Demo of iMac Graphics Defect (Late 2006 iMac, ATI X1600 GPU)

[bramley1001]

Still running perfectly in " headless" mode . No freezes, artifacts etc., clearly a heat issue like most Apple video card problems.

[abatareika]

I will post my video, it is even worse. But I heavily used my imac in video production. Can you tell me if I can use this iMac with the new one as a second screen? Or the failed graphic card will not allow me this?

[pepijn69]

I have exactly the same problem, increasingly worse. Fancontrol is indeed just a temp bandaid.. Right now the GPU heats up to around 42 degrees celsius, with fans maxed out at 5000.. When it reaches around 45, the Radeon (or it's mem) crashes with a lot of artifacts and whatnot... progressively worse since it began some two years ago.. I predict I cant use my system anymore for graphical intense applications within half a year/year from now. 2006 imac intel core duo 2,16 Ghz

[nhlalwenhlezondo]

I thought it was just me going through this, I find that using the Windows side is a lot better, but you still have to deal with those annoying horizontal lines, lawls!

[p1ngu1no]

A friend tall me about this. I know the problem is there. But to me, is the best computer i ever had. 5 years later, runs on leopard beautifully and silent as i never seen other pc.

I have done a very daily intensive use of the Imac during this 5 years with both systems in it, xp and osx...(games, photo work...) all day on...

I allways thought why they retired the white imacs quite soon.

Even with great machines, you can have bad luck. i had to throw away a toshiba satellite after 2 years.

[chrisworld2]

Mine is still running without lines after the thermal paste replacement. The CPU is running a bit hotter than it did before but I suspect thats because I knowingly didnt but the copper heat pipes back on the cpu tight enough. I should go back and tighten it up a bit eh?

[bramley1001]

Today I installed SMC on my screenless "Mad Max " iMac , just for fun . ( see my other posts)

Now nothing over 36 degrees C under full video load, still no GPU issues .

[mkdsuser]

I heard this issue is because the GPU warms up and idles at high temperatures, eventually causing damage to the GPU Chip, would a solution be to simply cut holes in the back of the iMac casing? I suggest this very lightly since many iMac users would probably prefer not having huge holes in their system. (I know i wouldn't, unless it was the only solution left.)

[bramley1001]

@mkdsuser

I've searched extensively & some have drilled holes ! My rather radical solution ( see below) was discovered accidentally just as I was about to throw the computer in the trash . A more elegant last ditch solution would be to fabricate some kind of spacer/ vent between the bezel and the computer & mount the display on the bezel. The display & insight cables will reach.

[mkdsuser]

@bramley1001

Well if my iMac starts acting up i will try drilling holes, if that also fails i'll try your other idea.

-Thanks :D

[bramley1001]

@mkdsuser

In all the discussions I've seen on line none mention how much heat the display generates and also how much heat it traps inside the machine. Also I forgot to mention the optical drive works fine with out the front bezel slot.

With a 19' VGA monitor sitting in front of the iMac I have a great reliable computer because it's cooling through the gaping hole where the screen was. Prior to this it beachballed very 10 mins and froze on minimizing etc. GPU Max is 42 deg heavy load.

[late2006imac]

Currently, I am running the iMac without the GPU by deleting /System/Library/Extensions/ATI­RadeonX1000.kext (after booting the iMac in target disk mode). Without the Radeon drivers, OS X just uses the CPU for graphics, so the plus side is no more horizontal lines, graphics anomalies, or freezing. The down side is that Quartz Extreme is disabled, so apps that use QE for animation and video don't work properly. But at least the iMac is usable for some basic tasks.

[alekstester]

@late2006imac Hey. I've recently worked on a few imac's as well as just recently a macbook pro running the awesome ATI x1600 GPU. Overheating is the main cause of many issues on these macs. I would suggest cleaning out the ports really well (intake and outtake). The idea case is to open up the computer and reapply new thermal paste while cleaning up the internals. But if you're like me,... opening up the mac can be just a pain.

[KaLoSoFt]

@late2006imac

Thanks for the tip for running it without the GPU! I came up with another way of doing with by just disabling the Quartz Extreme. After this, my iMac 2006 haven't shown a color line nor have halted/rebooted. I'm still using smcfancontrol to increase the fans to 2000 rpm just in case.

