Apple concedes to iMac freezing bug, promises fix
By Darren Murph 
posted October 5th 2007 9:16AM
posted October 5th 2007 9:16AM
posted October 5th 2007 9:16AM
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nobody wants to actually make apple look bad (except for haters maybe)
but all this comes in contrast to their politics and marketing ...
its like that prick who keeps going on about other peoples faults and wrongs when he has them too ... whats that guy called .. yeap .. a hypocrit !
i admire the design of the mac a lot but selling yourself as better then everybody else takes a hefty dose of arrogance
The older (white) iMacs like mine have Nvidia graphics cards which have worked flawlessly for me at least.
Apple switched to ATI cards on the new iMacs for some reason. Over the years I have had many more problems with ATI video cards than with Nvidia cards so I'm not surprised at all that its a video card issue.
ATI must have low balled the Nvidia bid and now Apple is discovering that you get what you pay for.
The original intel iMac uses ATI. I should know, I have one. Mine uses the ATI Radeon X1600. They switched to NVidia when they switched to Core 2 Duo and then back to ATI with these new versions.
As much as I would love to bag on Apple's QA process, which in general doesn't seem all that formalized, directed, or effective in my experience (which is admittedly from the perspective of their windows software where they may just not give a damn, though not giving a damn about a huge segment of your customers isn't reassuring), my guess is this is a third party driver issue. Most of their general OS updates are applied throughout the product range, so if there was a flaw in an update written by Apple and applied to Apple components, the problem should manifest itself on MacBooks, etc. as well.
Unless Apple has some unique kernel mode software of their own specifically for the iMac line (which I couldn't hazard a guess as to what that might be), the only unique kernel mode code would be from drivers, most of which are written by third parties (though Apple might be responsible for the motherboard logic chipset drivers). I'd look at the video card vendor as the likely culprit.
I'm a power user of both macs and PCs. I almost never see a BSOD or kernel panic on either of my machines. However I do IT work for a company that uses a lot of PC's and all I have to say is; PCs in the hands of the general population have problems all day long, but my mom (completely computer illiterate) never sees a problem on her mac.
Hey kids, can't we all just get along?
I love my Mac, I love OSX and I also love the fact that it runs Vista because I love Vista. I even quite like running Ubuntu from time to time. I love my Lenovo Thinkpad that work gave me, even though it doesn't run OSX.
I love my iPod too and I love my Samsung Blackjack. If they would open up the OS to third party apps then I'm sure I'd love my iPhone.
Each one of these devices has crashed from time to time, even my iPod sometimes has problems. They are however all pretty mature versions of the software that surrounds us. This rampant fanpersonism that is evident does reflect human nature though, we all like to belong.
I just say co-exist, the one wish I had is that my OSX and Vista machines would play together a little better.
I just set up the 20 inch model for our graphics guy. I was able to set up Parallels and an XP install on the 4th try, but it works now flawlessly.
This was my first experience with a Mac and I'm pretty impressed with the polish of OS X. The graphics guy is so very happy now.
Why would you buy a new iMac before Leopard comes out?
My question is why wouldn't you? I plan to stay with Tiger until at least until version 4.11.1. I want a stable well proven OS running on my Mac. With Apple's latest QA blunders I may even wait till 4.11.2 before upgrading.
I don't run version 1.0 of anything
Why wouldn't you? Because if you want to upgrade your OS you have to spend lots of money. Good job answering a question with a question. I like where your head is at kid!
I bought mine to get a free iPod nano AND free printer. I'm selling them on eBay and using part of the money to get Leopard (student price!). Makes perfect sense.
I have respect for the old Mac and Apple users... the users that can actually trouble shoot their machine rather than just scream at the spinning rainbow of pizza death...
but this trendy crap is where I draw the line for apple users...Do not go out of your way to bash M$ if you don't know what chipset a mac had before Intel...if you had a windows machine that froze everyday thats called user error not M$...
you are not an all knowing god of computer OS's if you dont how to install a new video card...nor should you tell me how great your iCrap is if you only use it for internet surfing and nothing else...
and yes i agree with apple marketing when they say their users dont know how to use a computer "it just works"...thank you for agreeing with me apple your users for the most part are ignorant and refuse to learn...
