Problems with 1 day old 24" iMac

Hello everyone,

I just bought a new 24" iMac from our local apple store and am enjoying it. I am having problems with it locking up and crashing a lot, 3 times in less than 24 hours actually. The first two lockups were the same, logging into the OS and you can move the mouse but clicking on things does nothing. After about 10 minutes I had to resort to using the power button. The lockup today was weirder, when I would move the mouse around the dock area, there would be little artifacts left behind, like little white dots or screen refresh glitches. I get them a lot, even if the system doesn't crash over it. Anyway, after a bit of screen glitching it finally went black and I had to hold the power button to get it turned off and back on. This session it seems ok...

Would you recommend calling Apple over it? I haven't done so much to the system that it would kill me to have it replaced. But I don't know how much further I want to go into transferring my PC itunes library and pictures over if it is going to keep doing this.

Ring apple. Sounds like either a RAM or more serious logic board error to me, they will be happy to exchange it for another.

Alex

For sure get a hold of Apple. That should not be happening.

did you do the updates? I started having this problem yesterday after updates

I'd take it right back to the store where you bought it. I took some things back (not my computer) that I bought with my iMac and there were no problems doing that.

Better to be safe now rather than waiting and messing with the problem.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

btw...welcome to the forums, you've come to the right place. Hope to see you here again.

AtTheCross said:

did you do the updates? I started having this problem yesterday after updates

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Hello,

Yes, I did do all of the system updates. It was working fine during setup, but when I was on the phone with Apple support we couldn't even go through the troubleshooting because it would lock up a few seconds after going into and out of items in System Preferences.

The only other things I installed were adium and connect360 (trial). I also set the iMac up to participate in our windows workgroup and got the file sharing working, very well in fact.

I like this thing so much when it is working that I don't want to have to take it back! haha... Anyway, I have an appointment at the local apple store tomorrow so I am good to get fixed up.

Thanks for the warm welcome and sound advice everyone.

I repaired permissions and I had some corrections made that related to the itunes update. So far no lockups for me since I repaired permissions

Interesting AtTheCross - I would have guessed a faulty video card from what was said. illy5603, what was the outcome of your Apple visit?

AtTheCross said:

I repaired permissions and I had some corrections made that related to the itunes update. So far no lockups for me since I repaired permissions

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Did you figure this all out yourself or did an apple tech get you through this? If there is something I could try I would be really interested. My system ran fine for 3 hours straight last night after crashing 6 times before that. I am afraid that the visit will be "Hmmm looks fine to me." when I bring it in... I still haven't managed to get the system to lock up in my girlfriends profile either.

Here are some videos showing the problems. I have these on my desktop on the iMac so if it doesn't display any symptoms at the store, they can at least see these...

http://www.seeglow.com/images/apple/glitch1.mov

http://www.seeglow.com/images/apple/glitch2.mov

I will let you know how it turns out.

Good plan...and let us know how it turns out

Well, the diagnosis was a confident "Dude, it shouldn't be doing that..." from my Mac genius. He promptly replaced it. Here is keeping my fingers crossed that the new one is better, I am setting it up right now.

A note on the Apple store; the mall was nearly empty until I walked into the Apple store! Jeepers, there must have been 50 people crammed in there. The geniuses will help anyone with any problem, it is kind of cool but also just a TAD annoying when your appointment drags 20 minutes late...

So far, still an excited and happy switcher.

Excellent, I am glad that it turned out well, and very happy as well that Apple offered excellent customer service. Always good to see.

My 3 day old iMac had a slightly noisy fan (though much quieter than my Dell). I took it back to the Apple Store and they promptly replaced it. Excellent service.

Hello,

I'm a brand new iMac 24" owner as well about a week old... everything is working great until my Western Digital My Book keeps crashing my iMac. I have it plugged in on the Firewire port... I've reformated it and update the firmware on the external drive but still keeps crashing... I've turned off the drive now and see if I can fix it later...

My 2nd crash is happening when I'm publishing my iMovie to my .Mac... If I live it alone it seems like it goes on a sleep mode and then when I try to wake it up nothing happens... I had to push the button on the back to reboot it... Then what I did is I turned off the Power Save options to see what happens... re-publish my iMovie again and then when I got back all I see is a white screen with vertical lines...

I love this thing but looks like I'm not starting on the right foot on this one... I'll call apple and see if they have issues but if anyone had the same issue please advise....

thanks

just got back from my genius appt. He reinstalled my os said that that should fix my lock up problem. Got it home and now the display is totally garbled. Back to the apple store for me. Bummer is that they won't exchange it because it is more than 14 days old, got it 8/29.

mac57 said:

Excellent, I am glad that it turned out well, and very happy as well that Apple offered excellent customer service. Always good to see.

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Well, unfortunately my replacement iMac is having display problems as well. My 14 days aren't up yet, but I don't really think I am giong to have better luck with iMac #3 but what can you do?

Bummer is that they won't exchange it because it is more than 14 days old, got it 8/29.

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Where does that figure come from? I don't know what legal rights are in your country, but in the UK you could reject the item even 6 months down the line if there have many attempts to repair it but they've been unsuccessful.
With 28 days you could definitely get a refund or replacement.

Well sent back to the the store and the Genius that helped me on Tuesday recognized me and told his fellow Genius to just get me a new iMac from the back. So I did end up with a brand new complete iMac. I didn't bring my keyboard/mouse/remote because I was expecting them to just take mine in for repair. So I was really happy when they brought out a complete box and sent me on my way.

So I will ebay the new keyboard/mouse/remote and recoup my gas money!

I just bought a new 20" iMac yesterday. The first thing I did after powering it up is run System Update. As it was running my iMac froze and prompted, in about 5 different languages, something like "Your system must be powered off. Press the power button for several seconds or press the reset button..." After doing so, the system rebooted, prompted that the system had recovered from an unexpected error, with a "panic(cpu 0):" error report. Never once seen that on my old G4 iMac.

Anyway, it hasn't done it again since, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully I don't have to know my local Apple Store Mac Geniuses on a first name basis. ;D

Oh yeah, long time Mac user, first time poster. This is a great site. Thanks!