To disable the Quartz Extreme I did modify a config file and distilled the process to a command line that I crafted to do this. Here it is if anyone is interested:

[KaLoSoFt]

Sorry can't post it due to google blocking it.. If anyone interested, please send me a message.

[chrisworld2]

All that being said, when I FINALLY get the compound right (didn't know I was doing it wrong) I have come down to this conclusion. These machines intimidate you because you are scared to open them. I'm not. It was dust caked and the compound in the GPU was total shitsauce factory applied. While im having a hot CPU issue due to my own (fault?) i'm not getting lines when the GPU warms up anymore. I think we were all jumping the gun too early.

[chrisworld2]

Well i opened it again to fix the display cable (which did work, its fixed) and decided to re apply the core 2 duo's compound yet again since my first attempt apparently didnt work for the cpu. Before i did all of this it sat idle at 95-99F with fans 100%. After the AS5 compound it idles at 102 F, after the 2nd re-do of the compound it sits 106 F. I followed the instructions carefully, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Tried another heavy load encoding of a mov,e, 199 F avg 100% load. wtf.

[HearGear]

I have the same problem with my late 2006 iMac 24", its very hard to use the damn puter when it seems to freeze and need to be forced to re-boot, and i also have Horizontal lines.. the computer is more or less totaly useless as long as it behave like this... is there a solution.. ? or should i just put it in the trash-can ?

[chrisworld2]

You should make a custom mod case for the iMac's hardware now, lol.

[bramley1001]

@chrisworld2

I'm thinking about it, however extending cam/mic cables looks tricky . It's still running fine, occasionally only after a fresh boot I'll get the multiple fragmented images when dragging a folder, but re booting fixes it. Seems like the GPU gets a bug in it which is cleared by a reboot.

The crashes, hangs & beachballs disappeared immediately I removed the screen.

[chrisworld2]

@bramley1001 im thinking about investing in ethier a new iMac or mac mini. I've honestly had just about enough with this machine. Sure I put another band aid over it with the thermal compound replacement but it will always feel like a band aided machine that just needs round the clock babysitting because it's still not entirely stable. I have heard of any issues with any of the 07 and up macs that are this deep so I'm hoping this was a one time 'mistake' apple made. I can forgive that.

[chrisworld2]

Oh one more thing, it was PACKED to hell and back with dust in the most obvious place. The shared GPU/CPU sink. I blew that all out. I will LAUGH my ass off if that was the problem all along. You gotta figure, 3 years (when the problems started happening) and not taking this system apart regularly... well that's a lot of dust. Guys, your warranty is up, taker er' apart and CLEAN IT! Its your last option. If the system is unusable for some, what'v eyou got to lose?

[chrisworld2]

Ill explore more options to try and correct the screen issue and the unplugged fan. But honestly this ordeal juat makes me want to buy a new machine. Hopimg their newer models dont have these problems. When is the new mac mini gonna come out btw? Be cool if the price stayed the same but it offered imac specs.

[chrisworld2]

There was a ton of dust in the case. I re applied arctic silver 5, put' er back together. Temps are still too hot but it didnt crash. Problem though, i must have forgot to plug the odd fan/ambient light sensor/ because they dont work anymore. Oh yeah and there are pixels freaking out all over the screen. I need to open it up and retrace my steps. I have a feeling the vga cable is loose.

[gnidaerd]

Yep, I had the same issue on a 24" model. Eventually on a wet day, read moist air, wouldn't even start up. I pulled it apart and found on the power supply some dry joints on the Power supply, on capacitors, will re-solder these and see. The quality of work on the power supply is decidedly poor, looks like work done many years ago and rough as...

[ferryengr]

I have similar freezing problems on my iMac. Apple needs to step up to the plate - especially given the huge profits they have been reaping. I abandoned PC's because the product was inferior. Are Apples now no better? If so, why not buy a PC for half the price?!

[late2006imac]

@ferryengr Because Macs looks cooler on the outside, OS X looking very polished, and Apple's awesome marketing, people think the inside is put together by pixies with magic fairy dust. In reality, the internal components of an iMac (aside from a custom made logic board) have standard PC components (LCD, HDD, RAM, CPU, graphics card, optical drive, ports, etc). They just happen to pack it all in a confined space better than their competitors.

