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24" Mid-2007 iMac video artifacts

I might have a temp fix for this, too many desktop icons..

I have an iMac Mid 2007 running 10.5.5 (2400 video card) experiencing the exact same issues...in fact I can get it to fail everytime by performing the following steps:

Plug in an external display
Navigate to System Preferences > Displays > Arrangements
Select the "Mirror" option
Change the resolution to a lower resolution
Go back to Arrangements and deselect "Mirror" and you should have video artifacts now

Here is the fix I came up with. I have determined that if I move all of the files from the desktop (70 or so) into a new folder on the desktop I will not get the crazy video artifacts. It has something to do with the way the desktop is redrawing itself, the more items on the desktop the more chance for video artifacts. I tested with a new user and the same thing happens if I load the desktop up with files/folders so it's not user specific. I'm going to try an Archive and Install to 10.5.4 and see if the issue persist. I'll post back once I know more...
 
That will do it...

:D Nice, that will do it. So have you checked to see if your video issues go away after you put them in 1 folder?
 
Funk-Dobie said:
:D Nice, that will do it. So have you checked to see if your video issues go away after you put them in 1 folder?
Click to expand...

Its very intermittent for me; I haven't experienced it since Saturday. I put them all in a folder, I'll give it a week or so.
 
Funk-Dobie said:
I have determined that if I move all of the files from the desktop (70 or so) into a new folder on the desktop I will not get the crazy video artifacts. It has something to do with the way the desktop is redrawing itself, the more items on the desktop the more chance for video artifacts.
Click to expand...

Anyone know if the information in this 2005 article is still accurate w/10.5.5??

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051117154624368&lsrc=osxh

Might explain why having all these icons is a bad thing™
 
djc6 said:
Interesting. I have 124 icons on my desktop :)
Click to expand...

:D LOL... I just had to laugh at the fact that all this headache was caused by too many icons on the desktop(presumably)! That's so many icons!

Personally, I think that is WAY too many icons, but to each their own, ;)
 
musukosan said:
:D LOL... I just had to laugh at the fact that all this headache was caused by too many icons on the desktop(presumably)! That's so many icons!

Personally, I think that is WAY too many icons, but to each their own, ;)
Click to expand...

Well, there is no proof yet this is the cause. Why the hell should the video get all screwy because of some desktop icons?

Ever since Expose, I started the bad habit of using 'Show Desktop' (which i've programmed to F13) and having recent/in-progress documents on my desktop :)
 
musukosan said:
:D LOL... I just had to laugh at the fact that all this headache was caused by too many icons on the desktop(presumably)! That's so many icons!

Personally, I think that is WAY too many icons, but to each their own, ;)
Click to expand...

Apple may be thinking the same thing, and it's to "force" people to use the Stacks feature in Leopard :D
 
djc6 said:
Well, there is no proof yet this is the cause. Why the hell should the video get all screwy because of some desktop icons?

Ever since Expose, I started the bad habit of using 'Show Desktop' (which i've programmed to F13) and having recent/in-progress documents on my desktop :)
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily having a few files on the desktop that causes it to go wonky. It's only when you have a large amount of files on the desktop that the video artifacts present themselves. I had about 30 folders on the desktop and had no issues at all. Once I got to approx 90+ files on the desktop it started to bug out.

For the record, this is a friends iMac and they aren't good at organizing their files as they like to keep everything on the desktop. Personally, I like a clutter free desktop :)
 
djc6 said:
Well, there is no proof yet this is the cause. Why the hell should the video get all screwy because of some desktop icons?

Ever since Expose, I started the bad habit of using 'Show Desktop' (which i've programmed to F13) and having recent/in-progress documents on my desktop :)
Click to expand...

I agree with you that it shouldn't matter, but did you read the article posted above?

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051117154624368&lsrc=osxh

It basically says the OS treats each icon as a window and allocates memory as such. So it's like having 124 windows open at the same time!
 
So I performed an Archive and Install and took the OS back to 10.5.4 and after extensive testing I am not getting any video artifact issues. I had 140 icons on the desktop in my test user and had no issues at all.

I then ran the 10.5.5 updaters and low and behold the video artifact issues are back. So it has something to do with 10.5.5 and they way it is managing the files on the desktop.
 
I have/had around 45 icons on my desktop when I experienced this issue. 45 surely can't be too many?! Certainly doesn't look like too many on a 20" screen.
 
