Older imac freezing after upgrading to Snow Leopard

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Thanks for the screen shot. I've seen problems like that on older iMacs that weren't getting enough cooling. A quick and easy thing to try is to install smcFanControl and to adjust the fan settings to spin at a higher rate. I've seen smcFanControl take iMacs that were headed to the recyclers and make them fully functional again. You might also check that the air vents are clear of dust. To be really thorough, you'd remove the display screen and dust out the interior, too, but not everyone wants to mess around with the glass.

Of course, it may just be that the graphics board or some other component is beyond rescue.


what I thought was happening was whenever the unit was inactive for a while and I immediately open a video that's when it's freezing, after inactivity, when I do anything else, open a file or go browsing the net it works fast. I also think the graphics may need upgrading somehow since I let the unit be inactive for an hour then when I clicked the mouse to go back in from the powersave mode I am seeing a jumbled and distorted screen? I then restarted the machine and went to your tube and it froze again so it's not related to inactivity as I had previously thought, this seems to be video or graphics related issue. Since I upgraded to and did a fresh install of snow leopard, is there a way to update the graphics?
 
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There is absolutely no logical reason why a computer that was formerly running Tiger would all of a sudden start freezing with 10.6. OS 10.6 was specifically designed to run with Intel Mac's…so it should actually run better with 10.6 than 10.4.:)

I'd change that to, "There is absolutely no logical reason why a healthy computer that was formerly running Tiger would all of a sudden start freezing with 10.6."

Even though Snow Leopard has been optimized specifically for Intel hardware, and generally it will work better than Tiger on suitable hardware, it can push the computer harder, especially the graphics card. As a result, you definitely can see systems that are on the edge of having hardware issues fall over the edge when going from an older OS to Snow Leopard.
 
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Problem was the Graphics chip so the snow leopard worked fine after the owner got it back, now he tried himself to install Yosemite over SL but having problems as now every time he restarts, it goes through 3 processes and screens, first screen shows "Install OSX", 2nd screen shows "Installing on Untitled 1" and 3rd screen shows below, how can he quit Yosemite installation and get back to SL please?

2015-02-10 09_38_01-image3.JPG - IrfanView (Zoom_ 985 x 739).jpg
 
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Oh, he just said this is th top part of the screenshot I had posted earlier and when he clicks on "Quit installer" nothing happens.

2015-02-10 09_45_00-image12.JPG - IrfanView (Zoom_ 554 x 739).jpg
 

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Problem was the Graphics chip...

If the problem is/was the graphics hardware…then this computer needs a replacement logic board. Was the logic board replaced? If not…why are we still discussing this computers problems? Since the graphics hardware problem is not going to go away by itself.

And if the logic board was replaced…then why weren't we told this in the recent posts?

- Nick
 
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Story goes, he picked up the imac from the store [they repaired the problem] to take to another state as the imac was to be given to his family, he only now contacted me and told me of this problem so I am simply trying to see if there is something I can do to help him get back to snow leopard.
 

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Story goes, he picked up the imac from the store [they repaired the problem] to take to another state...

Ok good deal…and good to know!:)

The way to get back to Snow Leopard is for the owner to purchase a Snow Leopard install disk…and do the install. The disk can be purchased from Apple.com.

- Nick
 
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So no way to cancel the Yosemite install and revert back to original snow leopard OSX? When I first installed Yosemite it installed over the Snow leopard and it never showed an option to erase the drive, that tells me the snow leopard still have to be there?
 

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When I first installed Yosemite it installed over the Snow leopard and it never showed an option to erase the drive, that tells me the snow leopard still have to be there?

If Yosemite was installed "over" Snow Leopard…how would Snow Leopard still be there?? The new OS replaces the old OS. If Snow Leopard what still there…I wouldn't have suggested reinstalling from an OS install disk!;)

- Nick
 
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I was thinking maybe it would keep the old OSX in a separate partition like windows.
 

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I was thinking maybe it would keep the old OSX in a separate partition like windows.

If this were the case…then all the folks who do an upgrade to Yosemite or other OS versions that they don't like…could easily "downgrade" back to whatever previous OS they had installed. But it doesn't work this way.