[bramley1001]

@late2006imac

I agree. See my post below. They're built like crap inside. Scotch tape holding cables down, EMR shielding tape slapped on the case ,real sweat shop stuff and all in a design way too tight for effective heat dissipation. The screens themselves generate a lot of heat and press tight against components. Mine has been flawless since running with the gaping hole where the screen once was. Radical , but it was free, and the experience IMO has proven where the problem lies.

[late2006imac]

@ferryengr There's nothing magical about their construction, contrary to what their marketing videos show. The components are manufactured and assembled somewhere in China just like any other PC vendor. And they'll gladly sell you Applecare for a couple hundred dollars more for extra "protection", just as Dell or HP would for extended warranty. Apple is a corporation, and like any good public corp, they seek to maximize returns on their investment and maintain a healthy profit.

[hendrxson]

i have the same imac and mine just started doing this about 9 months ago way past apple care plan expiration date. so what! i had a laptop but i recentley broke my power cord so im stuck using this PoS till i can order a new cable. i m not really that upset about it i got 4+ years out of the thing. 3 of those years were spent playing wow almost 24/7. thank god i broke that addiction. now if i could just quit smoking...

[late2006imac]

@hendrxson That's great that you got 4 years out of it, but because of the defect you won't be able to resell it at its normal value. So Apple not only sold you a defective product, but they also robbed you of its resale value.

[0fornothing]

Same computer, same problem.

[YohaneRockett]

Hi! I have the same Problems with my lat iMac 5,1 x1600 Graphic Card 256RAM.

Has someone a solution to fix the Problem right now?

Kind regards Yohane

[chrisworld2]

Well ... it's been a while and the artifacts still don't show up. Still using SMC Fan, one problem though. NOw I'm starting to kernal panic, 2 times a day at least and the crash reports point to some very suspicious stuff, im assuming GPU related. I haven't felt like reinstalling OS X to see if that'll fix it or make and use a new admin account. I really hope this thing can hold out until I get a new machine. Been having my eyes on the Mac mini server, just not the cash, haha.

[late2006imac]

@chrisworld2 Reinstall of OS X won't help. It's a hardware issue. The GPU is breaking down.

[chrisworld2]

In OS X, It will also randomly Black-Screen, Kernel Panic or beach-ball permanently until a hard restart is performed. I started using SMC to crank up the fans from Default to Medium, and the problems have not shown up for almost a year. I know it's a band-aid, I know it's not "right". I hate when people assume anyone can just pull $1000 out of their ass to fix a 4 year old computer. It'll last me until I can buy a new one, thats for sure. If not, oh well. Apple needs to get their shit together.

[late2006imac]

@chrisworld2 It's fine that you can use your iMac a little longer by increasing the fan speed, but realize that you won't be able to resell it. If you wanted to sell your iMac in 2009 or 2010, you probably could have sold it for $600-$800. But with the defective GPU, it's basically worthless (maybe $100 if sold for parts). So not only did Apple sell you a defective computer, they robbed you of its resale value.

[chrisworld2]

@late2006imac well sometime this week, I'm rebuilding the damn thing. Tearing it apart and replacing all the thermal compound as well as going deep inside and removing all the dust. I hae the feeling that 4 1/2 year old dried up compound doesn't help the situation any further. I'm at SMC fans 100% now, not 50%. The time to fix this is now or never.

[bramley1001]

@chrisworld2

Love to see some pics. My late 2006 20 " has been running non stop for 2 weeks ( sleep mode at times) no lines, glitches or crashes . All I did was completely remove the display and run the computer on a VGA external monitor. Before that it wouldn't last 10 minutes before lines, beachball , then black screen , or the occasional kernel panic.

This proves beyond a doubt that it's a heat related problem, too much stuff packed into too small a space.

[chrisworld2]

@bramley1001 well it's all said and done. I'm honestly NOT sure if the re compounding helped at all. Shes still running 'hot' but on default fans there are NO lines appearing. Ill give it some time. If they re appear, then I stand corrected. Amusingly i left the vga cable loose (by accident) so my screen is covered in nutty lines that go crazy when i shake the machine. It's not the gpu because my ext display has none of these lines. And screenshots do not capture the artifacts. It's the cable.

[chrisworld2]

@bramley1001 and may I ask how you managed to put OS X on the secondary display? I know how, but my question i guess is, did you do it beforehand, or does OS X detect the display to be missing and put it on the external port automatically?

