Weird iMac problem/crash

[queshy]

Hello,

So I was feeling a little adventurous (sp?) and decided to install some stuff: GDS, Quick Silver, G-mail notifier, etc. With all these things running, I was playing around, experimenting, and in quicksilver I typed in "itunes" then wanted to see my library...so this long list comes up on my screen with all my music and im like woah! (around 3000 songs...) . I try to scroll down this "list" that pops up, and I get the spinning beachball. I close every other program - this one refuses to close. It just wouldn't close no matter waht I did. So I held down the power button on my iMac. I power up the iMac...I hear the chime, and then I just get a white screen! Nothing more! Then, I press power again to shut off, try again, and I get a white screen again! I reset the SMC by powering off, removing everything, putting back in power, then powering on, and here I am now (it worked). What the heck might have happened? I'm just very suspicious...I don't want any hardware problems!

 

[mad jew]

Dunno how that happened, but try running the Apple Hardware Test from the install disc (hold D at startup). Most likely it'll come back with no findings, but it'd be interesting to see if it does pick anything up. At a guess, this was probably a one-off and doesn't really need to be worried about, but there's no harm in checking.

 

[queshy]

Thanks for your quick reply!
i'll do just that. I think it may have been because I was also downloading all my mail from my Gmail inbox, and some other stuff, and it crashed. It scrared the heck out of me though because I thought that I bricked my iMac! I'm just trying to experiment with it lol...I like how google desktop shows you whats in each file (spotlight doesnt quite do this), but it feels "wasteful" to have both. I like what quick silver does with iTunes, but again, it's probably dumb to use all 3 apps...

 

[mad jew]

Hey, it's better to learn about them and possibly find a better app than to ignore them and not know any better. Kudos to you.

 

[queshy]

Yep! I think it's good to know as much as possible about the computer so you can use it efficiently. (it just so happens I have a good time while doing so...)
I'm settling for Spotlight. (after all that, lol)
Quicksilver - good, but too sophisticated for my liking. It's not like navigating OS X is a chore...
GDS - Good also, but I don't like how it's always open, in teh dock.
Spotlight: Always there, in every app. The most tightly integrated. Maybe not the most powerful, but it works for me!

Thanks for all the help

 

[mad jew]

Yep, I agree. I find Spotlight quite a bit faster, too. While you're playing around, head to Disk Utility and verify your disk (as opposed to verify your disk permissions, which is something different). This will freeze u your machine for a little while too, but don't worry about that. Report back if you hit any errors.

 

[queshy]

Verified successfully! Thanks for the tip. The iMac is perfect, except I still don't know this whole fan-issue thing. If you look at past threads, I've had problems with teh fan. I still don't know if fan noise on this machine is normal, as some people say their machines are "dead silent". I guess I'll just learn to live with it.

 

[sparkyms]

could just be you had one too many things running.

&when you say it refused to close did you try force quit? You probably did but just checking.. how long did you leave it to beachball for or did you just panic?

How much RAM and what iMac are you running?

 

[queshy]

Hello,

I have a C2D 24" iMac w/ 2 GB ram. I let the beachball roll for maybe a miniute. My computer was also considerably slowed down because I was downloading all of my emails from my gmail account (theres a lot of them)