I have a 20" model a1224. It's been stored (indoors) for years now while I have moved on.
At some point (when already no longer the main computer) it started having occasional problems with freezing already right after startup. At some point it wouldn't boot at all or it would get stuck onto the white screen and not even display the Apple logo. Things got progressively worse and it has been completely unusable for quite some time now.
I hadn't yet made a decision on what to do with this computer, but I happened to be helping out a friend with their Windows laptop hard disk installation so since the screwdrivers and things were already out, I decided to test if replacing the iMac's old HD with an SSD and a completely fresh install of OSX would fix the freezing problem. After all, all that behavior is so much like the symptoms of a dying HD, no big deal. And I had done all the procedures where you start up the computer with certain keys pressed down and it kept freezing.
Now, it installed OSX onto the SSD fine, but when it's done and takes you to the setup, upon choosing the WiFi to use, I got the spinning beach ball and nothing happened for over half an hour. I had to cold boot. It started the setup process from the start, and as I chose to not pick any internet connection for now, then it would go on to freeze during some different phase, twice in a row. Fourth time, I had apparently managed to get far enough in setting things up to have a user account, and now it booted into desktop. Just to freeze there, again! You get a beachball, and all you can do is move the cursor.
So, since this wasn't about a dying mechanical hard disk but this behavior persists... What other options do I have? What are these freezes a sign of, actually?
At some point (when already no longer the main computer) it started having occasional problems with freezing already right after startup. At some point it wouldn't boot at all or it would get stuck onto the white screen and not even display the Apple logo. Things got progressively worse and it has been completely unusable for quite some time now.
I hadn't yet made a decision on what to do with this computer, but I happened to be helping out a friend with their Windows laptop hard disk installation so since the screwdrivers and things were already out, I decided to test if replacing the iMac's old HD with an SSD and a completely fresh install of OSX would fix the freezing problem. After all, all that behavior is so much like the symptoms of a dying HD, no big deal. And I had done all the procedures where you start up the computer with certain keys pressed down and it kept freezing.
Now, it installed OSX onto the SSD fine, but when it's done and takes you to the setup, upon choosing the WiFi to use, I got the spinning beach ball and nothing happened for over half an hour. I had to cold boot. It started the setup process from the start, and as I chose to not pick any internet connection for now, then it would go on to freeze during some different phase, twice in a row. Fourth time, I had apparently managed to get far enough in setting things up to have a user account, and now it booted into desktop. Just to freeze there, again! You get a beachball, and all you can do is move the cursor.
So, since this wasn't about a dying mechanical hard disk but this behavior persists... What other options do I have? What are these freezes a sign of, actually?