Luap said:
I have/had around 45 icons on my desktop when I experienced this issue. 45 surely can't be too many?! Certainly doesn't look like too many on a 20" screen.
Click to expand...

Under normal circumstances 45 icons is not a lot. But in the case of 10.5.5 it is obviously to much for it to handle and it bugs out. It's simply a software issue so all we can do is hope the software developers at apple fix it with a 10.5.6 release.

In the meantime I'm downgrading back to 10.5.4 and won't run the 10.5.5 updater again. I will try the 10.5.6 once apple releases it in the future and see if by chance that resolves this bugger of an issue.
 
Luap said:
If you keep in mind the thread title.. "Mid-2007 iMac"
They are all ATI.
Click to expand...

Well, initially when I started the thread, mine was a Mid-2007 iMac :) It was replaced by apple with an Early 2008 iMac, and it still suffers the same fate.

To answer the question, I've only experienced this issue on two iMacs, both with the "ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO w/256MB GDDR" card, but I've never used one with the Nvidia card.
 
I found this on the Apple forum, maybe it will help.

"I had exactly the same problem/same system and just spoke with AppleCare, who resolved it. The problem was caused by a corrupted desktop preferences file ("com.apple.desktop.plist"). Apparently a very rare occurrence.

To get rid of the corrupted plist file: Open your hard drive icon, open the Users folder, open the "Home" folder (your account's folder), open the Library folder, open the Preferences folder, and then find the "com.apple.desktop.plist" file and move it to your desktop. Restart your machine, log-in, and hopefully your problem is gone. When you login, your desktop pic will have been replaced by the default "Aurora" picture. You can then trash the plist file you moved to your desktop."
 
joelw135 said:
had exactly the same problem/same system and just spoke with AppleCare, who resolved it. The problem was caused by a corrupted desktop preferences file ("com.apple.desktop.plist").
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm going to use Time Machine to see if I can't compare old "com.apple.desktop.plist" files and see if I can identify the corruption - use plutil to convert it to xml and then diff them.
 
Funk-Dobie said:
:D Nice, that will do it. So have you checked to see if your video issues go away after you put them in 1 folder?
Click to expand...

Yeah.. Worked for me.. Deleting the plist was unsuccessful but this worked just fine. It's a sad day when MACs start to act like PCs did 20 years ago with all those driver issues :(
 
djc6 said:
Interesting. I'm going to use Time Machine to see if I can't compare old "com.apple.desktop.plist" files and see if I can identify the corruption - use plutil to convert it to xml and then diff them.
Click to expand...

I initially tried removing all of the preferences, including the desktop.plist, from the User folder and it did not resolve the problem. I only had issues when I had lots of icons on the desktop.
 
Well, maybe there is some truth to this "too many desktop icons" causing video corruption problems.

I've slowly crept back up to 165 icons on my desktop and everything has gone to hell again :)
 
iMac Screen artifacts or "garbled video"

Now I am really worried. I just posted my problem, having not noted that there is a forum on the topic with pictures of my problem. Saw date of first posting as mid-2007 and my posting is Dec 11, 2008...
"Garbled Video"
Have 8 month old 24in iMac G5. Have what is termed a "garbled video" problem. At any moment a plaid design may cover my entire screen. I can remove it by sweeping the cursor over it for the large area, then using the cursor to sweep the menu items which are also covered. Have taken the computer to Apple Store for repairs. They changed the logic board and the video card, but the problem remains. The store techies tell me that it is a "firmware" problem and is a known issue that they are working on. It has been about two months since I first had the problem and took the computer in. How long does it usually take for the Apple engineers to create a fix for a problem such as this? Has anyone else had a similar problem? Has anything worked to correct it?
 
dotnorm said:
Now I am really worried. I just posted my problem, having not noted that there is a forum on the topic with pictures of my problem. Saw date of first posting as mid-2007 and my posting is Dec 11, 2008...
"Garbled Video"
Have 8 month old 24in iMac G5. Have what is termed a "garbled video" problem. At any moment a plaid design may cover my entire screen. I can remove it by sweeping the cursor over it for the large area, then using the cursor to sweep the menu items which are also covered. Have taken the computer to Apple Store for repairs. They changed the logic board and the video card, but the problem remains. The store techies tell me that it is a "firmware" problem and is a known issue that they are working on. It has been about two months since I first had the problem and took the computer in. How long does it usually take for the Apple engineers to create a fix for a problem such as this? Has anyone else had a similar problem? Has anything worked to correct it?
Click to expand...

Do you have a lot of desktop icons on your iMac?
 
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