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iMac graphic horror stories- and defective AMD videocard rumors

trayloader said:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=de&...&q=digitimes+defective+HD+2600&btnG=Suche&lr=


Since Apple prefers to stay silent instead of doing adequate PR.....
Click to expand...

Don't take this wrong way but your post is pointless and it creates unnecessary drama for people like me who's iMac is not giving them any problems. My GPU works perfectly, I play 3D games in OS X and XP and with Apple's last update things still work great.

The new iMac with the HD2600XT is great a machine and it would be great if more people posted their positive experiences. Most people without issues never post.
 
trayloader said:
Since Apple prefers to stay silent instead of doing adequate PR.....
Click to expand...
It's not clear to me what you would have them do, or even if they should do anything, given what's reported in some of the articles referenced in the link.

And I agree that the title of the thread is way overblown.
 
trayloader said:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=de&...&q=digitimes+defective+HD+2600&btnG=Suche&lr=


Since Apple prefers to stay silent instead of doing adequate PR.....
Click to expand...



Per your link here is the first article found that came up on google (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=8374):

A few weeks ago, a Digitimes report suggested that AMD had accidentally released a large quantity of broken HD 2400 and HD 2600 cards into the market. This created mass hysteria in the hardware world, and even sparked a mass recall from one manufacturer. However, after the dust settled, AMD and their partners did some investigating. What they found shows that the entire situation was overblown. ASUS representatives say that ASUS has not received a single broken HD 2400/ HD 2600 card. Gigabyte and MSI also have not received broken cards. Most engineers suspect that the idea of a defect/recall came from Acer, who ordered a large quantity of HD 2400 and HD 2600 graphics cards with UVD (Universal Video Decoder) disabled. When news of the UVD "problem" reached the market, the hardware world went hysterical, while Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS all did internal testing to confirm no problems with the HD 2400 or HD 2600 series.

AMD engineers have a statement to cover the entire HD 2400/HD 2600 fiasco: "Any report claiming that defective HD 2600 and 2400 [cards] are recalled in the channel is completely untrue".

-------

My machine is working flawlessly, it's never hung, I don't have dead pixels and my graphics card works fine in 3d games. I'm 99% happy with my choice. The missing 1% is due to the lack of friends I'm making cause I'm geeking out with my new machine.

I do know some people have had issues and I'm truely sorry they are experiencing them. I think the overall % of defective iMacs is probably pretty darn small. This would be true for any consumer product produced. You can't manufacture something over and over without some degree of error.

That being said, you are being smart to research before you buy. Put yourself in someone elses shoes... does an article title like yours help them out? I know what my answer would be :p

Cheers!
 
Honestly I'm sick of these types of posts. I'm sitting here anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new iMac (tomorrow) and have to sift through all these negative, hysteria mongering threads. Legitimate concerns I have no problem with but lets try to keep this site a useful and enjoyable experience.

Sorry, really had to get that out. Carry on.
 
HLdan...other issues??

HLdan said:
Don't take this wrong way but your post is pointless and it creates unnecessary drama for people like me who's iMac is not giving them any problems. My GPU works perfectly, I play 3D games in OS X and XP and with Apple's last update things still work great.

The new iMac with the HD2600XT is great a machine and it would be great if more people posted their positive experiences. Most people without issues never post.
Click to expand...

I played with the new 24" aluminum/glass iMac at the Apple Store in Boulder CO. I have read countless posts about yellow screens, dead pixels, light bleeding, and uneven brightness from left to right.

Do you have any of these problems? Thanks for your answers in advance!
 
I have a 20 inch iMac, with the ATI 2600. Now that the iTunes bug is fixed it works great. I do understand these peoples frustrations with the issues there having, cause it was very hard to find info on the iTunes bug. Went for weeks not knowing if it was hardware or a software bug for sure. That being said I love my iMac and don't regret getting one at all.




iMac Aluminum 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo
320GB HD
2GB Ram
 
HLdan said:
Don't take this wrong way but your post is pointless and it creates unnecessary drama for people like me who's iMac is not giving them any problems. My GPU works perfectly, I play 3D games in OS X and XP and with Apple's last update things still work great.

