iMac Software update 1.3

[flipshot]

Do these freezing problems affect the 20" 2.0Ghz model as well?

This is my first mac and I have had it since the end of August now and I do find it freezes more than I was expecting it to but I thought maybe its normal. I have installed the update not sure at this stage if it has made any difference but I now have a new problem when it goes to screensaver rather than displaying the screensaver the screen becomes all corrupted and pixelated and it then takes about 30 secs after coming out of this for the machine to become usable again.

 

[wakerider017]

I'll probably have to do that as well.. Problem is, I really need this computer for school, and I can't miss it for 2 weeks (or even more, took a month for a friend's PowerBook to get back from repair)

I have a spare Dell that is about 5 yrs old. It will work for Word and stuff. (I am a student too)

My computer is not being repaired. I am getting a new one. They have to do some kind of a special return since I bought mine online. Basically I need to return mine first, then they ship a new one to the apple store, then I go pick it up.

That's good news but... 2 weeks!

Ya.

Apple gave my 2 choices...

1. Have the computer fixed in 24hrs. (replaced logic board and GPU)

2. Wait 2 weeks and get a brand new one.


The choice was simple for me

 

[Bolteh]

Picture of artifacts:
http://users.pandora.be/bolteh/artifacts.jpg

For the witty ones to see that the rollout menu is open and te dock is magnified, hunting the use of 2 magical cursors: I merged 2 screenshots, easier to post 1 image instead of multiple.


And for the curious people, this is what I sent to miss Fox.

Dear Mss. Fox,

I'm only one of the many customers that are having freezing issues with the new aluminum 24" 2.8GHz iMac. I bought this computer about a month ago, and it has been having freezing issues since day one (the very first time I booted, I was asked to take a picture, the computer froze). I have tried everything, I've been rolling with the iMac software update 1.0, 1.1 and now 1.2 on Tiger. I've had freezes with all of them, but update 1.2 also added screen artifacts when using Front Row, iTunes Cover Flow, the Dock, basicly everything that uses some sort of graphical layout. I'm at my wits end here, since I have to use this computer for college (audio, video and image editing), and to be honest, it's nearly impossible to work on this computer, as it can freeze up at any given moment. It doesn't matter what I do, there's no specific step-by-step plan to make this computer freeze, it can happen during browsing, it can happen doing nothing at all, it can happen during work with Final Cut Pro.

Ofcourse, I could've just get the computer exchanged for a new one during the first two weeks, but Apple had announced at the beginning of October that there was an issue with the freezing macs and -promised- a fix by the end of the month. So I just figured that this machine works well when it doesn't freeze, so I waited for a fix to arrive. Well, the fix didn't arrive at the end of the month, but no biggie, the fix still arrived. I eagerly installed it with tears in my eyes due to massive happiness.. Happiness that would soon turn into tears of pure frustration as I was greeted with a freeze after the first reboot.

I'm really beginning to lose hope here.. My last resort is to send the iMac back for repair, since I live in Belgium and there are no Apple Stores near (unless you think Ireland is just around the corner), risking the loss of a computer for several weeks or even months. As I said earlier, I need this computer for school and I really can't live without it, so sending it back will be my very last option.

All I want to hear now is that Apple is indeed still working on a fix for these issues (if it's a software issue at least, something I'm starting to doubt), and that I can expect a fix -very- soon.. I paid over €2000 for this computer, and at the moment it feels like I bought something on the streets for €200. I paid for a stable, working computer, I don't like to see my money going to waste. I expected more of Apple.

Yours sincerely,
Maarten Lenoir


PS: I also tried Leopard and all the updates for Leopard.. The freezing issues are far worse in Leopard than in Tiger, that's why I'm sticking to Tiger at the moment.

 

[yzp]

I guess apple has had a problem, they have noticed it and now, they are triyng to fix it!

There's actually no problem there for me!

FTW

 

[Dr. Cheesesteak]

Okay, I posted this earlier and am posting again. I have not experienced ANY freezing or screen tearing since I first installed the update. I want to say that things seem..fixed?

I really do believe that simply running this patch DOES NOT fix the problem straight away. The system needs time to update. When I first installed the update and the freezes began, I just turned the system down over night in frustration.

This morning, I powered on and browsed the web for awhile. Then a few hours later, I launched WoW. No Problems. No problems ever since. I'm pretty excited now, as I no longer fear a system crash at a moments notice. Things just feel..stable. Much more so than ever before.

Leave your system on, do some mundane things for a few hours. Then see what happens. Oh yeah..I reset the PRAM as well. Good luck!

