iMac Software update 1.3

[bluenose]

Has anyone considered that some iMacs may have poor heat sink contact to the CPU or GPU in freezing machines? I imagine the entire aluminum casing forms part of the heat dissapation strategy, but everything must make firm contact with flat surfaces and thermal pad/paste.

Apple is struggling to solve the problem with software. Software could only improve cooling by throttling back the CPU and GPU and avoiding 3D modes.

 

[IshPBG]

Take them back

I am stunned at the number of people who are putting up with constant freezes on their iMacs. TAKE THEM BACK! That is the only way Apple will get the message, and the only way you will get satisfaction. They will either have to really fix your iMac, or give you a new one, or give you your money back.

 

[BKKbill]

Well I don't know about the love it just doesn't seem to be there or I'm just not feeling it. Maybe taking 30% off the top and then producing something that doesn't work and continually shipping the same thing out to eager fans may have something to do with this. I really think Apple should stop or at least slow down and take a long hard look at things. Here I thought I was doing the smart thing by switching to Apple after a long sabbatical but if this is the result possibly an error on my part has been made. Hope the Jobs is heeding this, one can hope. Things have a way of balancing out as to price spent and expectation expected. The replacement for my defunct iMac comes on Monday so I guess the choices I made will be self explanatory then. It really is a shame at these prices such disappointment occur. Such in life in the fast lane I guess.

 

[snickelfritz]

Has anyone considered that some iMacs may have poor heat sink contact to the CPU or GPU in freezing machines? I imagine the entire aluminum casing forms part of the heat dissapation strategy, but everything must make firm contact with flat surfaces and thermal pad/paste.

Apple is struggling to solve the problem with software. Software could only improve cooling by throttling back the CPU and GPU and avoiding 3D modes.

That sounds more plausible than a software problem that only affects a small percentage of the machines.

 

[happydude]

huh

haven't had any freezing problems with our 24" 2.8 don't think we'll install this "update" . . .

 

[Mindflux]

I have an aluminum iMac. I have 3rd party RAM. I installed it myself and not through an Apple reseller/certified tech.

The only freezing that I have noticed is that (I'm a recent Windows switcher), in general, the Mac UI is NOT multi-threaded and does NOT deal very well with reporting errors. Most often, if an app experiences a wait it simply locks up... It locks the universal menu bar. It locks it's own window. And if that App happens to be Finder, then there's no hope. Also, apps have a tendency to simply "disappear" rather than reporting any kind of error and, so far, I haven't found any central place to go find out about what those errors could be (probably a console log somewhere...).

Anyhow, I know Apple is supposed to be "great" with UI design. But, so far, my experience simply shows that they are simply different, not better at all. And way less mature.

For all that people complain about MS, at least MS listens to their customers on issues like this (at least, with a much higher frequency).

I am experiencing buyers remorse.

Yes, console log.

 

[nomad01]

Had Tiger, now Leopard - 2.4 ghz iMac 20", 1GB Apple supplied Ram and 1GB Kingston RAM. No freezing at all so far. Had it a couple of months now and possibly the snappiest, most stable machine I've owned.

 

[Kwill]

My 24" was ordered on 8/7 (release date) and manufactured between 8/13-8/19. I have not had any freezing issues at all to date in either Tiger or now in Leopard. I've tried doing some of the things that some experiencing this problem say cause their iMacs to freeze such as switching around the menus in Front Row, etc and running screensavers and no freezing, no artifacting, no problems.

I installed the 1.3 iMac Update because I always install all driver/firmware updates that Apple releases and can notice no changes at all.

I know this problem exists for quite a few folks and I AM extremely sympathetic and DO care. I still wonder if this is a software or a hardware issue though. Maybe we should start comparing what software we are all running on our systems to see if there might be some common factor on those WITH the problem as opposed to those without.

I received a new 24" iMac last month. After it arrived, I read reports of freezing. I don't use Front Row (Hmm, don't even see it in Applications folder), it's mainly a production (work) machine. Anyway, slots were filled with two 2GB sticks of third-party RAM. In the month or so that I have had this iMac, it has only froze once. I can't say I am too curious about how to make it freeze frequently. Still running Tiger with Leopard upgrade disc stashed in an envelope until next year.

Since everything is working fine now, I would hate to "fix" what isn't broken only to join the camp of unsatisfied. It would be nice if Apple elaborated further on what the update addresses. Then again, that's why we have sites like MacFixit.

 

[$1()()0N$]

Freezing

Is the freezing issue on the imacs which have been upgraded to leopard by the user or those bought with it preinstalled? Has this update managed to sort out anyone's issues?

 

[BKKbill]

I'm confused! Is "not having no freezing problems", the opposite of "having no freezing problems"?