[bramley1001]

@chrisworld2

Yes, when an iMac internal display is disconnected it sees the DVI out as the primary display, yet no where does Apple tell us that. Resolution choices are slightly restricted , but it works fine . On one occasion it booted and the resolution had changed causing the ext display to go crazy , I booted in safe mode and reset the resolution , it's been fine ever since. I also removed the isight cam/mic and mounted them in a small case above the new monitor ,cables just made it.

[chrisworld2]

Hello! Another user of a late 2006 iMac here. My specs are similar to yours, though, my CPU is 2.33 and the x1600 is 256 MB. My issues aren't as severe as this Mac's but I'm positive it's "getting" there. It sucks. The problems probably started roughly... 3 years after heavy gaming on the Windows side. Then after the first BSOD in Windows, the ATi utilities kept reporting errors and the system kept BSOD'ing. This machine is now and forever retired from gaming. OS X sports those colorful lines.

[late2006imac]

@chrisworld2 at least you got a good 3 years of use out of your imac. sounds like you really put the x1600 gpu through its paces with heavy gaming. i barely got 18 months of out of mine, and i never did anything even remotely graphics intensive that would cause the gpu to fail. these gpu's should not be breaking down within 4 years for the average user, let alone 18 months.

[chrisworld2]

@late2006imac They shouldn't even break down after 10 years of heavy use. The three main games I played on this machine during it's gaming days were: Guild Wars, EverQuest II and Call of Duty 4. GW and CoD4 mostly relied on the GPU for the work, but EQ2 relies heavily on the CPU which this machine doesn't lack. The problems started one summer night playing EQ2 when it just kept BSoD'ing. It never ran the same again. CoD and GW just had heavy polygon artifacts.

[chrisworld2]

I don't do a TON of heavy work in OS X for it to fail on just yet, I'm hoping. I use OS X mostly to hoard my digital camera pics, and massive iTunes library, on top of all the other useful OS X features. I do movie ripping in Handbrake which I can only think to be remotely close to using the x1600 over it's damaged limit, but those come out fine still. It's one of those intermittent problems that really SUCK I guess.

[alexleafa]

You have to disassemble it and clean the dirt from inside, oil the fans and replace the thermal grease on the video card. It will fix the problem. I did this at least 30 times at the same computers that had this problem and worked every time. Same model, same CPU type of Imac do the cleaning and it will work.

[late2006imac]

@alexleafa the X1600 is soldered onto the logic board. it is not a separate graphics card that you can simply replace or take apart. opening the case and cleaning the dust may help with the cooling, but once your gpu is damaged, no amount of cleaning will help it. if the engine in your car is damaged, no amount of oil changes will make your car run better.

[stevenfudd]

Same exact situation for us. Just scheduled an appointment with apple store today. Problem started happening 1.5 years after purchase. Bought a mac pro soon after because I was concerned about the sporadic crashing on the imac and the inability to fix anything easily if there was a problem. Started using the mac pro so much never got around to fixing the imac. Until now. The problem only gets worse. We get the spinning wheel of death constantly after artifacts and lines.

[acw2099]

wow it is like you sat down at my very same imac and filmed it. i am 100% the same.

here is how i get around it, i up all of my fan speeds using smcFanControl. it makes the imac loud, but it does help this issue some. it will not completely solve it though. also be sure to switch away from the default apple gpu intensive screensaver to the "computer name" screen saver. the point is that this screensaver will keep the gpu cool to help solve this issue.

google smcFanControl.

[late2006imac]

@acw2099 People need to stop recommending smcFanControl as a fix to this issue. Once your iMac starts exhibiting these graphics problems, the damage has already been done to the graphics memory. It will eventually worsen to the point where no amount of cooling will prevent the lines and freezing. If the damaged vram is like an 8 inch gash in your leg, smcFanControl is like a single bandaid. It may stem the bleeding a little, but eventually you're going to bleed out and die w/o a proper fix.

[acw2099]

@late2006imac

>implying that I implied that smcfancontrol fixes the issue.

>implying that I implied that the issues will go away after they start up.

I dislike that youtube double posts. any double posting is the responsibility of youtube.

[animal16]

@late2006imac 8 inches would go through my leg