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24" Mid-2007 iMac video artifacts

djc6

djc6

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 11, 2007
926
684
Cleveland, OH
I can't believe this is happening again :)

I bought the Mid-2007 iMac in August 2007, soon after it came out. This is actually my third one - if you recall at the beginning, many people were reporting video problems, including myself, that were eventually fixed via a firmware upgrade to the video card.

Anyways, it looks like video problems have struck again. I woke my iMac up from sleep today to find the screen looking like this:

iMac-video.jpg


I'm assuming iMac #3 will now need to be sent in for repair?? Thank god I got applecare! I'm six days outside of the original 1yr
warranty!

If I drag a window around, I can "cleanup" the screen and everything seems OK. :) Kinda like using the eraser tool in Photoshop!
 
Well now an entirely different problem has emerged. I called AppleCare, and they had me step through a couple things.

Resetting the PRAM didn't help, so then they asked that I boot into Safe Mode - which I did, and the screen artifacts were gone. However, I then rebooted so I could could boot normally, and the machine hasn't come up since! I get the gray apple, the turning gear, then the computer shuts off.

I booted into verbose mode, and I see the following on the screen: disk0s2: I/O error. I then run the apple diagnostic on disc 1 of leopard - says everything is fine.

I boot into the leopard installer to run disk utility, and I notice I can't click to repair disk permissions or repair disk - both are grayed out. I click verify disk instead, and I get the following errors - Invalid key length and Invalid node structure.

Now, I do have Time Capsule backups of everything, so I'm OK in that regard. However, I'd really like to make sure the HD isn't toast before I bother to re-install and restore my backups. I'm going to try burning the Western Digital HD diagnostics onto a disc and booting from that.

Perhaps my screen artifact issues are because some files on the HD have become corrupt? How will I know I'm not restoring corrupt files from my Time Capsule?? :(
 
Artifacts

It's not just your machine. Mine is doing it too since the last update. Damn you Apple!


djc6 said:
Well now an entirely different problem has emerged. I called AppleCare, and they had me step through a couple things.

Resetting the PRAM didn't help, so then they asked that I boot into Safe Mode - which I did, and the screen artifacts were gone. However, I then rebooted so I could could boot normally, and the machine hasn't come up since! I get the gray apple, the turning gear, then the computer shuts off.

I booted into verbose mode, and I see the following on the screen: disk0s2: I/O error. I then run the apple diagnostic on disc 1 of leopard - says everything is fine.

I boot into the leopard installer to run disk utility, and I notice I can't click to repair disk permissions or repair disk - both are grayed out. I click verify disk instead, and I get the following errors - Invalid key length and Invalid node structure.

Now, I do have Time Capsule backups of everything, so I'm OK in that regard. However, I'd really like to make sure the HD isn't toast before I bother to re-install and restore my backups. I'm going to try burning the Western Digital HD diagnostics onto a disc and booting from that.

Perhaps my screen artifact issues are because some files on the HD have become corrupt? How will I know I'm not restoring corrupt files from my Time Capsule?? :(
Click to expand...
 
Well, now I'm angry.

I decided the easiest course of action would be to restore from my Time Capsule. I ran the Leopard install disk, started the restore.. It began by erasing the HD on my iMac in preparation for copying the files over... which it never did! It spent about 5 minutes erasing the drive, then immediately upon completion said the restore was complete!

Now I'm struggling to figure out why the "Restore System from Backup" utility on the Leopard install disk thinks the restore is successful after spending no time whatsoever copying stuff. I've tried a number of different restore dates with no luck :(

I know my files are on the time capsule - I can use my other iMac to mount the sparse bundles with my data.
 
Well, a technician came out to my home today. Apple sent him a hard drive and a new video card. He installed both, and now the machine won't even power on :-/ No fans spin, no chime, nothing.

So, they're sending out another video card and a logic board :-/

The kicker was, the tech handed me two tiny screws he forgot when putting it back together. He said the next guy could figure out where they go (yeah right).
 
Mine does something very similar, but only when shutting down. The artefacts look identical. I thought it was crashing when i went to shut down or restart, but no.. It still shuts down normally otherwise I think.
I'm pretty sure it did this since that recent Java update. I don't think it was the 10.5.5 update.

Seems to run fine otherwise though.. Good luck with yours! This is my 2nd iMac after the first one froze up a lot. In fact, this one did it too, but software updates over the months seem to have cured the freezes at least.
 
Luap said:
I'm pretty sure it did this since that recent Java update. I don't think it was the 10.5.5 update..
Click to expand...

In my case, it does not seem to be software; I dual boot Ubuntu Linux, and it started up with the graphics artifacts/flashes at the same time as OS X.
 
Any update on your iMac yet? I only ask because mine did it again just now. Only right after booting up this time. Symptoms much the same as yours.. Can get rid of the artefacts by "wiping" them away with any desktop window.
 
same issue since recent update to 10.5.5

I did the update, the screen-hatch affected display after boot up ,, and I can sweep it clean ... I downloaded the full bundled set of updates for 10.5.5 and that seemed to fix things for a while... it came back the other day, however... tried a safe reboot, seemed to clean things up, but it's back again.
 
Luap said:
Any update on your iMac yet?
Click to expand...

The Micromat TechTool Deluxe that came with my AppleCare package said that the video ram test failed. I had to run it many times before I received a failure, however.

