iMac troubles... Freezing

[Stealth]

Hi all
I'm fixing up an iMac (2006 intel model) for a friend. I didn't get to see the mac before deciding to upgrade the ram because she was moving house but said I just runs bit slow and the ram is really the only thing you can upgrade.

UnFortunately the mac freezes all the time and needs a reboot and there's graphics corruption, sort of smudge lines across the screen or individual windows, not a problem with the lcd as the areas of graphics issues can change depending on the window that's open. I've replaced the hard drive as a matter of course but even the leopard installer slows up and has problems.

I'm at a loss- I'm sure it's not memory and he'd now but everything else is integrated!
Any ideas?

[robwhizz]

Sounds like it's possibly an overheating problem. I don't know anything about iMacs (is that the one that's like just a monitor?), but would assume there is a heat sink on the CPU and possibly one on the graphics card (or on the chip on the mobo if it's built in).
Can you see the fans or are they all covered? Check the vents see if you feel air being blown out. Fans might need replacing, or could just be massive build up of dust stopping any cooling. Air duster might help, or if you can strip it down give everything a good dusting.

[neal]

@rob yeah, imacs are the ones that are just like a monitor.

you can't see the fans and the top of the unit gets extremely hot above the single vent on a perfectly operational machine with just a trickle of hot air as opposed to a full blast from the fans.

like rob says it sounds like it might be an overheating issue. i've not opened mine up (being a work machine) so i don't know much about the internals. is there any way you can get it running with the back off so you can check the fans are running? is the heatsink correctly seated?

[MattC]

The best way to solve this is










Buy a PC.


hth


Matt

[Stealth]

Haha I I'd suggest I could get her a pc but her friend left the iMac when he moved back to USA so silly
not to take advantage of something free!

Not sure it's overheating, the fans looked ok when I opened it up but admittedly I had an amature moment and havnt tested to see if the fans are working!!

Will check that