That's why we have quite a number of threads from folks wanting to downgrade. We always say…it's easy to upgrade…but a pain in the butt to downgrade.

I guess this is one of the things different from Windows.;) This could be done on a Mac…but the person doing the installing would need to partition the HD properly AHEAD OF TIME. Then install the new OS on the new partition…leaving the old OS alone on the other partition.

Bottom line (as mentioned earlier). The current owner needs to purchase a Snow Leopard install disk to install Snow Leopard on the computer.

- Nick
 
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Hey guys, this was from my OP:
imac 7.1
Intel core 2 duo
2 ghz
4gb ram
Serial Number: W873478TX85

So to refresh, the guy brought the imac back to me after he ran into trouble trying to upgrade to Yosemite. I installed Snow leopard again from scratch but 2 problems this time, first I am trying to run the Software Update to bring it to 10.6.8 but after running the update and it asks to restart, when it does restart, I am only seeing an empty desktop. I would then have to manually power down then restart to get back the OSX desktop and the update does not work so it still shows 10.6.3, any ideas please?
 

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- Original problem with this computer was "freezing".
- We were told that the computer worked fine with OS 10.4.
- We were told that when 10.6 was installed the freezing started.
- I mentioned that there was no logical reason that a computer that ran fine with 10.4 would all of a sudden start freezing with an install of 10.6.

This thread is now about 2 weeks old (and we are on the 3rd page of the thread)...so I may be rusty on all the details. But from a quick scan of the thread...I dont see anything that has changed (regarding freezing).

The bottom line is...a fresh install of Snow Leopard will not all of a sudden cause freezing on a computer that previously was running fine with an install of 10.4. The only reason that freezing would occur with the install of 10.6...would be an unfortunate coincidental hardware failure.

If this iMac has had a hardware failure of some sort (or bad ram installed)...then no OS install troubleshooting of any sort will resolve the hardware failure.

You can try one more time:

- boot the computer from the 10.6 install DVD
- launch Disk Utility and erase & reformat the HD
- perform the OS install

If the computer still continues to freeze...then there has most likely been:

- A hardware failure of some sort (logic board).
- The computer has bad ram installed...and the bad ram needs to be replaced with known good ram.
- Or maybe the HD is bad/failing.

* Nick
 
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To refresh, this taken from post #23:

Problem was the Graphics chip so the snow leopard worked fine after the owner got it back, now he tried himself to install Yosemite over SL but having problems as now every time he restarts, it goes through 3 processes and screens, first screen shows "Install OSX", 2nd screen shows "Installing on Untitled 1" and 3rd screen shows below, how can he quit Yosemite installation and get back to SL please?

Fast forward to now with no more freezing issues, you see the problem I am having.
 

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To refresh, this taken from post #23:

Thanks for the refresh!:) Hard to keep all the details straight in one thread (amongst the many)…especially one that has close to a week of inactivity.

Fast forward to now with no more freezing issues, you see the problem I am having.

I don't remember…how was the freezing/graphics hardware issue resolved?

If:

- the freezing issue is resolved
- there are no other hardware issues
- there are no bad ram issues
- the computer can be booted from OS install media (DVD or bootable USB stick)
- the computer can be booted from an external HD
- and if there is still a problem with the computer…

Then the problem is almost certainly the internal HD (internal HD has problems).

- Nick
 
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They had replaced the graphics chip so take care fo the freezing, thing is, with a fresh SL installed the unit is working perfectly, just won't update so I am not understanding why this would be another hardware issue?
 

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...with a fresh SL installed the unit is working perfectly, just won't update so I am not understanding why this would be another hardware issue?

Ok…that makes things a little bit clearer. I wasn't 100% sure what the current "stability" status of this computer was.:)

I've known some folks to have had problems updating the OS via "Software Update". Sometimes they've had better success using the downloadable "Combo Updater":

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1399?locale=en_US

Please post if this works. I want to be able to sleep tonight!:)

- Nick
 
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That download took forever around 5 hours, just finished but it worked [thanks], will try Yosemite tomorrow, get back to you.
 

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