Last monday, I decided to create a small logbook to record any freezing or corrupted graphics for the week to come. That week has ended now and here are my findings and own personal conclusions.
First of all, I'll post some info about my iMac:
Bought it the 2nd of October, shipped from Shanghai 8 days later (the 10th of October).
I've been seeing freezes since day 1, the first freeze was on the very first boot, when I was asked to take a picture for my account (with the iSight camera). The computer froze when camera-screen appeared. I knew of the freezing issues and that Apple promised a fix by the end of the month. So I waited with returning this iMac, mostly because I really need the computer for school and sending it back would result in a week or 2 without a computer, something that I can't "afford".
The freezing raised its ugly head from time to time with iMac update 1.0, but it wasn't that often.. Once a day, maybe even once every 2 days. All that time, I've never shut down the computer at night, I always put it to sleep. After installing iMac update 1.1, the freezing got worse. It would now freeze quite a few times in a row, then finally be OK for a few hours or even a day or 2, then freeze again multiple times in a row. But, somehow, after a while, the freezing was stable again, and it seemed like 1.0 was installed again (I never did a rollback, though, so it was still 1.1 running). I could spend multiple hours to even days on the computer without it freezing, then it would randomly freeze again, but never a freezing-spree.
This was still irritating me, though, as I don't want to work on a computer with the factor of luck backing me up (I'd never buy a house near an active vulcano, if you know what I mean). So I started looking into things a bit more. I decided to keep a logbook for a week to record any issues I had with the iMac (the logbook can be found further below in this post). This was mainly done due to some individuals saying that people constantly whine about the freezing, but don't like to do some research or give enough information about their issues.
Anyway, 1.3 came and didn't fix much of the freezing, hasn't made the freezing worse neither, it did give me artifacts though, as seen here: http://users.pandora.be/bolteh/artifacts.jpg . I reset PRAM a few times, that would usually fix the artifacts after booting, but nothing permanent.
Anyway, here is the logbook:
As you can see, it froze quite often, and it also shows what the effect was of 1.2 on my system. Artifacts started showing, but the freezing remained the same. Or did it?
It has come to my attention that I seem to be having far less issues when having a fresh boot after a few hours of being shut down. Whenever the iMac was coming out of sleep, the computer would freeze up a bit later. But when I shut down the system instead of putting it to sleep, I didn't have any issues when booting again. I didn't freeze just after booting, there were hardly any (or not all) artifacts post 1.2. Today is the perfect example for me. I booted this morning and haven't had any issues at all, apart from one little artifact that popped up for a fraction of a second in the dock. Apart from that, there were no issues at all. I played WoW for hours, played Half-Life 2 Episode 2 with Crossover for an hour, did some stuff with Garageband '08, Guitar Pro and Geabox, spammed dashboard, spammed fullscreen-to-window-and-back in WoW, activated Front Row every now and then even with WoW or HL2 active. I haven't had a freeze once today, not even any artifacts.
I'm not going to jump up while swinging my arms around like a twit yelling "EUREKA!!!", since these are only personal findings, and others might think otherwise. I'm just trying to do my part in the search for the holy grail filled with anti-freeze.
First of all, I'll post some info about my iMac:
Bought it the 2nd of October, shipped from Shanghai 8 days later (the 10th of October).
I've been seeing freezes since day 1, the first freeze was on the very first boot, when I was asked to take a picture for my account (with the iSight camera). The computer froze when camera-screen appeared. I knew of the freezing issues and that Apple promised a fix by the end of the month. So I waited with returning this iMac, mostly because I really need the computer for school and sending it back would result in a week or 2 without a computer, something that I can't "afford".
The freezing raised its ugly head from time to time with iMac update 1.0, but it wasn't that often.. Once a day, maybe even once every 2 days. All that time, I've never shut down the computer at night, I always put it to sleep. After installing iMac update 1.1, the freezing got worse. It would now freeze quite a few times in a row, then finally be OK for a few hours or even a day or 2, then freeze again multiple times in a row. But, somehow, after a while, the freezing was stable again, and it seemed like 1.0 was installed again (I never did a rollback, though, so it was still 1.1 running). I could spend multiple hours to even days on the computer without it freezing, then it would randomly freeze again, but never a freezing-spree.
This was still irritating me, though, as I don't want to work on a computer with the factor of luck backing me up (I'd never buy a house near an active vulcano, if you know what I mean). So I started looking into things a bit more. I decided to keep a logbook for a week to record any issues I had with the iMac (the logbook can be found further below in this post). This was mainly done due to some individuals saying that people constantly whine about the freezing, but don't like to do some research or give enough information about their issues.
Anyway, 1.3 came and didn't fix much of the freezing, hasn't made the freezing worse neither, it did give me artifacts though, as seen here: http://users.pandora.be/bolteh/artifacts.jpg . I reset PRAM a few times, that would usually fix the artifacts after booting, but nothing permanent.
Anyway, here is the logbook:
As you can see, it froze quite often, and it also shows what the effect was of 1.2 on my system. Artifacts started showing, but the freezing remained the same. Or did it?
It has come to my attention that I seem to be having far less issues when having a fresh boot after a few hours of being shut down. Whenever the iMac was coming out of sleep, the computer would freeze up a bit later. But when I shut down the system instead of putting it to sleep, I didn't have any issues when booting again. I didn't freeze just after booting, there were hardly any (or not all) artifacts post 1.2. Today is the perfect example for me. I booted this morning and haven't had any issues at all, apart from one little artifact that popped up for a fraction of a second in the dock. Apart from that, there were no issues at all. I played WoW for hours, played Half-Life 2 Episode 2 with Crossover for an hour, did some stuff with Garageband '08, Guitar Pro and Geabox, spammed dashboard, spammed fullscreen-to-window-and-back in WoW, activated Front Row every now and then even with WoW or HL2 active. I haven't had a freeze once today, not even any artifacts.
I'm not going to jump up while swinging my arms around like a twit yelling "EUREKA!!!", since these are only personal findings, and others might think otherwise. I'm just trying to do my part in the search for the holy grail filled with anti-freeze.
