iMac and the Three Beep Freeze (video)

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My iMac is freezing with three very loud beeps, more and more... at first, more than a year ago on 10.6.8 it did this infrequently... now, the last months with Lion 10.7.3 it is almost DAILY! Watch the three emergency beeps here:

Apple iMac Freezes - Loud Beeps Three Times - Emergency - YouTube

Any ideas how to solve this?

iMac a 21.5-inch, Mid 2010 model
Processor 3.6 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50)

Happens with no applications running, or some, or when sleeping, just HAPPENS and it should not. Wi-fi dropping *is* a major problem as well. Thanks for any tips to solve these three beeps and the my freezing iMac!

iMac three beeps and freezing video
 

chscag

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My first question to you is this: Did you buy Apple Care? If so, take it on in and let Apple diagnosis the problem.

If no Apple Care, try removing the memory modules one bank at a time, or, since memory is currently inexpensive, replace the modules with new ones.

The three beeps indicate a hardware problem, that much we know. It could be memory and then again it could be a logic board problem. If instead of buying and swapping out the modules, you would like to run a comprehensive module checker, download the free MemTest for Mac from here. The test will stress and check the modules.

Let us know the results and we can go from there.
 
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Hello chscag, thank you for the reply. No, I do not have Apple Care. Actually the problem for the first year was very sporadic and infrequent and then I was happily running 10.6.8. We thought we had it down to FireFox, for that does crash a lot on this system anyway, Flash and a few other ideas and all did not pan out - would happen even if I ran only Safari for weeks on end.

Since I updated to Lion (10.7.3) a few months ago, it only seems to get worse, that is for sure.

Your tips make sense. I will try this with a friend of mine, as soon as possible and get back to you. Thank you,

David (Pijnacker01)
 

dtravis7


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MacMini M-1 MacOS Monterey, iMac 2010 27"Quad I7 , MBPLate2011, iPad Pro10.5", iPhoneSE
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Hi dtravis7, no, that is the factory RAM. Never been under the hood on this iMac... but will be going in later this evening with a friend...

Till then, it just happened again and here was the crash report:


Interval Since Last Panic Report: 209538 sec
Panics Since Last Report: 1
Anonymous UUID: D01F07A7-31C5-444D-B7D9-E85BC7D6DD12

Fri May 4 13:35:36 2012
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80002c2c95): "Double fault at 0xffffff80002c20c4, registers:\n" "CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0xffffff80f0ff7fd8, CR3: 0x0000000000100000, CR4: 0x00000000000206e0\n" "RAX: 0xffffff80f0ff81a4, RBX: 0xffffff80f0ff81a0, RCX: 0xffffff801359a180, RDX: 0xffffff80002d7860\n" "RSP: 0xffffff80f0ff7fe0, RBP: 0xffffff80f0ff8170, RSI: 0xffffff80f0ff8180, RDI: 0xffffff80f0ff81a0\n" "R8: 0x0000000000000000, R9: 0x0000000000000000, R10: 0x8000000000100000, R11: 0xffffff80002d8200\n" "R12: 0x0000000000000001, R13: 0xffffff8002ca4e80, R14: 0xffffff804860e822, R15: 0x000000000000000e\n" "RFL: 0x0000000000010002, RIP: 0xffffff80002c20c4, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010\n" "Error code: 0x0000000000000000\n"@/SourceCache/xnu/xnu-1699.24.23/osfmk/i386/trap_native.c:278
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff800081bd20 : 0xffffff8
 
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iMac 24" 4GBram 500GB HD
As I type this, I am running MemTest to see what is the state of my iMac memory.
However, my situation is not the one with the three beeps.
Actually, as I type this I have no access to 'Finder', I can not see drives/files, copy them or open applications from it (I can open them from the Dock or through 'Spotlight' but they do not always work).
At time applications stop responding (Apperture, Photoshop CS5, iMovie)
But I can run applications, like Safari at this time; or use Mail.
Earlier this month (June 2012) I upgrades OSX to Lion. The problem existed before and after this change.

I cannot even shutdown or restart. I have to turn it off.

Any help is appreciated.
Luis Felipe
 

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