I saw this post so I thought I'd brave 1.2 on Tiger as well... right after installing I gave the machine 5 consecutive PRAM zaps and.... so far so good.

Just jumped into WoW for about 20 minutes, maxed everything out, and not one freeze! I used to have to turn all shaders off or I would freeze within about 5 seconds of the game running. I had shaders and 6x Multisampling with no problems this time.

I used to be able to always freeze it with Coverflow in the iTunes TV Shows store and nothing there either!

I'm not 100% convinced things are working just yet, so I'll post any updates... but things seem a bit better for me thus far.

 

[sam10685]

what?

This thread is called 'imac software update' isn't it?

 

[flopticalcube]

This thread is called 'imac software update' isn't it?

Every Mac has software that is particular to it. Video drivers, trackpad drivers (for laptops), etc.

 

[Nightline]

No freezing issues here, but...

I have one of those new WD My Book World Edition II external drives, the 1 Terrabyte model. I have been going back and forth with WD about why it wont work with the MAC, but only PC's. Odly enough, I have not changed anything on my system since yesterday when it was not working, but now after that update, I can read/write files to drive with no problem.

 

[flopticalcube]

I have one of those new WD My Book World Edition II external drives, the 1 Terrabyte model. I have been going back and forth with WD about why it wont work with the MAC, but only PC's. Odly enough, I have not changed anything on my system since yesterday when it was not working, but now after that update, I can read/write files to drive with no problem.

That's interesting. I was about to buy one today and opted for the Home Edition instead as I was put off the lack of Mac support. May have to make a trip back to Costco...

 

[wakerider017]

I have one of those new WD My Book World Edition II external drives, the 1 Terrabyte model. I have been going back and forth with WD about why it wont work with the MAC, but only PC's. Odly enough, I have not changed anything on my system since yesterday when it was not working, but now after that update, I can read/write files to drive with no problem.

System Requirements:
Windows® 2000/XP Home/Pro

That's interesting. I was about to buy one today and opted for the Home Edition instead as I was put off the lack of Mac support. May have to make a trip back to Costco...

I just bought this for $180 shipped!

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=372&language=en

 

[ascham87]

Strangely, I'd been having horrible problems freezing/artifacting/whatnot on my 24" 2.4ghz 1gb of Apple ram. The machine was purchased on August 7th (literally 20 minutes after announced, I was at the apple store and decided to pick one up). So it's an early unit. Nothing worked, Leopard made it worse, as did 1.1 on Tiger. I was mad and had decided I would buy Applecare today and start on figuring out how to get a new one. I installed the 1.3 update as a last ditch effort not expecting much and originally didn't get much. I installed the update, and it restarted. As it restarted I zapped the PRAM and when it started up I saw some artifacting, tried the Arabesque+Dock thing to get it to freeze and sure enough, right on cue, it froze. I hard reset, then tried Front Row and it froze too.

Obviously now I'm pissed at this so called "Update" so I turn off the machine once more and reset it. I've been now trying everything under the sun to get it to freeze again and CAN'T! I'm overly joyed and just hope this was the thing to fix it. I know this is probably an isolated case, but maybe zapping pram+multiple resets could help something.

 

[Nightline]

System Requirements:
Windows® 2000/XP Home/Pro

Oddly enough, this is also in the knowledge base when asked about compatibility. I do have to admit, I didn't even check system requirements before I ordered it online. I 'figured" heck, its an external drive, the thought of it working or not with the Mac never even entered my mind... In the future I will always check system requirements, but glad its working.

The WD NetCenter and WD My Book World Edition hard drive uses a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Macintosh File System. The file system on the WD NetCenter and the WD My Book World Edition hard drive supports access from Windows, Macintosh and most Linux based computer systems.

 

[flopticalcube]

I just bought this for $180 shipped!

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=372&language=en

I was looking for a NAS solution with a terabyte and the WE II is $380 at Costco. That's not a bad price either.

 

[Nightline]

I was looking for a NAS solution with a terabyte and the WE II is $380 at Costco. That's not a bad price either.

I would honestly say to give it a try, Costco is good at accepting returns if it doesn't work. A friend of mine also bought one, and he is going to hook it up tomorrow. I will post the results of his install.

 

[wakerider017]

Oddly enough, this is also in the knowledge base when asked about compatibility. I do have to admit, I didn't even check system requirements before I ordered it online. I 'figured" heck, its an external drive, the thought of it working or not with the Mac never even entered my mind... In the future I will always check system requirements, but glad its working.

The WD NetCenter and WD My Book World Edition hard drive uses a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Macintosh File System. The file system on the WD NetCenter and the WD My Book World Edition hard drive supports access from Windows, Macintosh and most Linux based computer systems.

