Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

dsyroi

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2007
35
0
I recently upgraded to a 20 inch Intel iMac running 10.4.9 from a 15 inch G4 iMac that ran 10.3.9. I'm getting a lot of freezes and finding this very frustrating. On my old iMac when a program froze I could generally force quit the program and other open programs were not affected. On my new iMac most of the time I am not able to force quit the program and other programs are also affected, e.g. Safari will freeze up on me and iTunes will quit playing at the same time. I've got 2 gigs of ram on the new machine, so I don't think it's a ram problem. Any input would be appreciated.
 

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
Try taking one stick of RAM out at a time to see if you have a dodgy stick. What other third party peripherals do you have plugged in (if any)? :)
 

dsyroi

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2007
35
0
Thanks for the response - the only peripherals I have connected are an Epson 2200 printer and I also connect a digital camera to download photos. This may sound lame, but I'm a little leery about messing with the ram sticks.

When installing additional ram on my last machine I managed to break one of the clips that holds the chip in place (like I said - lame. I can assure you that I'm a reasonable competent person most of the time). Guy at the repair shop managed to jury-rig a solution with a piece of foam providing pressure to keep the chip in place and it worked like a charm for the 4+ years that I had the machine, but I'm still leery. Does a faulty ram chip sound like the most likely explanation to you?
 

dsyroi

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2007
35
0
One other question: would running the hardware test tell me anything about a potential ram problem?
 

chinajon

macrumors newbie
Feb 16, 2006
26
0
China
conflicts re iMac

Hi
I think you clued us in to the problem in your first sentence. If you are like me, you copied a bunch of your old apps from the old machine into the new one, right? It is far more reasonable to think that there is a conflict within that group than that you have a RAM problem.

with the new OSX, you need the new apps that are designed to work with it. Running an old app can easily crash the system. This includes your widgets and drivers.

Kick all the stuff off your account auto start, and out of your dashboard. See if you have crashes like before. Hopefully not. Add them back one at a time until you crash. Or update them and add them as you get them.

Some of my old apps were never updated. Oh well, the new OSX is cool enough to make up for that problem.

Norton is still a problem on my machine. I have not been able to kill all the bits and pieces that were installed back in the day.

i also use an external Firewire HD with a simple system on it that is very useful to test conflicts. It is a good thing to have for backups as well.

Lastly, get Applejack. It is a cool tool to put things back in order after a crash.

http://applejack.sourceforge.net/

PS. i bragged to my friend how great OSX was after she had to reinstall her win sys - again. that i had never had to reinstall OSX. THE NEXT DAY I had to reinstall OSX. I swear, there are boogy men out to get ya every time you are over confident! Back up now! ;)
 

dsyroi

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 4, 2007
35
0
Hi
I think you clued us in to the problem in your first sentence. If you are like me, you copied a bunch of your old apps from the old machine into the new one, right? It is far more reasonable to think that there is a conflict within that group than that you have a RAM problem.

with the new OSX, you need the new apps that are designed to work with it. Running an old app can easily crash the system. This includes your widgets and drivers.

Kick all the stuff off your account auto start, and out of your dashboard. See if you have crashes like before. Hopefully not. Add them back one at a time until you crash. Or update them and add them as you get them.

Some of my old apps were never updated. Oh well, the new OSX is cool enough to make up for that problem.

Norton is still a problem on my machine. I have not been able to kill all the bits and pieces that were installed back in the day.

i also use an external Firewire HD with a simple system on it that is very useful to test conflicts. It is a good thing to have for backups as well.

Lastly, get Applejack. It is a cool tool to put things back in order after a crash.

http://applejack.sourceforge.net/

PS. i bragged to my friend how great OSX was after she had to reinstall her win sys - again. that i had never had to reinstall OSX. THE NEXT DAY I had to reinstall OSX. I swear, there are boogy men out to get ya every time you are over confident! Back up now! ;)

Thanks for this, it seems like a very reasonable possibility. I'll try some of your suggestions in the next while - swamped with work at the moment. I appreciate the input.
 

kixsand

macrumors regular
Jan 25, 2007
191
0
Toronto
I think you clued us in to the problem in your first sentence. If you are like me, you copied a bunch of your old apps from the old machine into the new one, right? It is far more reasonable to think that there is a conflict within that group than that you have a RAM problem.
;)

Well this is interesting to me. I have a 24" iMac that I got a couple of months ago...I also migrated everything over from my old G4 800 iMac. Since I've had the 24" I've been a bit disappointed with the reliability...crashes more than my old computer did. I've had some issues where I have to reinstall the Airport extreme connection for it to work. And, it won't always boot up unless I unplug all usb devices.

So you're saying to remove all the widgits I may have downloaded on the old computer and also to remove all of the programs that are in the startup menu?

Is that right?

darren
 

kixsand

macrumors regular
Jan 25, 2007
191
0
Toronto
I think you clued us in to the problem in your first sentence. If you are like me, you copied a bunch of your old apps from the old machine into the new one, right? It is far more reasonable to think that there is a conflict within that group than that you have a RAM problem.
;)

Well this is interesting to me. I have a 24" iMac that I got a couple of months ago...I also migrated everything over from my old G4 800 iMac. Since I've had the 24" I've been a bit disappointed with the reliability...crashes more than my old computer did. I've had some issues where I have to reinstall the Airport extreme connection for it to work. And, it won't always boot up unless I unplug all usb devices.

So you're saying to remove all the widgits I may have downloaded on the old computer and also to remove all of the programs that are in the startup menu?

Is that right?

darren
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
I am very dubious of the software conflict theory. It should be almost impossible for an application to crash the OS. It's not clear what's happening in your case however. Are you getting actual kernel panics, or just very bogged down performance? Please, be more specific in describing your problems, and you'll get more specific advice.
 

Scannall

macrumors member
May 31, 2007
57
0
I recently upgraded to a 20 inch Intel iMac running 10.4.9 from a 15 inch G4 iMac that ran 10.3.9. I'm getting a lot of freezes and finding this very frustrating. On my old iMac when a program froze I could generally force quit the program and other open programs were not affected. On my new iMac most of the time I am not able to force quit the program and other programs are also affected, e.g. Safari will freeze up on me and iTunes will quit playing at the same time. I've got 2 gigs of ram on the new machine, so I don't think it's a ram problem. Any input would be appreciated.

When I upgraded from my G5 tower to this Intel iMac I had similar issues.

Go into System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items.

I had quite a few old drivers, and other old login stuff from the G5 that migrated over that was written for the PPC. Meaning Rosetta was always running.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.