Major problem with Mountain Lion!

[Strengthu]

Was going to post on Apple, but their community pages is still down!

I upgraded my iMac '27 i7 (2009 model) from Lion to Mountain Lion. First day in, everything smooth and felt better than Lion.

Second day, it all went wrong and I can't use it at all.

There's some major flickering and distortions going on, to the degree it's not usable. Usually after about a minute after it has restarted and the flickering goes on, it goes black, and sometimes the 'Major problem has occurred, hold down the power button to restart'.

Very disappointed! Any thoughts?

I have done the CMD+R and tried to repair disk, disk permissions, reset PRAM. No use.

Anyone experienced the same?

 

[jav6454]

That is not Mountain Lion, it is the GPU that is going kaput.

 

[Strengthu]

That is not Mountain Lion, it is the GPU that is going kaput.

Oh crap. I thought it might have something to do with ML as it started one day after upgrade!

 

[Strengthu]

What does it take to fix it? I no longer have warranty on it and something like that sounds like it will cost a lot to fix...

 

[jav6454]

What does it take to fix it? I no longer have warranty on it and something like that sounds like it will cost a lot to fix...

No longer under warranty? Not even AppleCare? Without it, you are looking at $500 minimum for repairs.

 

[Steeley]

Maybe try resetting your SMC as the first port of call. It does fix some graphics issues sometimes.

 

[AuPhalanx]

That's the GPU. While the iMacs are beautiful machines, Apple has put some of the worst GPUs in them. The GPU in my 24" white iMac is just about gone.

You might be able to stave off its death by installing SMC Fan Control. It might help for a while. It's dying, though. Plan on a new machine or repairs.

T.

 

[Strengthu]

Thanks for helping out. Sounds like my Mac is dying, which is disappointing. At the moment, I can't use it at all. It sounds like it's pretty expensive to fix, and I wouldn't want to buy a new iMac or Mac Pro now as current models are old while there might still be a few months before it's an update out.

Aaargh..

 

[Mal]

Hold off on the doom and gloom just a bit, guys. While it looks like a GPU issue and might be, it could also be a graphics driver problem.

OP, do you have a bootable disk of any type (other than Mountain Lion)? Lion, even the installer on a flash drive, Snow Leopard, anything else? If so, boot from it and see if the problems continue. Actually, save some time and first just boot with the option key held down. If it successfully loads the boot picker (should just be a screen where you can choose the main drive or the Recovery Partition) and the video looks normal there, it may not be a failing GPU.

jW

 

[Tander]

Hold off on the doom and gloom just a bit, guys. While it looks like a GPU issue and might be, it could also be a graphics driver problem.

OP, do you have a bootable disk of any type (other than Mountain Lion)? Lion, even the installer on a flash drive, Snow Leopard, anything else? If so, boot from it and see if the problems continue. Actually, save some time and first just boot with the option key held down. If it successfully loads the boot picker (should just be a screen where you can choose the main drive or the Recovery Partition) and the video looks normal there, it may not be a failing GPU.

jW

Good call.

I would do this first to make sure it's not a Hardware issue.

If you still get the glitches in the loading screens of loading a new OS (Lion, SL, etc ) then yeah, it's a Hardware issue.

 

[PeopleTheseDays]

Hold off on the doom and gloom just a bit, guys. While it looks like a GPU issue and might be, it could also be a graphics driver problem.

OP, do you have a bootable disk of any type (other than Mountain Lion)? Lion, even the installer on a flash drive, Snow Leopard, anything else? If so, boot from it and see if the problems continue. Actually, save some time and first just boot with the option key held down. If it successfully loads the boot picker (should just be a screen where you can choose the main drive or the Recovery Partition) and the video looks normal there, it may not be a failing GPU.

jW

Yes do this, could just be a graphics driver issue. Maybe try and reinstall Lion or Snow Leopard just to make sure too. Other then that, those screen shots definitely look like when my first laptop's GPU died. Lots of artifact'ing.

 

[Strengthu]

Hold off on the doom and gloom just a bit, guys. While it looks like a GPU issue and might be, it could also be a graphics driver problem.

