have not. I will try to check that out.
 
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