Major iMac woes

[dakota]

I've had some issues with programs stalling,not responding, and then not quitting.  Mail, Safari, Photoshop, SuperDuper.  When I try to force quit, they wind up in Rosetta, and do not quit, and I have had to turn off the computer and turn it on again.

Last night, I decided to try to repair the disk with the install DVD, and it would not start up from the DVD.  It would start up from the HD.  Then it would not start up from the HD< kept trying to start up from the DVD, and I wound up with the Leopard screen and a neverending twirling beach ball.

I disconnected all my peripherals - firewire drives, scanners, etc. - and tried again.  Same story.  I then reset the pram, and was able to start up from the HD.  I did a verify HD and it said it was okay.  I then ran DiskWarrior with no problem, and thought my problems were solved.  Not!

This morning I went to wake up the computer, and SuperDuper was on the screen, but it had not run.  I brought up Mail and Safari, and had the spinning beach ball again.  Neither program would respond, and neither would SuperDuper.  I wound up with all three in Rosetta. and unable to quit.  I had to turn off the computer and start again.

At this point, I have no idea what the problem is, but it seems to be mostly on wakeup in the morning, whether SuperDuper is scheduled to run or not. What can I do now???

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

his morning I went to wake up the computer, and SuperDuper was on the screen, but it had not run.

From that and other statements you made, I'm going to assume you are running the iMac for long periods of. Maybe even 24/7 as I do. With that assumption I will hazard the following: It may just be a combination heat and badly seated RAM chip(s). Also, check System Profiler to see how much RAM and in which slots/banks the System sees. Even a "About this Mac..." should show that you have 4GB.

It's quite easy to remove and reset the RAM chip(s) in that model. Turn the iMac off, of course. On your other computer, <watch the video at this site!> This is a 5+ minute medium resolution video, but there is a low one there, also.

Assuming that doesn't fix the problem and you have two RAM chips, try removing the one on the left and restart. If things work OK, the chip you removed may be bad. If it didn't help, remove the one that's in there with the one you took out. If you still have problems, either both chips are bad or there is something else wrong.

If the chip re-seating/swapping did not help but you can still run, try to download a temperature monitoring app. There are several around, I use <mcFanControl>s, but others may offer other choices. These apps will show you temps at various places in the iMac. If you find any higher than ~175°F you might want to check the cooling fan speeds. At that temp probably all of them should be running well above their idle speed.

Let us know what you find. And check back for other suggestions, too.

[krissel]

Check your console logs to see what is causing the lockups.

[gunug]

I had a similar iMAC, if not the exact same model, on my bench at work.  It had similar sorts of problems and I had thought it was memory myself; but I have access to a hardware based memory tester and popped the two SODIMM's out and tested them and they both worked fine and proved to have identical characters as I would expect in factory installed memory.  I then reseated the memory and tested it by booting up with the system on the internal drive.  Same problems that wouldn't resolve using repair and such things.  I then booted it up from an external firewire drive with a fresh 10.5 system on it and found that it worked fine then.  I then chose to fully replace the operating system from scratch on the internal drive and this solved all of the problems.  I'm assuming that the memory was not seated properly when the operating system was replaced by the user a couple of weeks ago and the result was a corrupt installation; I don't know what else to suspect.  Probably doesn't help in your case but might be grist for the mill!  Good luck!

[dakota]

I am up and running with sporadic problems. Occasionally, I will wind up with a problem with apps not responding ( today it was Backup and an installer).  They were both listed as not responding, and switched to Rosetta. I could not get them to quit. Then the problem advanced to the point where  I could not access anything and had to do a hard restart.

I'm wondering if I do an archive and install of Snow Leopard whether the new system will clean things up.

[kcourt]

 When all else fails, visit the genius bar at your local Apple Store - but be sure to call for appointment first, or you may wait for a couple of days!!!  

Kathy