10-29-2011, 05:12 AM

Hi, i'm new here and would like some advise from other's in the apple community other than apple tech support who have since not been ble to resolve my issues, often i find the mac users can help faster and can come up with more creative outside the box soultions, so i hope you all can help.

So here's my deal:


I have a brand new imac i ordered a little over 6 months ago, i immediately migrated my old imac's files to the new mac and everything worked great but then slowly began to degrade in performance and now i have nothing but problems that have gotten worse.

The first problem occurred with a slow performance speed after about a month of amazing performance.

Then I noticed the new magic mouse i had ordered with the computer would lose connection with the computer causing it to crash, also the new mouse would not hold a charge for long. My last magic mouse did not have this issue.

My computer would fall asleep and then i could be unable to wake it by using my mouse, even plugging in an apple pro wired mouse would not work, i had to turn the power on and off to restart

My bluetooth was acting funny trying to connect to devices i hadn't authorized

Then came a kernel crash.

Then came apple 3 tierd support who after weeks of diagnosis over the phone were stumped.

I tried the following to fix the problems myself:
reset the Pram
Repaired Disk Permissions
Checked the hardware
reinstalled the OS
Checked for and installed all software updates
Reset the SMC
Ran 3rd party software "mackeeper" to optimize my files and check for viruses
Clean up unneeded files so plenty of memory
And finally downloaded a 3rd part program called "idrefrag" to defrag my system files.

nothing worked or at least for very long

I was unable to take additional time to deal with the issue, i work and attend school online and was extremely busy during the summer so i had to just deal with the issues because being without my computer was not an option i had.

After my busy summer ended, the problems had only gotten worse

Now, not only does the mac fall asleep and not wake up and not respond to the magic mouse to wake up or reconnect when the mouse and mac lose signal, but now when i plug in a usb flash drive to my external flash drive port, it's like playing russian roulette, half the time it's fine, the other half the computer freeze upon insertion of the drive. I shouldn't have so much anxiety plugging in a 8gb flash drive.

but now on to the worst part, before the summer when i had to restart after crashes it was normal, but now when i restart, the computer acts like it has to remember how to even be a computer again. Upon restarting after the classic Mac tone:

My mac desktop begins to reload, although the icons on the top right appear then disappear and then appear to load back up very slowly.

Moving files to another folder or to the trash is painstakingly slow, i get a message saying "preparing to move file" that goes on for 10 minutes.

Simple tasks like trying to copy and paste or access my "places" on the side bar like "movies, "Pictures" etc cause a pinwheel and then each "place" has to load all the files as if it's searching the computer for them all before i have access to them, this can take 5-10 minutes

When i click on an application from the dock to load, it just bounces for a while and then finally starts up but takes 5 minutes or more to be able to access without a pinwheel

Overall the computer basically forgets how to be a computer and has to relearn how to do the simplest tasks, the next 24 hours is plagued by pinwheels and slow performance and then it acts fine again, but i can never shut it down or it starts all over again, so i just let it fall asleep when not in use and cross my fingers that when i come back it will respond to the mouse and wake up, half the time it does, the other half, i have to restart by holding the power button down and then pressing it to start up again.

I had to just adapt, so i have a good system down now and so when I restart i run the system disk utility and repair the HD 1 & 2 's permission which always seems to have a lot of issues and that kinda helps speed along the 24 hour relearning process. But i shouldn't have to do all this stuff, i spent $3,000 on this computer, i bought all the upgrades and after a couple of months of amazing performance i was left with a time bomb and 3 tier apple support who have no idea where to go and now wont even call me back despite my paying for 4 years of apple care, I am at a total loss of what to do, i can't afford to send the machine off for diagnosis and repair and frankly think Apple should send me a new machine since not only does the mac itself present problems, but so does the new magic mouse, and the rechargeable batteries and charger i purchased from them as well.

My Mac info:
Mac OS X Version 10.6.8
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac12,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Serial -ATA

any suggestions?

10-29-2011, 05:16 AM

6 months old? Take it back to Apple, it's under warranty, so they should at least look at it.

10-29-2011, 06:13 AM

Some of that really sounds hardware. KPs and freezes. It is possible the hard drive is defective from some of your description.

I agree with Kevin, Take it into Apple and make them repair or even replace it as none of that is normal at all.

10-29-2011, 09:33 AM

Several minutes to access the drive/move files/start an app - this is definitely a symptom of a failing drive.




The easiest way to know for sure - boot to the external bootable backup you've made - have made one right - and run the machine from the external - it will be a little slower than an internal drive whether FW or USB - but no symptoms like the ones you're describing would appear. If you don't have one, it's probably too late to create one, because it would more than likely fail during the backup process.

(This last is really a heads up for others reading this post - a bootable backup with SuperDuper! or CarbonCopyCloner can be a life saver / time saver for troubleshooting your machine. If you don't already have a spare external drive and can afford one - go get one today and backup your machine. If you can't afford it - start saving for one today.)