Users unhappy with no Apple response to NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 kernel panic issue

There's nothing more frustrating to a computer user than to have a software-related problem exist for more than a year without it getting fixed by the manufacturer. In this case the users are owners of early 2009 iMacs using the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 video card. These Macs have had a problem with kernel panics that are traced back that video card ever since late versions of Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) hit the street, but are most prevalent with machines running Lion and Mountain Lion.

Apparently Apple isn't too concerned with the issue, since the support community thread discussing it is now up to 14 pages long, with almost 200 replies. That thread was started by user David Portela almost a year ago, and a number of users have now spoken up about the issue. The issue can be traced to a new kernel extension that was released during the lifetime of Snow Leopard and has not been fixed. Many users note that the issue disappears when they are running versions of Windows on their iMacs via Boot Camp, so the Windows drivers apparently work on Apple hardware better than the Mac drivers do.

If any iMac owners are seeing a similar problem and are tired of the sudden crashes and reboots, we suggest posting on the support community thread to add some more fuel to the fire. For now, the suggestion from Apple support personnel that owners upgrade to a newer Mac is unacceptable.

A TUAW hat tip to Andrea M. for pointing this out