The new iMac with the HD2600XT is great a machine and it would be great if more people posted their positive experiences. Most people without issues never post.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Im not trying to be picky or anything but can you clarify that you have a HD2600XT card in your iMac? The XT cards are the top end cards and as far as i know the best iMac card is the HD2600 Pro which is whats in my 24" iMac Alu. All the higher end iMacs on the Apple store site are listed as being HD2600 Pro's. Even the 2.8Extreme.

I only mention this because ive seen people post a few times saying its an XT. Maybe it was you on the other posts?

CavemanUK
 
DesignerOnMac said:
I played with the new 24" aluminum/glass iMac at the Apple Store in Boulder CO. I have read countless posts about yellow screens, dead pixels, light bleeding, and uneven brightness from left to right.

Do you have any of these problems? Thanks for your answers in advance!
Click to expand...

Personally i have never seen these problems on my 24" iMac Alu. I have seen light bleed on more that one of the 20" models on display in the store.
 
CavemanUK said:
Hi,

Im not trying to be picky or anything but can you clarify that you have a HD2600XT card in your iMac? The XT cards are the top end cards and as far as i know the best iMac card is the HD2600 Pro which is whats in my 24" iMac Alu. All the higher end iMacs on the Apple store site are listed as being HD2600 Pro's. Even the 2.8Extreme.

I only mention this because ive seen people post a few times saying its an XT. Maybe it was you on the other posts?

CavemanUK
Click to expand...

It has already been confirmed. All the 2600 iMacs are Mobility XTs.
 
One major problem I have is when I play games in bootcamp, (NFS Carbon, Overlord) the screen goes black suddenly and you can still hear the computer running.

Have encountered this many many times. A real disappointment.
 
It has already been confirmed. All the 2600 iMacs are Mobility XTs
Click to expand...

Slightly underclocked though. For legal reasons they are not allowed to claim there's an XT inside, but on the other hand they don't want to put 'underclocked' in the specs! So calling it a Pro is the best marketing solution.
 
It has already been confirmed. All the 2600 iMacs are Mobility XTs
Click to expand...

Slightly underclocked though. For legal reasons they are not allowed to claim there's an XT inside, but on the other hand they don't want to put 'underclocked' in the specs! So calling it a Pro is the best marketing solution.

One major problem I have is when I play games in bootcamp, (NFS Carbon, Overlord) the screen goes black suddenly and you can still hear the computer running.

Have encountered this many many times. A real disappointment.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but there's always that chance with a beta product with out of date drivers :(
On the other hand Need For Speed Carbon is as buggy as anything. It worked fine on my old PC for 3 months and then wouldn't start up nine times out of ten. When it did finally start working again, it had trashed my saved game.

Went straight on ebay.
 
Ice-Cube said:
One major problem I have is when I play games in bootcamp, (NFS Carbon, Overlord) the screen goes black suddenly and you can still hear the computer running.

Have encountered this many many times. A real disappointment.
Click to expand...

I've found this to be the problem in virtually all games...

I just wish apple would come up with some newer graphics drivers.
 
booksacool1 said:
I've found this to be the problem in virtually all games...

I just wish apple would come up with some newer graphics drivers.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this may well not be a driver issue. My alu iMac locks up too, often with a black screen and sometimes I see weird artefacts.
I spoke to AppleCare today, and they concluded the iMac is faulty and needed to be sent in for repair :mad:
As much as I wanted to believe it was a driver/software problem and could be simply fixed with some update. Its clearly more serious than that and no such straightforward solutions exist.

For those that have iMacs with this problem, I urge you to call Apple now and get this taken care of. Much to my surprise, when i called them, they claimed they were not aware of these issues :rolleyes:
Its undoubtedly the video card that is faulty. But whether it is the same fault as described in the news articles linked above, im not so sure. Mostly because the news articles don't mention mobility cards (or Macs), yet that is what our Macs use.

