Freezing iMac...

[Markov]

Well, to start off, I know this has been an issue in the past. Apple released a patch for Leopard and Tiger, I know... The patch itself is built into Mac OS 10.5.1, so I shouldn't need to install it. Anyway, the title speaks for itself, my iMac seems to freeze during full screen applications. I get a complete lock up, nothing responds, no mouse, no spinning beach ball- nothing. Here are my specs:

20" Aluminum iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo clocked at 2.66 GHZ 6MB L2 cache, 4 GB DDR2 Ram, ATI Radeon [mobility] HD 2600 Pro with 256MB vram, 320 GB HDD (early 2008 iMac)

Running Mac OS 10.5.6 and Windows XP SP3.

The freezing instances in OS X only happened while running VM Ware fusion. The first time it was not full screen while installing Windows 7, but happened when the screen saver was on. The second time in OS X was running VM Ware full screen in Windows 7, doing the performance test.

In Windows XP (via bootcamp) it happened while playing Half Life 2. The first time I had paused the game, got up and walked away for about a half hour. When I came back it was completely frozen. The second time was playing Half Life 2 again, and I was running toward a chopper firing at me and the audio clip started to skip over and over while everything else froze and it never came out of it. I think there was a third time, but I can't remember for sure.

All hard restarts were necessary to get out of it.

After the chopper incident mentioned above, I rebooted into OS X and used smc fan control to boost the fans a bit. I then rebooted and played more Half Life 2 with no crash issue.

Any suggestions or ideas? Sorry if this was already posted...

It seems to me that it may be a heat/ the iMac having trouble controlling the fans...

Anyway, any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[qpid]

Do you have third party ram? If so can you put the original back in to attempt that? Is your hard drive making a clicking noise? Try opening up Disk Utility to check the smart status on your drive to see if it is ok.

 

[Markov]

Yes the RAM is third party. No, the hard drive doesn't sound like it's clicking. Thanks for the ideas though!

I just used techtool deluxe 3.1.2, and it came up with no errors for anything. Only thing I skipped was the surface scan. I may try to replicate the problem with fans turned on high and also with the original RAM.

 

[Markov]

Update: Bad ram.

Just letting everyone know that in case they had the same issue.

Now the iMac is very nice to use (now that it doesn't freeze all the time).

 

[OldMike]

Just wondering, how long after you installed the RAM did you notice the freezing issue. Also, I was wondering what brand of RAM you had used that caused the freezing.

Thanks..

 

[Markov]

Just wondering, how long after you installed the RAM did you notice the freezing issue. Also, I was wondering what brand of RAM you had used that caused the freezing.

Thanks..

Well I put the RAM in the second I got the iMac and first noticed the freeze issue while gaming in Windows XP. The RAM I purchased was crucial DDR2 clocked at 800 MHZ. Doing an RMA on the memory for a replacement. Will post results once I have the memory.

Note : the memory passed a two pass ram test using memtest in single user mode, I came to the conclusion of faulty ram by trial and error. Does not freeZe with original apple ram.

 

[FriarTuck]

In March I bought a last-gen iMac 24 inch 2.8 C2D from Amazon and the 4GB memory kit from Crucial. After running flawlessly for a couple of days with the original memory, minutes after installing the Crucial memory the iMac froze. I pulled the Crucial memory and had no problems with the original 2GB of memory. Reinstalled the Crucial 4GB kit and again the machine froze up within minutes. Lather, rinse, repeat a third time.

I returned the memory to Crucial. They credited me the cost of the memory and tax, but I am out the money I spent to have it shipped to me and to ship it back to them. No apology, no offer of a discount if I was willing to try again with a new 4GB kit.

This is the first time (out of three purchases) I have had problems with Crucial memory, but I am looking for another option as I am not really interested in wasting money on UPS courtesy of Crucial.

I'm going to give OWC a shot this time, as I have been very pleased with the external hard drive I bought from them.