OP, do you have a bootable disk of any type (other than Mountain Lion)? Lion, even the installer on a flash drive, Snow Leopard, anything else? If so, boot from it and see if the problems continue. Actually, save some time and first just boot with the option key held down. If it successfully loads the boot picker (should just be a screen where you can choose the main drive or the Recovery Partition) and the video looks normal there, it may not be a failing GPU.

jW

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm definitely trying all options here before concluding it's a hardware issue. When booting up in Safe Mode, I can actually use the computer. Still glitches going on, but usable, and it doesn't crash. So I thought I'd make a final back-up then do a clean install. The fact that this happened the day after I installed Mountain Lion is a bit too close for a co-incidence I think..

I'll make a ML bootable installer on an external drive and go from there. Still not working, try SL or Lion. If still a problem, then I guess I just have to wait for new macs coming out.....

It's a pain to re-install all software, plugins and so forth, but if this works, then I got a 'clean' machine.. Gotta look at the bright side folks.

Will let you know how it goes! Hopefully it's just a driver issue...

 

[jamesr19]

It's a pain to re-install all software, plugins and so forth, but if this works, then I got a 'clean' machine.. Gotta look at the bright side folks.

Will let you know how it goes! Hopefully it's just a driver issue...

You can migrate selected folders & users to your new machine...it's one of the options when you first run your new machine. I did this a while ago and it worked fine over ethernet. Most of the software licenses transferred without a problem and all of my settings transferred.

Since you're making a 3 year jump in machine you might be better off doing a fresh install. If you copy your user's ~/Library folder then all of your setting should transfer too

 

[Strengthu]

A little update. I did a clean install with ML and I got hopeful as it looked good. But it took a couple of minutes and it locked up again with graphics getting all distorted and stretched. So I guess that means it's a hardware fault.

If there will be new mac pros (!!!!), I will most likely get one, so I'll probably bring it in and see what they can do to fix it so that I can use it until there's possibly a new worth-buying upgrade.

Thanks for your input guys. Much appreciated..

 

[Strengthu]

Disappointed with Apple!!

Update to my iMac problems. Brought it to Apple Shop (official Apple shop, not reseller). This was almost 2 weeks ago. After one week they contacted me saying they will change the video card, and they said they will even change my display as they found some 'dirt inside' the unit. They didn't have stock, so i would have to wait another week.

Then yesterday I received email that it's done and I can come to pick up my Mac from repair. Well.. I went there today after leaving work early. We powered it up just to make sure (most of all, wanted to make sure it was indeed my Mac).

Well guess what, immediately, the problems I had 2 weeks ago was still there. The interface was all messed up with distortions etc.

Are you serious? You've had it for 2 weeks and when the customer comes to pick it up, the problem clearly exists and the machine is not usable?

I'm furious right now. Aaargh.

 

[Tander]

Well it may be an intermitted problem. It possibly did work perfectly fine before they called you.

It may be more than just the video card.

 

[mr.tolgao]

Was going to post on Apple, but their community pages is still down!

I upgraded my iMac '27 i7 (2009 model) from Lion to Mountain Lion. First day in, everything smooth and felt better than Lion.

Second day, it all went wrong and I can't use it at all.

There's some major flickering and distortions going on, to the degree it's not usable. Usually after about a minute after it has restarted and the flickering goes on, it goes black, and sometimes the 'Major problem has occurred, hold down the power button to restart'.

Very disappointed! Any thoughts?

I have done the CMD+R and tried to repair disk, disk permissions, reset PRAM. No use.

Anyone experienced the same?

I experienced the same issue with my (Mid 2010) MacBook Pro just after I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion last year. Also its one year warranty was over one week or two. I also did not have Apple Care. I called Apple Care (USA) and explained the problem and they told me that it is a hardware problem. I asked them to repair it for free since the warranty was recently over. They transfered me to a Manager, he wanted to see the distorted screen image. I sent to him with email. They repaired it for free and sent it back to me. It is a bit over 10 months and now, so far I am not having distorted graphics yet. They changed the logic board and top case.

 

[freedevil]

Same thing happened to my 2006 Imac and the problem was never fixed. It always came back. The only way I got it to work was by running fan control at max for all options, cpu, hdd, etc. The glitches would go away. You can try that if you don't feel like paying for a repair.

I finally bought a new Imac.

 

[50548]

Thanks for helping out. Sounds like my Mac is dying, which is disappointing. At the moment, I can't use it at all. It sounds like it's pretty expensive to fix, and I wouldn't want to buy a new iMac or Mac Pro now as current models are old while there might still be a few months before it's an update out.

Aaargh..

Which GPU do you have? The 8800GS? If yes, I can tell you that Apple replaced my whole MOBO free of charge and out of warranty after explaining the whole thing to them...