Possibly it could be "not having any freezing problems" to "not having freezing problems". I know I know but just needed a break from the freezing problem.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Has anyone considered that some iMacs may have poor heat sink contact to the CPU or GPU in freezing machines? I imagine the entire aluminum casing forms part of the heat dissapation strategy, but everything must make firm contact with flat surfaces and thermal pad/paste.

Apple is struggling to solve the problem with software. Software could only improve cooling by throttling back the CPU and GPU and avoiding 3D modes.

That's an interesting theory. A poorly seated/improperly thermal pasted heatsink could result in exactly the issues many are reporting like freezing and video artifacts, etc.

It is another case, if true, where sending the machines back to Apple would really help because if Apple got enough of them back with such a problem to acknowledge a large scale manufacturing defect they would offer an open recall for all those with the freezing and stop wasting time on software "fixes".

 

[jscooper]

I just ran Software Update for Leopard on a 24" iMac running at 2.8 GHZ. When I restarted it (as asked), it seems to have erased my hard drive! The Getting Started window pops up. I go through whole registration process and it returns me to the beginning window. I tried to call Apple help, but they are closed. Any ideas?

I have't upgraded to 10.5 yet but I share an office with someone who did. Same thing happened to him on a MBP. He reinstalled Leopard doing an archive and install rather than upgrade (which is what he did first time) and it seemed to go better the second time 'round. He says he didn't lose anything though, it just kept re-running the welcome app and the only way around it was to reinstall.

Jeff

 

[weezer160]

First, my regards to those who have been experiencing any of the known issues with the iMacs.
We've had our iMac for a week now, and have been fortunate enough not to have had any problems with this. I just purchased Call of Duty 2 and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever. I hope that's a good sign, because I don't know if these problems are linked to specific apps such as Front Rose, iTunes screen savers, etc.
In any case, I'll be buying the AppleCare in case it crops up in the future.

 

[Lancetx]

I have an aluminum iMac. I have 3rd party RAM. I installed it myself and not through an Apple reseller/certified tech.

The only freezing that I have noticed is that (I'm a recent Windows switcher), in general, the Mac UI is NOT multi-threaded and does NOT deal very well with reporting errors. Most often, if an app experiences a wait it simply locks up... It locks the universal menu bar. It locks it's own window. And if that App happens to be Finder, then there's no hope. Also, apps have a tendency to simply "disappear" rather than reporting any kind of error and, so far, I haven't found any central place to go find out about what those errors could be (probably a console log somewhere...).

Anyhow, I know Apple is supposed to be "great" with UI design. But, so far, my experience simply shows that they are simply different, not better at all. And way less mature.

For all that people complain about MS, at least MS listens to their customers on issues like this (at least, with a much higher frequency).

I am experiencing buyers remorse.

Yes, console log.

It's amazing what just a few seconds of actual research will turn up huh?

 

[BKKbill]

Well I have decided to follow this and other posts this week-end and if there is no positive news may just leave that new iMac in the store and pick up my cash.

 

[Mundy]

I'm starting to wonder if the iMac freezing issue isn't actually a hardware problem. It seems like a lot of the early aluminum iMacs were affected by this issue. Aluminum iMacs that have shipped in recent weeks seem much more stable. Mine has yet to lock up after a week of hard use.

Maybe some of the early Aluminum iMacs got a bad batch of Radeon 2600s? It wouldn't be unprecedented, seeing as the original Radeon X1900XTs that shipped with the Mac Pro were faulty.

 

[kingtj]

Probably is, but still....

They have a point here. If you bought a *new* Mac and it was constantly freezing up on you, I would think the only sensible thing to do would be to wipe the whole drive and do a fresh re-install of the OS again. See if that fixed anything. If not, take it back!

I bought a new aluminum 20" iMac myself, and I can honestly say I've had absolutely NO crashes or freezes with it so far. I don't use it as my primary computer though. It's one I use only for my MIDI and music gear. So theoretically, I'm just not seeing a potential problem because I'm not doing intensive enough stuff with the 3D graphics. (However, it does regularly sit, drawing one of the 3D screen savers, and that hasn't ever caused an issue yet.)

If and when I get any free time this weekend, I'll try out some of these things people mentioned in Front Row, etc. - to see if I can make it freeze up. But I'm currently leaning towards the theories other people posted. ATI may have sold Apple some defective graphics card chips in some of these units.

This forum is just full of apple apologists.

 

[Spankey]

OK, this is WEIRD!

The computer has worked fine now for the last few hours. I even played WoW and the performance was better than before. After some initial crashes the game played without a hitch.

This is what I am seeing, in regards to Leopard.

A new patch is applied and for some reason it takes time to fully implement itself. Bizarre, right? Happened when I upgraded to Leopard. The system crashed and then over the next few days and hours became more and more stable.

