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iMac seems like it may be hosed. Please say it ain't so!

G

gr8gatzby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 10, 2001
100
0
Charlotte, NC
I was tasked to fix my friends Intel iMac 2ghz. He was running bootcamp and used only Windows because whenever he'd boot into OSX 10.4 a peristent spinning beachball would prevent anything being done, and require a hard reboot. There was also video interlacing and artifacts on the screen on the mac side, and would only show when booted into OSX, not during the boot process or within windows. Though a random error message regarding the video would display, warning about the VPU.

I performed a clean install of 10.5, and it locked immediately upon first boot. The video artifacts remain, but in different places with the fresh OS, and when I click anything or attempt to open Software Update, the system freezes with the spinning beachball again. I can move the mouse around, though I can't select anything.

I zapped the PRAM and am unable to boot into open firmware for the NVRAM reset. Is the possible to load windows using Bootcamp and bypass the mac altogether? i've never used bootcamp so i need all the help i can get.

thanks.

IMG_0009-1.jpg
 
Weird how no problems occur when booting to Windows. Software is out of the question since you've already performed a clean install (Erase/Install). The only thing left to really do is try to run the Apple Hardware Test and hopes that something pops up so we know how to address the issue, even repair of possible.
 
Apple Hardware Test came up with no problems found. When I booted into safe mode with the clean and fresh install of 10.5, there were no video artifacts and everything was responsive. what the...
 
It looks like the GPU is fried. Weird though that it is not showing up under Windows.

If he runs a stress test under Windows does he get the same video artifacting?
 
in windows there is what appears to be just a bunch of exposed pixels illuminated as either red or green at random all over the screen. perhaps 300-500 pixels randomly lit red and green. I doesnt obstruct the view that bad, nor does it show up on the mac side this way.
 
just uninstalled / reinstalled ATI x1600 drivers under windows in safe mode, and now the whole shebang locks up completely within 5 seconds after full boot. Though safe mode works swimmingly.
 
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