Freezing iMacs
Ok, I haven't read all 200+ postings here, but I can easily see the arguments going on.
For myself, I've been an Apple user since 1979 and a Mac user since '92 (made my original Apple ][ last over 10 years, upgrading it myself to ][e capability) and enjoyed the simplicity and ease of use that Apple has held all those years. Even during the Sculley years I held on to my Mac, already aware of the malware issues as well as poor stability inherent in Windows 95. On the other hand, decent software was getting hard to find so I started using a Windows machine beside my Mac for games and other purposes that built into my home business. However, I never completely dropped my Mac and finally divested myself of Windows completely when the aluminum iMacs came out.
This leads into my current circumstance. My wife and I each own one of the 24" Extreme models and experienced the freezing issue on an average of once a week; which to me was an acceptable annoyance since I'd read other machines were having worse problems and that Apple was already working on the issue. However, after downloading the 10.5.1 update last Thursday along with the firmware update for my graphics card, my issue went from once a week to once a day! My wife's machine has frozen once so far since the updates.
You can probably imagine my embarrassment at carrying my machine in to the local Apple store (always crowded) to have it looked at. In essence, what they ended up telling me is that they need to replace the video card after a quick check determined that mine was from apparently a bad batch of cards with defective video RAM, something the firmware update couldn't fix. I did note however that the more recent freezes occurred only in applications heavy in OpenGL graphics, such as certain screensavers and iTunes Visualizer.
End result, I'm taking both iMacs in to the Apple Store for the card replacements on Wednesday and leaving them over the holiday weekend for burn-in and verification.
On the other hand, despite my embarrassment, I still consider Apple's service and reliability to be superior to others since I can't tell you how many Dells, HPs and others I have seen go in repeatedly for issues even after hardware replacements. I honestly don't blame the 5-time returner for being upset; but in this case the problem isn't fully Apple's, but also ATI's.
I only have one question, though: Why, when Intel owns nVidia, did Apple choose to use ATI graphics chips? In my personal experience with Windows machines, I always had fewer problems with nVidia cards than I ever did with ATI cards.
Ok, I haven't read all 200+ postings here, but I can easily see the arguments going on.
For myself, I've been an Apple user since 1979 and a Mac user since '92 (made my original Apple ][ last over 10 years, upgrading it myself to ][e capability) and enjoyed the simplicity and ease of use that Apple has held all those years. Even during the Sculley years I held on to my Mac, already aware of the malware issues as well as poor stability inherent in Windows 95. On the other hand, decent software was getting hard to find so I started using a Windows machine beside my Mac for games and other purposes that built into my home business. However, I never completely dropped my Mac and finally divested myself of Windows completely when the aluminum iMacs came out.
This leads into my current circumstance. My wife and I each own one of the 24" Extreme models and experienced the freezing issue on an average of once a week; which to me was an acceptable annoyance since I'd read other machines were having worse problems and that Apple was already working on the issue. However, after downloading the 10.5.1 update last Thursday along with the firmware update for my graphics card, my issue went from once a week to once a day! My wife's machine has frozen once so far since the updates.
You can probably imagine my embarrassment at carrying my machine in to the local Apple store (always crowded) to have it looked at. In essence, what they ended up telling me is that they need to replace the video card after a quick check determined that mine was from apparently a bad batch of cards with defective video RAM, something the firmware update couldn't fix. I did note however that the more recent freezes occurred only in applications heavy in OpenGL graphics, such as certain screensavers and iTunes Visualizer.
End result, I'm taking both iMacs in to the Apple Store for the card replacements on Wednesday and leaving them over the holiday weekend for burn-in and verification.
On the other hand, despite my embarrassment, I still consider Apple's service and reliability to be superior to others since I can't tell you how many Dells, HPs and others I have seen go in repeatedly for issues even after hardware replacements. I honestly don't blame the 5-time returner for being upset; but in this case the problem isn't fully Apple's, but also ATI's.
I only have one question, though: Why, when Intel owns nVidia, did Apple choose to use ATI graphics chips? In my personal experience with Windows machines, I always had fewer problems with nVidia cards than I ever did with ATI cards.