Ya bro,

I would have thought the same. I always thought an external drive is an external drive.

I was looking for a NAS solution with a terabyte and the WE II is $380 at Costco. That's not a bad price either.

Ahhh looking for NAS.. That makes a big diff.

I am just looking for speed. That's why i forked over the few extra bucks..

A sweet looking enclosure is a big plus too.

 

[Nightline]

Ya bro,

A sweet looking enclosure is a big plus too.

And don't forget, that enclosure has 1 drive in it and room for another, so upgradeability is great.

 

[flopticalcube]

I would honestly say to give it a try, Costco is good at accepting returns if it doesn't work. A friend of mine also bought one, and he is going to hook it up tomorrow. I will post the results of his install.

I'll look forward to it. Maybe start a new thread. Its definitely newsworthy.

Ahhh looking for NAS.. That makes a big diff.

I am just looking for speed. That's why i forked over the few extra bucks..

A sweet looking enclosure is a big plus too.

Let's just say that I am less than impressed by the throughput of my AEBS AirDisk (MyBook Premium).

 

[chadder007]

Exactly. I still believe that the Graphic Card is faulty, and the updates corrupted it even further. I really think it's nothing to do with the RAM.

Still can't understand why wakerider017's iMac got fixed by removing the RAM though.

Does the artifacts get worse the longer the system is up? Could be the graphics core overheating in Leopard more so since the OS uses the GPU more extensively.???

 

[wakerider017]

Does the artifacts get worse the longer the system is up? Could be the graphics core overheating in Leopard more so since the OS uses the GPU more extensively.???

No.

Sometimes the worst artifacts can be seen in the login menu when the computer has been on for about 15 seconds...

I don't think it has to do with heat.

 

[compuguy1088]

Ok I was under NDA but after reading the latest email from Apple I'm half tempted to break it because I'm pretty po'd that this was released when the patch was known to NOT fully work.

I will however keep it quite until I hear I am no longer under NDA.

Until then I think I'm gonna go for a swap/exchange on my iMac.

Ok......so your under an NDA, and you may or may not have information towards the real problem? How did you get into this in the first place...it just seems awkward....

 

[Outcast-au]

Ok I thougt I would post everything ive done to troublesoot the freezing problem.

1st: Base install running 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 Updates for tiger.
2nd: Mac diags for 8 hours. No hardware issues reported.
3rd: Pulled out my 4Gb OWC and installed my 1Gb supplied
4th: Cleared PRAM and went back to step 1.

5th: Installed OSX on an external disk to rule out hard drive issues.

6th: Returned it to a mac store for repair.

At the end of the day as a few people have said. It appears to be a hardware issue with the video card. NO dirver update will fix the problem. Drivers may change how you get the problem as it may address thing differently but at the end of the day TAKE IT BACK.

 

[ascender]

No freezing for the last couple of days. Installed the update, restarted and the machine froze as soon as the desktop & dock loaded.

I'm loathe to phone Apple support, as what are they going to do? Bearing in mind this fault can disappear for weeks at a time, I'll either be without the machine for a very long time or get it back quickly with "no fault found".

Where do we stand from a legal point of view in the UK about returning the machine for a refund if there's no fix forthcoming? I'm guessing it would be difficult, if only for the above reasons and that its going to end up being much more hassle to us in the long run.

 

[youyesyou]

Hi around,

i experienced several freezings on my new iMac 24" (no options). I thought that the last update fixed this issue, but sadly it didn't. It freezed in frontrow, itunes..

I tried to call the apple store today but saturday it is closed, so i ve to wait until monday. I think they will tell me to send it to repair, BUT no way i don't want them to open my still very new machine. Do you think they can accept to send me a NEW one, freshly built in china ?

I ve it since October 4th.

I'm desperate
Thanks to all

 

[flopticalcube]

My wonky iMac is more stable under 1.2 than it was under 1.1 but it still froze in WoW occasionally and in XP (less frequent). I called Apple and they said:

"Have you applied the iMac Software Update 1.2?"

"Yes"

"Then its a hardware issue, bring it in for repair, here is your case number..."

Looks like capitulation to me. Take your iMacs in for repair people and force this recall on Apple if they don't have the morals to do it themselves.

 

[IzzyJG99]

iMac iSight sound problem.

I don't know if this is just me or maybe just a general 10.5 glitch, but on both my iMac iSights when visiting websites like YouTube with Java based video there is often a lot of popping sounds. I asked my sister and she said she's having it on her iSight iMac as well.