Argh what's up with my 2007 Alum iMac!?

[BlakTornado]

Hey guys, I have a 2007 Alum iMac, 20", 2.4Ghz, 500GB HD and 4GB RAM (self-installed). It's running SL.

Recently, my iMac has been acting up really strangely. Firstly, it made a really loud beeping noise yesterday. I was just in the middle of doing work and it made this deafening "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" until I held the power button until it powered off. I turned it on and it did it again before I powered it off and unplugged it at the wall. It was quite since then and worked well. The only thing to note is that the hard drive was spinning really loudly after this when I turned it back on. Sort of whirring like "wwwwhhhhHHHHHHRRRRRRRrrr.... wwwwHHhHHHHHHHRRRRRRrrr...". I then did a time machine backup (incase I lost my data if it wouldn't let me start up again, or something).

The thing is, it's happened before. It happened once a couple of months after I got it, except it was just a really loud, long "BEEEEEEPPPPPP". Then it did it a couple of months ago. The time it made the really loud, deafening beeping, it seemed to be triggered by an error with Quicktime X when using the ClicktoFlash plugin - but it shouldn't make THAT noise, should it!? It bypassed the iMac's software speaker loudness and blurted out at what must have been the loudest the speakers can go.

Now, tonight, I was in the middle of doing my coursework and it did it again, although differently. I was running Safari, iTunes, Adium, Mail, Tweetie, Netnewswire, Things and Pages and doing general undemanding things when suddenly the music just started skipping and the whole thing went dead, as if the Hard Drive just went dead. I did a hard reset and now it seems to be ok, but I'm just wondering what's up with my iMac... is it a hard drive problem? I ran the verifier in Disk Utility and it said it was ok... but what do I know?

I just can't really afford for it to go wrong right now... I would like a new Mac as much as the next guy, but I don't WANT a new computer really!

 

[knewsom]

Sounds like a bad motherboard or CPU. Run the hardware test CD.

 

[myuserid08]

As said above run a full diagnostic scan.

Could be a memory issue, its probably worth looking at that first.

EDIT: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

EDIT2: If you can't swap your ram, use this software: http://www.command-tab.com/2008/01/11/how-to-test-ram-under-mac-os-x/

 

[MacHamster68]

i would also guess the memory
take out one after the other and try it , it needs only one of them to be faulty to trigger that beeeeeeeeeeeep noise
and it would be the cheapest cause as processor is more expensive and i dont want to talk about the cost of the logic board
if you do not have apple care its basically a write of if its the logic board if yu cant get one of ebay with a broken screen perhaps