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24" Aluminum iMac problem..

S

SCMedic

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 8, 2008
193
41
Hey guys.. After a flawless year with my newest iMac, I've developed a problem..

It started with the spinning beach ball of death whenever I'd load Safari or Firefox. Neither would work. A restart would put the computer into blue screen. If I turned it off, let it sit, and then back on, it would boot, but still would hang when opening Firefox..

Restored with an erase and install.

Worked ok after the install, but now iTunes is slow and the beach ball shows up, a restart comes up with a desktop but no icons, dashboard, etc..

Tried running the Disk Utility, and it says the HD appears to be ok.. Fixed permissions which said there were all kinds of permission errors, but appears to be squared away now.. Still running slow, and iTunes is giving me the beach ball again... :(

Any idea's?
 
How much RAM do you have? If you have big iTunes library, adding more RAM could help but I still recommend you to call Apple or wait for others ideas
 
2g of ram...2.8ghz processor.. Newish computer and never had this problem till about a week ago.. :(

Can't imagine it's suddenly a music library problem. Seems to freak out when running more than one program at a time.
 
I'm guessing it's not the HDD, as I ran Disk Utility, and checked it, and it's error free... Like I mentioned, after the install, there were a lot of wierd permission errors that got fixed by Disk U... I'm not getting any total system crashes, just slow downs.

How do you check for bad RAM?
 
Just because Disk Utility says you are error free doesn't mean you can rule out a hdd problem. I had a similar situation and apple replaced the hard drive for me even though disk utility said it was fine. The disk permission problems could be a result of the bad hdd. To check your RAM you need to run the apple hardware test at startup.

EDIT: Here is the link with the info on how to do the test http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
 
I'm running the Hardware Check as we speak...

Any way to check the HDD specifically.
 
SCMedic said:
I'm running the Hardware Check as we speak...

Any way to check the HDD specifically.
Click to expand...

Not really that I know of other than take it to an apple store and show it to a mac genius. They are usually very good about replacing them if they see that it might not be working quite right. Also keep in mind that they are not the end all be all of tests and there still may be problems with RAM even if you run the apple hardware test. I had a white 24inch iMac that was eventually replaced (free of charge) by apple because something like the bus speeds or logic board readings were screwy...idk didn't ask all the details was just happy for a new mac. I bring it up because you are having very similar symptoms.
 
I ran the Install Disk Hardware Diagnostic, and came back with a bad HDD... Good replacement recommendations?
 
SCMedic said:
I ran the Install Disk Hardware Diagnostic, and came back with a bad HDD... Good replacement recommendations?
Click to expand...

If you have warranty left, take it to repair. There's no reason to change it by yourself if Apple will do that for free.

I've always liked Western Digital but as zmttoxics said, Seagate id good one too.
 
Switched out to a new WD, and all problems are gone...

I would have let Apple do it, but I was a month out of Apple Care.. Thanks for all the replies and help guys!
 
iMac Screen

Recently my aunt's iMac screen went completely black. She took it to the apple store and they told her that it would cost her about $700.00. I started doing browsing around and found that iMac's esp. the 24 inch screens are susceptible to getting spots or lines running through their screens.
I was wondering if you knew if Apple took of this issue because I am considering purchasing a "desktop" Mac. Would I just be better off with a mac mini and a separate screen? I don't do professional photo editing or heavy gaming incase you were wondering. However I do like that the iMac has better graphics, a stronger processor, and more hard drive space.
 
Hellhammer said:
It can't be HD in my opinion. Then you would have problems booting your Mac and so on. Beach ball of death is usually a RAM problem
Click to expand...

Absolutely not, a constant beach ball can always mean a faulty HDD.

Did you like the "can always"? These kinda cancel each other out don't they!

SCMedic said:
Switched out to a new WD, and all problems are gone...

I would have let Apple do it, but I was a month out of Apple Care.. Thanks for all the replies and help guys!
Click to expand...

Just curious! What info did you use for the swap? I mean was it difficult to get the glass off and what did you use to do it.

One more important question was there any tape or paper seals that you had to break to get the iMac apart and get to the drive. Just curious if Apple put any tamperseals in there.
 
iyacyas said:
Absolutely not, a constant beach ball can always mean a faulty HDD.

Did you like the "can always"? These kinda cancel each other out don't they!
Click to expand...

I always put IMO, I think, I guess etc if I'm not sure. Then you can't argue that I've given wrong info because it was my own thinking :D "Can always" is in same category
 
SCMedic said:
I'm guessing it's not the HDD, as I ran Disk Utility, and checked it, and it's error free... Like I mentioned, after the install, there were a lot of wierd permission errors that got fixed by Disk U... I'm not getting any total system crashes, just slow downs.

How do you check for bad RAM?
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean much, most of the dying HDs tend to pass all the tests ... they do however start to hang and beachball a lot more as they die.

Keep the info backed up, if you are getting slowdowns and hangs. If you get hangs that freeze the clock and require you to press they power button to restart, that usually is a near certainty of a near dead drive (just means a total hang of the OS on drive access usually.)
 
Hellhammer said:
I always put IMO, I think, I guess etc if I'm not sure. Then you can't argue that I've given wrong info because it was my own thinking :D "Can always" is in same category
Click to expand...

Very well... I think I like your "IMO" better than my weak "Can Always"
 
Thanks SCMedic for the link to the guide.

Does anyone know or remember if there were any tamper seals that had to be broken, when changing the 24" Al iMac HDD?
 
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