I'm done ranting...
Shhhh grownups are talking here
yes its true they are freezing up, but there's no way in he'll a mac user will go back to vista so don't make yourself sound dum saying that vista is better, I know because after switching back to vista a month ago I still can't figure out what was I thinking when I switch vista, it looks nice and iTunes and safari work good on it even my airport extreme base station its able to work as my old mac used to but other than that, it full of bugs just like xp used to be when it first came out, to me vista is like a old with a mess up engine that just got a new paint job, it really is. So stop being funboys and give both system a try instead of bitching about things you really dont know about
Using a 24" aluminum iMac that I bought about a month ago, I had this problem, but I reinstalled OS X and didn't install the iMac Software Update (aka the new graphics drivers) and I've been fine since then.
How do you "hard reset" an iMac?
Ahh... so there IS something wrong with the new iMacs.
So why did Apple delete these messages asking for iMac support from their forums again? (I'm often surprised how little people take them task about that.)
Wow, I can't believe Apple actually conceded here, they NEVER do that.
How do I know? Oh, let's just say Rev A G5s had the exact same problem but Apple refuses to acknowledge them still (yet I have video proving it after an OS reinstall, reseating the RAM etc as Apple techs make you go through this process over and over again...).
As an owner of the 20" variety, I can attest to the fact that there are significant issues surrounding the 1.1 updates. However, you can fix the problem WITHOUT A HARD RESET by reverting to version 1.0 using Pacifist.
Oh. My. God. A piece of hardware or software isn't 100% perfect. Oh. My. God.
In a week or so Apple will have fixed this tiny OSX 'blip' and go on being the glorious experience that makes it a joy to use each and every day.
Windows, on the other hand, will still be the grotesque caricature of a personal computer it has always been.
Bloody hell, I love macs yeah. But people like you REALLY make us look bad.
Things have problems.
"Oh. My. God. A piece of hardware or software isn't 100% perfect. Oh. My. God." - Jemaze2004
Home Turf dude!!.
If I can't defend Apple kit in the comments section of an Apple related news item then the Windows PR army will truly overrun this place more than they already do. I can't believe the amount of anti-apple folks going out of there way to make trouble in a comment section that really has absolutely nothing to do with them...it's just bad manners or worse bullying ( or the reality - windows privately payrolled PR army)
For sure though I will say I NEVER go into a windows related news item and start mouthing off...so that's how I know something rank is going on in the Apple comment sections..
At the very least I love apple kit and I ALWAYS celebrate and defend the things I hold dear to me...
Keep the faith dude - there's a lot of vested interests out there desperately trying to get you to 'walk away from Apple'...
why can't we all just use what we prefer and get along, aren't you people tired already?
My 24" aluminum iMac does not have any problems, unless I'm running Windows. Then, and ONLY then, it sometimes freezes up... But I attribute that to crappy Windows registry rot or driver issues.
In OS X, everything runs smoothly. No problems. My iMac is on all day, every day, and I've yet to be disappointed by its performance.
I don't get why Windows fanatics are so eager to bash my choice of computer. Does it make you feel better somehow? Does it justify your purchase in some way? I don't get it.
I use a Mac because it works for me. I switched after building PCs for a living, and getting sick of being asked to troubleshoot everyone's computer all the time. Now I can say "Sorry, I use Mac" and people leave me alone, unless they use Macs, in which case they don't have NEAR as many technical problems or questions.
I'm sorry, but all this platform-bashing seems silly. It accomplishes nothing. I've been on both sides of the fence, and I've contributed to these flamewars in the past, but I have to say I don't understand why it's an issue at all--- You'll use what you like, and I'll use what I like, and that should be the end of it.