As I say, Call Apple and make absolutely certain they are aware of these problems. The more of us that complain to them, the sooner the problem will be sorted out for everyone.
 
I've had the 2.8 iMac for about a month...

and I'm as thilled with it as when it arrived. I have had no problems with it at all. Also, I'm not using bootcamp or parralells or the other one that I can't remember the name of. I'm using CodeWeavers Crossover which means I can run the Windows apps I need without the need to install windows on my machine. I have even played a few game demos on it that run just fine. At this point, there are no games I want that are only available on Windows but the demos I have played so far have looked and played just fine.
Just thought I would throw in a positive note here in the midst of all this negative stuff.

-M
 
I've had my iMac for two weeks today...

And EVERY problem I've had has been fixed. Either by me or by Apple. I've not called Apple Care once either.

Problems:
Stuck Pixel - Went after running Pixel fixers, then I changed my background to a black image and it's gone for good (Doesn't display any blue anymore, so it doesn't come back)
Hot at the top - Apple must have fixed it in the software update because it's MUCH cooler now. before, it was a shock to touch it... but now it's just warm, like my old PC case was (Which had a LOT more breathing room).
Serious Crashing - Once was because I was running iMovie 06 and doing other things at the same time. The other was because I tried to force quit finder (Was viewing my PC's files on my network, but my PC was sending buggered messages to my iMac, making it spasm around a bit...) Bad idea. I thought it would just restart but it didn't... Oh well. Part of the learning curve!

Apart from those few problems (Which have been fixed now), all I can do is sing praises (With the actual computer that is. The Peripherals are a different story all together. The Mighty Mouse is a nice mouse but it's just plain PAINFUL. The keyboard seems to be fine, though. I love it!)

My iMac is as wonderful as I was hoping it would be. Sure, I've gotten over the excitement and now it's just a part of my life that I'm used to, but I still have absolutely NO regrets in buying it, and that's all that matters, is it not?
 
i read somewhere that ati and apple are working on new drivers specifically for the ati video cards.....anyone know anything about this?
 
Here's the data from my System Profiler:
ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro:
Chipset Model: ATI,RadeonHD2600
Type: Display
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 256 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x9583
Revision ID: 0x0000
ROM Revision: 113-B2250F-212
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.212
Displays:
iMac:
Display Type: LCD
Resolution: 1920 x 1200
Depth: 32-bit Color
Built-In: Yes
Core Image: Hardware Accelerated
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Online: Yes
Quartz Extreme: Supported
Display Connector:
Status: No display connected

I have a new alum iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.8 GHz, 24", 4GB Mem, 1TB HD.

The screen freezes 1 - 2 times a day requiring reboot. The cursor still functions and iTunes still plays and volume controls work after the screen freezes. Cmd-opt-esc doesn't engage. This usually happens in Maya - a high end 3D program. Maya also states that the graphics card capabilities are insufficient for hardware modeling.

Applecare recommends taking machine to Apple Store. I hope they have a fix.
 
I would be very surprised if it's a hardware issue. I really think (could be wrong) that a software update with new drivers will come soon and solve the problem.

I was one of those that was looking at others having freezing problems without having any myself. But yesterday (after almost a month without problems), it happened 3 times to me too, with the mouse cursor still working but everything else frozen. The first time I noticed something weird was happening when I was encoding with iDVD and there is that small image where you can see the images/video being encoded and suddenly those images started to show artefacts like pixelation, all green or pink images (the rest of the display was perfectly fine) and suddenly no more response from the computer. I had to manually turn it off. Then it happened 2 times more when I was in FrontRow, I was looking to a trailer and pressed escape before the end of it to go back, the screen got all black and again I had to reboot again manually.

It seems obvious to me that there is a problem that is not related to user installation and graphic related. I hope Apple finds a solution fast, it's bad publicity.
 
i don't think it can be a software related problem. Some have the issues... some not. So, I think it is a hardware-related. And I hope Apple don't fix it through a software update (workaround) that downgrade graphic card specs
 
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