Constant Lockups

[Speedy5966]

OK Folks, need some help here. Late 2009 iMac, 10,1 Core 2 Duo, 3.6 GHz, running Snow Leopard, the original software that came on it.
It constantly locks up, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes after I turn it on. Even if I am not doing anything on it, just turn it on and let it run, it will lock up. On rare occasions, it will run for a few hours, as long as I don't use it, but that's very rare. When it does lock up. Opt+Cmd+Esc does nothing. Also, if the hard drives go to sleep, nothing will wake it up, not even the power button. I have to power it down with the power button, and turn it back on. The hard drive fans are not running, but the temps never get above about 49C. I have already reloaded the software, from disk, after a complete erase. Before I reloaded it, I ran disk verify, and it showed a lot of errors. I booted from disk, and repaired it, with no improvement. That's when I decided to reload the software. The first time I reloaded, it failed, but it worked the second time. I have run Disk Verify again since the reload, and it says it's OK.
Any ideas? Power supply? HDD?
Thanks in advance!!

 

[Taz Mangus]

OK Folks, need some help here. Late 2009 iMac, 10,1 Core 2 Duo, 3.6 GHz, running Snow Leopard, the original software that came on it.
It constantly locks up, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes after I turn it on. Even if I am not doing anything on it, just turn it on and let it run, it will lock up. On rare occasions, it will run for a few hours, as long as I don't use it, but that's very rare. When it does lock up. Opt+Cmd+Esc does nothing. Also, if the hard drives go to sleep, nothing will wake it up, not even the power button. I have to power it down with the power button, and turn it back on. The hard drive fans are not running, but the temps never get above about 49C. I have already reloaded the software, from disk, after a complete erase. Before I reloaded it, I ran disk verify, and it showed a lot of errors. I booted from disk, and repaired it, with no improvement. That's when I decided to reload the software. The first time I reloaded, it failed, but it worked the second time. I have run Disk Verify again since the reload, and it says it's OK.
Any ideas? Power supply? HDD?
Thanks in advance!!

It could be the hard drive or the motherboard. Get a external hard drive and install a fresh clean copy of Snow Leopard on it, boot to the external hard drive. If the lock ups still happen with the new external HD then your problem is elsewhere. You could take it into the Apple Store and they could run hardware diagnostics for you and then decide what you want to do.

 

[Speedy5966]

Thanks for the external drive idea, I'll give it a shot. I'm kinda hoping it's the HDD, since a new logic board is almost $500, hard drives are much cheaper. I can get a refurbished 2011 24" for about $350, so if it is the logic board, I'll just scrap it and get a replacement.

Will the external install/booths work on a thumb drive?

 

[Taz Mangus]

Thanks for the external drive idea, I'll give it a shot. I'm kinda hoping it's the HDD, since a new logic board is almost $500, hard drives are much cheaper. I can get a refurbished 2011 24" for about $350, so if it is the logic board, I'll just scrap it and get a replacement.

Will the external install/booths work on a thumb drive?

It will have to be large enough (maybe 40GB) and fast enough otherwise you will end up having a very slow bootup.