I wonder if there are dishwasher geeks who sit around on blogs all day arguing Whirlpool versus Maytag...
I knew from the moment Apple released those Ipods they were going to have a BIG OL' HEAD...they are becoming what they were initailly trying not to be. Pathetic.
After all...leave an apple out for a while and it will start to rot :)
Freezing, eh? That's no bug, that's Mac OS.
I'm an IT Director for a medium sized (600 users) clothing company. Our marketing and design departments have been on Macs for well over 10 years. I have a new 24" iMac and Macbook Pro at home, along with an XP and Vista machine. So two PCs and two Macs.
From experience at work and at home I can say that if there were an equal amount of Macs (with their current capabilities) in this world as there are PCs, my guess would be that there would be more Mac issues than PC issues. The whole "blue-screen-of-death" has been carried over from the Windows 98 days. I tend to have more Mac problems at home than PC problems. At work, we get our fair share of MAc problems.
If Macs did everything a PC can do, Apple would be in big trouble. Apples do very little and they do it in a "fashionable" and cool way. But some of our Design and Marketing people will not use Macs and they can produce the same results as all the other Macs in the office. It just doesn't have a "cool" way of doing it.
I will have to admit though, that as much as I am trying to fight it, I am starting to veer away from the Mac. The reason is becasue most of my Mac friends have a chip on their shoulders. And it seems to stem around the fact that they use "Apple" products and refuse to try a PC. The PC people are the open-minded ones. They are are willing to try out something new like the Mac and they may never turn back, but at least they have an open mind.
Mac People are so cool and individual and different from the rest of the world...........hmmmmmmm, let's see.
Sounds to me like they are all alike! To be different and cool, they get Apple stuff, just like the 80 year old man I saw at the Apple store buying an iMac and the 40 year father buying himself that iPod. The 50 year old lady which bought herself an iPhone!!
Boy, all of these people are really succeeding at their main goal...to be cool, hip, and individual!! ROTLF!
You want to really be hip, cool, and individual? Put together your own PC, whether it has a Linux variant or Windows. Then customize it even more to your liking....this makes you individual. Hip and cool come from the way you act, not buying the stupid products everybody else already has.
I just converted from Vista, so I thought the freezing/restart was normal...
BSODs ... it's interesting how people refer to BSODs on Windows like it is common for all flavours of it. On Windows 9x, it was truly common and if not for the fact that I was in my upgrade-fever phase back then, I would not have tolerated Windows. Granted, I even tried linux and OS/2 Warp, while holding on tenaciously to DOS6.22, so I guess I can very much bear with the BSODs. This is especially when most are caused by my overclocking of cpu and rams. :P
On Windows 2000 and Windows XP however, it's a different story. I rarely experienced crashes. The few times when I had one was due to some old devices that had crappy drivers or when the ram died on me one time for one of my notebook. So maybe it's important for us to clarify when we compare BSODs with Apple PCs hanging up. Otherwise, we are really lumping up the whole family of Windows OSes, which are quite different beasts. :)
I agree with Ivan, as a elder Mac user who supports both Macs and Windows in IT, its becoming more frustrating to support Mac users because they have this chip on the shoulder that their Mac should work 100% all the time, if they have a problem they can't fix, they quickly blame IT for not giving them the "NEWEST" macs and its their excuse for not working. While the Windows users in the firm are busy working even though, they have issues on their PCs, they just continue to work and not make a huge fuss about it.
Umm.. A small number?? Well, then i guess i belong to it.. It sometimes indeed freezes, mostly while im playing WoW.. Quite irritating, and indeed, i need to hard reset my iMac.. Apple, fix this soon!! Please!!
Need to know if Apple is planning for fix to late '06 iMacs. I bought a late '06 iMac ICD2 20" w/ATI Radeon X1600 256Mb VRam in June '07 (refurb as new) and have had a ton of freezes. Already had the RAM replaced in September, this is driving me insane.