SMC FanControl still keep’s the thing barley alive, with only a few crashes a day LOL!

Its disgusting how apple have ignored and denied the issue! Big Time! As I bet we have all spent thousands on their products.

Would removing the optical drive and installing an SSD lower the temperatures enough to halt the overheating? Holes in the case? Most of the time my crashes are at boot up so unless a temperature gage is activated in the summer heat?

Dose a new motherboard solve the issue, because I was going to save for the £400/$800 repair. Would appreciate the feedback!

I had the same problem as you and your suggestion to move all the GeForce out into a folder did the trick. I can use my iMac intel duo now. Does this mean I need a new graphics card? I have a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT. THANK SO MUCH, Michele

n the first year i had problems with the screen (way too many dead pixels), keyboard and mouse turned pink and bootcamp never worked for my imac. By the end of the year and just before leopard was released i kicked up a fuss and got a new logic board fitted and this solved my bootcamp beta woes. Then i noticed my ethernet card was broken (crappy used board) so i had to send it back and get another logic board fitted.

The second year i had no warranty and all went downhill from here. My optical drive packed in and my graphics card was showing glitches in all 3d games unless i turned fan right up. Not wanting to open it i accepted my fate and got really annoyed at how it failed a month after warranty expiration. I also got annoyed with apple never telling me reasons for failure after repairing my machine (secretive and smug $£%£$).

On the third year i finally got the courage to spend £50 on an Optiarc DVD RW AD-7633A and replace this myself. It was a retrofit and required some cutting and gluing but it works perfectly. While opening my case I noticed the amount of wrong screws that had been used and mixed up and rips in my metal shielding thing .

The last thing left to do was the gpu card. I decided to order in the 7600gt to replace my 7300 from an authorized apple service center. 12 days later i recieved my “new” card that was actually refurb that cost me the full new price of £250 apprently apple can do this. The card had finger prints on the copper piping, really worn spongy stuff and not much thermal paste (similar to my worn out 7300). I installed it and it worked fine and i left my computer to sleep overnight. Next morning i got nothing but kernel panics . So i send the card back and wait for a replacement. When i did finally receive my replacement 7600gt, it was a new one with decently applied thermal paste. Now my mac is working the way it should have when i bought it. Shame its all turned pinkish now.

(late night and not proof read)

Kevin

some sort of temporary solution
As I got the same problem with my Nvidia Geforce 6800 Ultra DLL Card and fiddled around for about 4 hours. I can now work again with some restrictions.

I wondered, why I got graphics using Hardware Check which gave me a VRAM error code of 2NVD/1/4:2119 (where 2119 is the ROM Revision number of the video card).

You might try this procedure:

Start your Mac in Safe Mode (Safe Boot) by holding the shift key down right after you hear the startup sound – then let it go when you see the gray screen with the apple logo and the gray wheel turning.

If you CAN boot into safe mode with the login screen and everything and have working graphics, then login and go to this folder:

/System/Library/Extensions/

move all files that start with “GeForce” (I got 6 of them) out of this folder to a save place (Admin password required) – if you can’t, copy them somewhere else and then delete them from the Extensions folder.

After that, reboot normally.

I did this and have a “working” display now, being able to do my work, but because of the missing drivers, some stuff will not work (playing 3D games, doing videochat or other stuff that needs Quartz Extreme or Core Image functions). At least, I have some time to consider which new graphics card to buy.

Hope that helps some dropping by here
__________________

the CreaTurE

I think you should still drill some holes in your iMac. You could call it Frankenmac. $50.00 ain’t a bad deal to get your computer to the point where you don’t have to worry about it randomly crashing anymore. I can’t tell you how awesome it is to be able to do work and not worry about a catastrophic crash. If anything, I’ve become super OCD about saving my work now. Thanks Apple!

Anyway, hit me up with some photos. Just send them to team AT offshootinc dot com. I’ll post them on the blog. Between us we can become the definitive resource for people who’ve shared our painful issue.

After thinking about your issue and reflecting on some of your comments I’d say that there’s something that has to be done at the software level to let the GPU run a little hotter (especially after you pointed out that your friend’s computer’s GPU runs hotter than yours and doesn’t crash). But, until there’s some sort of official word we’re only able to make guesses.

Check out frozencpu.com They have a ac to dc (just plug in to wall socket) adapter that does allow adjustability of fan speed…just what im looking for. I think this is going to be easier than i thought, im going to purchase a 100+ cfm fan with fan rpm as minimal as possible to reduce noise. Total for parts looks to be around $50 or so, not bad considered the computer cost $2000 and could potentially make this thing useful again. I’ll get back to you and let you know how it works!

So nice, sort of, to discover my iMac is not the only one with issues. My apple care ran out in October of 2008. I think im going to try the drill idea and mount an external fan on the back as close the gpu as possible. I have seen post where people talk about pushing as opposed to pulling air into/out of the machine. Logically speaking, pulling hot air out of the machine makes the most amount sense to me. I have investigated and found fan controllers for $5-30 and high quality fans for $10-20. The only dilemma at this point is how im going to route power to the fan controller (external) and then to the fan. I’ll figure something out, I always do! Eventually when i do get around to I’ll email you pics and walk you through if it is effective. I only need the external fan when ambient temps are high or while gaming, hence the adjustable fan controller. Im sure your in the same situation as me…arghhh this is frustrating!!!!

I feel your pain. About the only other way I can think of to keep your comp cool is to take it back to Apple to get them to fix it. That is, providing you still have Apple Care on your computer.

I did keep an eye on my GPU temperatures and thought that the culprit was something to do with a critical temperature cut off. I distinctly remember being at the Apple store one morning with my computer and then visiting one of the sites which cause my iMac to crash. It didn’t. So, we ramped up the GPU to get it nice and hot and sure enough visiting the site again caused my computer to crash. So, after this ordeal I’d have to say that the problem can definitely be traced back to temperature.

Drilling the holes might work, however, with the existing ventilation format I’m not sure how much it would help with the issue directly. I personally think that there’s something that could be done with OS X to let the GPU run a little hotter. There was a patch released in early February for NVIDIA GPUs but it was quickly taken down. It was supposed to address the micro display port isssues some people where having with their Macbook Pros and also update the NVIDIA 7300 card. However, after about 2 days of availability the update mysteriously disappeared.

But, if SMC fan control is keeping your from crashing then I’ll say that you’re doing about all you can do on your own and doing a pretty good job at keeping your computer usable. Until Apple can give a straight story on this issue, it looks like anyone who bought a 24″ iMac in late 2006 and is having problems will continue to be on their own to get this problem resolved. I’m just happy I got Apple Care for this computer when I bought it.