An apple tech came out and replaced the video card on Tuesday 9/30, and the system wouldn't even turn on after it was put back together. The tech called apple and they sent out a second video card, along with a logic board. Both were replaced on Friday 10/3. I haven't had any video problems since.
 
djc6 said:
... they sent out a second video card, along with a logic board. Both were replaced on Friday 10/3. I haven't had any video problems since.
Click to expand...

I spoke too soon... Video corruption, which looks just like the above screenshot, came back :(
 
djc6 said:
I spoke too soon... Video corruption, which looks just like the above screenshot, came back :(
Click to expand...

Called apple. The product specialist saw that the tech had been out twice to fix this, and he immediately offered a brand new iMac. I didn't say a word about a new machine. So I'm getting a little speed bump :) Seems the base machine is now 2.8Ghz versus my 2.4Ghz.

This is pretty sad, this will be my third 24" iMac in a year. My original had the 'freezing' issue - it was swapped before the firmware fix came out last fall, so probably nothing wrong with iMac #1.
 
Did you say it does this in Linux too? Doesn't seem right at all..
I don't use Linux, but don't have this problem in Windows, just OS X, and the problem does seem near enough identical to yours.

corrup.jpg


Weird corruption/artefacts that can be wiped away with any window.. The artefacts even look like the same kind you have.

Im still leaning towards a software problem, as a few folks have had this happen at around the same time. IE around the time 10.5.5/Java update was released. A software problem would also explain why the repairs to your iMac didn't work. Replacing hardware doesn't fix a software problem.
 
I have an iMac since December 2007. Three weeks ago I experienced the identical screen artifacts. Within a week my HD was dead as a dodo.

I then got a new HD and my Mac consultant told me that he felt there was no connection between the two..... which I find hard to accept, but I guess it might be the case.

The artifacts continued to this day, especially around boot up time and whenever I go to un-mount a drive after installing new software, and my Mac dealer is now replacing the Graphics Card. He feels he could spend a week tracking down a possible software problem and it's better to swap out the card first (under warranty).


Howard
 
jim

on 10/13 i updated my imac 24 and got the same results artifacts on my screen and my hd got screwed up the update that did it was 10.5.5 cost me over 20 hours of work to recover to the point prior to update and hundreds oof dollars in consulting fees and lost income apple should be ashamed to have released this update initially support told me they were not aware of this problem but the support rep who was very kind later confirmed that they had been aware of it. i dont know what to do im now scared of doing any further updates went back to tiger leopard seems to have a lot of problems
 
Same here

saoir said:
I have an iMac since December 2007. Three weeks ago I experienced the identical screen artifacts. Within a week my HD was dead as a dodo.

I then got a new HD and my Mac consultant told me that he felt there was no connection between the two..... which I find hard to accept, but I guess it might be the case.

The artifacts continued to this day, especially around boot up time and whenever I go to un-mount a drive after installing new software, and my Mac dealer is now replacing the Graphics Card. He feels he could spend a week tracking down a possible software problem and it's better to swap out the card first (under warranty).


Howard
Click to expand...

I was getting the same artifacts on my Mac Pro 2.66 and after about a week one of my 500g hd in raid 0 was dead.
 
OK, now my NEW iMac is experiencing the same problems! I did a fresh install of the OS, ran all of the updates, then used the Migration Assistant to move my files from the Time Capsule, instead of restoring everything from the Time Capsule this time - just in case some System file was corrupt and causing this.

I've been taking screen shots every time this occurs - and I noticed that in all of them (except the first) you can see the little time machine icon spinning. I wonder if this happens only when Time Machine kicks on? That doesn't explain though why the MicroMat TechTool Deluxe reported the Video RAM bad, or why I get worse problems under Linux.

I don't think its an electrical issue - I have my iMac on a Line Interactive UPS (Tripp Lite OMNI900LCD)

Luap: I see in your screen shot it looks like Time Machine is backing up as well. Also, is that Meteo (http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/) you have installed reporting the temperature? I have that installed as well.. I'm trying to think of what is running when it occurs.

iMac-video2.jpg


iMac-video3.jpg


iMac-video4.jpg


iMac-video5.jpg


iMac-video6.jpg


This is the first occurrence so far on the new iMac:

iMac-video7.jpg
 
This is happening on the new 2008 iMacs as well? This seems like a serious issue that apple needs to address.
 
Hi guys,

Got a whole new Graphics card this week. That means I have a new hard drive, a reinstalled OS and a new graphics card since the problem started.

It's still happening.

It seems to happen mostly around startup, reboot and ejecting drives.


Howard
 
djc6 said:
Luap: I see in your screen shot it looks like Time Machine is backing up as well. Also, is that Meteo (http://heat-meteo.sourceforge.net/) you have installed reporting the temperature? I have that installed as well.. I'm trying to think of what is running when it occurs.
Click to expand...

Actually, for temp monitoring, I use iStat Menu's. This is responsible for much of the other stuff in the menu bar also, like network traffic display etc.
As for Time Machine.. The icon is in it's standard position in that pict, which indicates it's not doing anything. When Time Machine is doing its backup thing, it spins backwards, every hour or so.
(My TimeMachine prefs are set to show status in the menu bar always too)

Strangely enough, although I had this graphics corruption glitch occur many times, when booting up or shutting down quite consistently, its not done it at all for at least a couple of weeks now. And thats still with quite a lot of rebooting in that time (I reboot quite often to do stuff in Windows).
I've changed nothing to fix it.. Not installed anything new either. Really can't think what caused or fixed it. It just seemed to clear itself :confused:
 
The annoying thing is, Apple ought to have some idea by now of what's causing this; and yet is keeps popping up in new machines. :mad:
 
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