I'm not saying I am not going to crash again, but perhaps there is some stability with the video card and maybe we are seeing OS issues? Patch the card, then the OS? Is there background indexing going on? Do changes take affect to certain parts of the system in a sequential order? I dunno. For now. Things are A-OK.

 

[flopticalcube]

OK, this is WEIRD!

The computer has worked fine now for the last few hours. I even played WoW and the performance was better than before. After some initial crashes the game played without a hitch.

This is what I am seeing, in regards to Leopard.

A new patch is applied and for some reason it takes time to fully implement itself. Bizarre, right? Happened when I upgraded to Leopard. The system crashed and then over the next few days and hours became more and more stable.

I'm not saying I am not going to crash again, but perhaps there is some stability with the video card and maybe we are seeing OS issues? Patch the card, then the OS? Is there background indexing going on? Do changes take affect to certain parts of the system in a sequential order? I dunno. For now. Things are A-OK.

I have to say that is my impression as well and this is with Tiger (1.2 update). Last night I was one of the first to apply the patch and it froze on me within a minute or two. Several reboots later it now (touch wood) feels more stable. I can enter and leave windowed mode in WoW. I can go back and forth over a magnified dock. No freezing. Let's just hope it stays that way.

 

[plokoonpma]

ram related

Hi, I'm not a certified apple tech support guy just cause I dont want to travel and spent to much money on the certification. But something I learned thru the years fixing macs its that always u have memory upgrades different than your original installed it could cause conflict.
Example, my iMac alu came with hynix 1gb so dim, but i removed it and upgraded it to 3gb with 1gb so dim + 2gb so dim from owc/techworks. No freeze here yet, after upgrade to tiger got very nice FPS in games, command and conquer runs faster and this 1.3 update seems to keep that trend of performance.
Please if your machine its bad, just complaint and Apple will replace it. I had a Mac Pro that got so messed by third party memory that I had to ask Apple to replace it and they did. I felt so relieve cause wasn't a cheap system at $4600.00.
So if I got that juggernaut replaced, please go for it.

When upgrade RAM please try to use same size so dims of the same brand or at least the same brand, that will ensure that specs are the same and no conflict should happen.

 

[Cuprous]

I've got a freezer with 1GB Apple + 2GB OWC RAM. I haven't tried removing the RAM yet, but am considering it... Would suck to have to trade in performance for reliability.

I also have a 2.8GHz 1GB Apple Ram +2GB OWC Ram, went home for lunch installed iMac update for Leopard removed the OWC Ram, disconnected all USB and FW devices, reset PRAM. After restart from PRAM reset had the rectangular artifacts on desktop. Reset PRAM again and going into screensaver selecting the Arabesque and wham system locks up.

I would assume this should rule out the OWC Ram and external devices to be the cause for my system. My patience is running thin….

 

[Consultant]

Just the thought of me boxing up my 24" iMac that weighs a ton and carrying it through the mall is pissing me off. Then have one of their "geniuses" try and figure it out over and over like I don't know what hell I'm talking about pisses me off even more. And then the thought of not having my mac for a few days is the cherry on top. Maybe I shoulda got a ACD and a MacBook pro instead.

Here are your options:

- Call Apple Care, have them send a box and shipping sticker. Expect 30 minutes to trouble shoot.

- Make genius bar reservation, and call the store to ask where you can drop off your mac. There is typically a pickup / delivery area for the heavier items where your car can get to.

- Get MBP and ACD.

 

[mctheriot]

I purchased a 20" 2.4ghz machine on Sept 10th - no freeze issues.
- Purchased a 20" 2.0ghz machine on Sept 28th - no freeze issues.
- Moved the stock RAM from one machine to the other (2G total) and install 2 1G mem modules in the other machine - no freeze issues.
- Clean installs with Leopard - no freeze issues.

I just went in to front row (never used it before) and played around for about 20 minutes and couldn't get it to freeze.

Is this a case of a HW issue with a certain batch? What is everyone's purchase date and is there a way to tell date of manufacture?

Mark

 

[seashellz2]

Good God, what is wrong with APPLE?
They probably should have waited for an end of Nov release date, to get it right.
This is still practically a beta seed, from my experience and a LOT of other people's in my reading.
Yes yes, I know, the people with no problems dont write in here to complain, but this seems....
different-but ya know there must be tons of people who dont hang out on Mac sites, who dont complaint,
because they dont know how to, or want to bother with it.
10.5 has some cool stuff but is unstable, buggy, and the freezes...
Im gonna switch...

back to 10.4
And what the H is up with 10.4.11?

It sounded as if it was ready to push out the door weeks ago...

 

[Maccus Aurelius]

I share the sentiments of those who think that people should not be waiting on firmware updates. When the Macbook RSD issue first sprouted, I too fell victim to it, and I ran over to the Apple store that same day and got it back that same weekend (2 days total without my macbook). Not long after a firmware fix came around. Just send the things in. I sure as hell would.