Nasty video issues

[Shturts]

Recently I have been having some really major issues regarding my screen of my Imac. Every once in a while the screen will either freeze up and leave me unable to click on anything, it will sometimes go completely black, accepting some thin white horizontal lines, or it will do some really random stuff as seen in the attached image. Anyone have any suggestions? My girlfriend suggested missing video drivers or a damaged hard drive or even a virus in the boot section of something or other (not exactly technically inclined here.) (it gets worse than pictured in the screenshot sometimes too)

I'd appreciate the help

Stu. B.

 

[old-wiz]

There are no viruses for OSx.

More likely you have a video card going bad.

 

[MacHamster68]

+1 on bad GPU , and i doubt a time machine restore or reinstall will fix it , but you could try otherwise
just bring it in the apple store , they fix it for free if you got warranty /apple care , if not you need to invest some cash

 

[panzer06]

Which model iMac and which gpu? The iMac 24 with 8800gs has experienced a rash of failures.

Cheers,

 

[Shturts]

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.068

hope that helps, I posted the basic hardware info too cause i've been seeing scary things all over the internet that say that some models of imac cannot have their GPU's replaced that it's integrated into the computer, and I wonder if anyone could confirm or deny my fears for my particular type of imac, it's a fairly old model so I fear for the worst...

 

[panzer06]

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 1.83 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 2 MB
Memory: 1 GB

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1600
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 128 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x71c5
Revision ID: 0x0000
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.068

hope that helps, I posted the basic hardware info too cause i've been seeing scary things all over the internet that say that some models of imac cannot have their GPU's replaced that it's integrated into the computer, and I wonder if anyone could confirm or deny my fears for my particular type of imac, it's a fairly old model so I fear for the worst...

That's a very early iMac. Only thing I could find was this video that shows artifacts similar to yours. Some folks commented on possible solutions tied to re-applying thermal paste.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viaVumyro3o

Cheers,

 

[Shturts]

Thanks a bunch Panzer for the time and effort tryin to help me, this seems to be exactly my issue, and the responses and comments make this situation seem very dismal for me, never the less I really appreciate what you guys have done for me, I'll look into what I can do about this, but it's looking like I need a new desktop all together.

 

[MindlessJD]

Was that a Mac OS X taken screenshot in your original post? As in you pressed CMD+SHIFT+3?

As if it is, I didn't think GPU artefacts showed up on system screenshots? Maybe I'm wrong though...