Might have some issues with my iMac, need some help.

My iMac is a mid-2007 20"
-2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
-4GB Ram
-ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro 256 MB
-Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

It has been a good computer the 4 years I have had it but recently my iMac has been acting up in sleep mode. This morning it seemed as if it wouldn't wake up from sleep. I pressed any random button on the wireless keyboard and I hear the hard drive start spinning like its trying to wake up, but nothing. The screen is dark. So I hit the button again and it does the same thing again. I hear it start to spin and still a dark screen. After a third try it finally came on. Also, I have noticed recently that the HD will spin up and down if I let it go to sleep by itself. One time I took a nap in my room without putting the iMac to sleep and the scene saver kicked in then after a certain time it went to sleep by itself. I could here the disk spinning up (like someone was waking it from sleep) then it would spin down again over and over, but nothing is on the screen it's still dark. Any ideas what might be causing this or what the fix would be? Is my iMac slowly dying? It still works great once its on though.

Anyone?

I'd say your hard drive is about to die. Get a backup of your drive if you don't already have one and install a new hard drive or SSD. Or, if you are unhappy with your current machine get a new one.

I replaced the hard drive in my 2006 iMac with an SSD and it is blazing fast. I highly recommend it. I also did it myself, also recommended if you aren't scared to tinker with things. There are videos out there on how to do this, some even specific to your machine, so you aren't doing it blind.

Thanks, yea I have been looking into swapping in a SSD drive. I like my machine and installing a new drive is still cheaper than a new machine. I am sure I can do it myself. I've watched some videos and it doesn't seem too bad. I always have keep up with my time machine backups so I should be able to restore everything once its done. But mainly I am not sure what drive I need, a 3.5" or 2.5"? Is there any way to tell. I know there's an adapter I can get, but if I could get the right one that would be great. Thanks

I went with the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro. They are all 2.5" so you will need an adapter as the iMac takes a 3.5" drive. There is a 3g (SATA II) and 6g (SATA III) model. I bought the 3g model as the older iMacs are not capable of utilizing 6g speed, although they are compatible and will work. It is just wasted speed. One World Computing (macsales.com) is where you can get it, and they have the adapter too.

Thanks for the replies. I am kind of on the fence with upgrading to a SSD. I hear they are quieter, much faster and there's no moving parts. But they are also very expensive. Recently my current drive has been spinning up and down at random times, like someone is putting it on and off of sleep mode. The other day it took 3 attempts to wake it from sleep and I could hear it spinning up and down over and over. It is 500GB and I have about 355GB of free space left. So it is more than enough for my needs. I was looking at Best Buy today and I can get a Western Digital 1TB drive for around $99 or I can order a 160GB SSD drive for $300. I would also need the 3.5" to 2.5" adapter since the SSD's are all 2.5" I believe. What is the better way to go? Are the SSD's that great to warrant the $300 cost even though I'll be losing 340GB of storage?

Also, Anyone know if there is a limit to the read/write cycles on the SSD drives? I read somewhere that each sector only has a life of about 10000 writes or something. Does that include temp files? And what about temperature? I also heard they are more prone to failing from high temps.

I paid 195 for a 115 gb drive. That is large enough to hold the OS and the apps and a lot of other things. I also already had 2 500gb external drives, one as a backup and the other is a music/video drive. You don't need SSD speed for watching video or listening to music as real time AV is much slower than any drive, although for editing/transcoding the speed wouldn't hurt. In any case, you don't have that now so you aren't losing anything.

And yes they are much quieter. For an HTPC it is a great upgrade, except that the external drives would also need to be quiet. I don't know about high temps, except that they are put in MB Air, and those are a really tight space with little breathing room. When mine fails I'll let you know.

My impression of the SSD is that it IS that great an upgrade. It made my 2006 imac blazing fast for my needs. Everything opens instantly. If you're going to replace the drive anyway it is a great opportunity to really upgrade your computer.

btw, are you sure it is the drive spinning and not a fan out of control?