Suddenly my Mac (desktop) seems to have taken a liking to freezing/crashing for no apparent reason. Done it twice today and about 4 times last week. Basically pin stripe vertical lines just appear on screen, everything else disappears and nothing works so I have to hold down the power switch to force it to shut down and restart and then its absolutely fine again.

Any ideas? Is this building to something catastrophic.

Mine did this it might be the capacitors bulging .

Similar except it was a vertical pin stripe

2006 iMac? Could be logic board failure, its a common fault on that model seen it happen a few times. Macs goosed if it happens…

Think it’s a 2010 model. One of the newer alloy type ones anyway.

Looks like a motherboard/gpu failure to me.

Can you find/borrow a Apple Hardware Test Disc?

EDIT

If it’s a logicboard failure, something like this [a DIY reflow] may be worth a last-ditch attempt before replacing the board. I guess it depends how much time/money you wish to invest in the machine.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1057293

NB – you will have to do a lot of research – exact model/method, most likely chip to need reflowing etc etc

Something similar happened to my old mac, replace HDrive and all was well again. If near Glasgow I could put you in touch with an apple wizard – more magical than an apple genius, and less expensive

2010 is likely to have needed the Seagate HD replaced. Apple did mine in 2013. I’d recommend making an appointment and getting it looked at in-store.

I’ve been out of the Mac game for a few years, but if that’s a HDD issue then I’ll have learned some thing new!

2006 iMac? Could be logic board failure, its a common fault on that model

bingo.

Happened to my mum’s a few years back (same stripey nonsense) – it was out of warranty, but they still fixed it gratis. Not sure they still would in 2014 🙁

My 2010 did something similar, had to replace HD

As a slight hijak, my wifes mac has suddenly started running very slowly. she has 500gb spare of hard drive space. She is a photographer so is constantly using lightroom and photoshop. Any ideas? sorry i know its very vague..!

Imac 27inch 2011

HYD1 – how much HDD space is left?

When was the OS last reinstalled?

DOES SHE HAVE BACKUPS [before we mess with it]?

OP, in my view vertical lines are most likely a component failure (logic board/gpu etc) and needs to be looked at professionally.

@howsyourdaddy, +1 for making backups and now ! Reasonable chance the hard drive is failing (lots of lightroom/photoshop will work the disk hard). These can be replaced quite easily (not exactly sure based on your model how easy it is, ie diy job or needs a professional). If it does need a new drive you’ll end up with a better machine as new technology is better (whether you go SSD or 7200rpm HDD)

Thanks all. Looks like another trip to the apple store then. Second major fault with this mac in as many years. In 2012 the HD completely died and was replaced but we didnt back anything up! So, with nothing to lose I stuck my HD in the freezer for a few days, took it out and quickly connected it back up via one of those cheapy data back up things, and bingo it jumped back into life, so i quickly pulled all the data from it onto the new hard drive and thankfully managed to save it all.

Obviously we back up regularly now.

So, I’ve been on my computer more or less all day today and it hasn’t crashed once. Am I being lulled into a false sense of security?

I’d say so.

Almost certainly. Plan for it breaking within a few weeks.

Try this:

http://lifehacker.com/stress-test-your-mac-with-the-yes-command-1564681908

And see if it crashes out again.

Howsyourdad1 when you replace the disk it may be worth investigating if there’s space for an SSD in there as well. You’ll need to search online to see if it’s possible. If you’re running Mountain Lion or Mavericks OS version there’s a terminal sequence you can use to make a hybrid drive of the two such that the SSD is used for the most frequently used stuff speeding things up and reducing wear on the spinning disc mechanism.

(Otherworld will sell the necessary bits and show some links to how-to pages)

can i ask a question?

i7 retina book

forgets my gestures on reboot

any idea?

I am probably to out of date for this one. Reset PRAM? Check what would be affected if you do.

With regard to sandwiches suggestion, that would speed things up but spreading things across two drives increases the chance of a disk failure affecting you. If the machine is mission critical then think carefully if the (significant) speedup is worth the small increase in risk (sounds like RAID 0, google it).

I may well be wrong on these two though 🙂

Backup what you need, get a new computer…yes im a boffin.

dirtyrider, try repairing permissions in Disk Utility.

With reference to putting in an SSD, wouldn’t a hybrid SSD/HDD be the best option? Apps and OS on the SSD segment, everything else on the HDD?
I’m looking into that on my Mini, which has two HDD’s, 350Gb/750Gb, so I’d replace one with a 1Tb hybrid, the other would have a 2Tb HDD to replace the current 1Tb.

my mac book pro flashed upa pay £100 to unlock and then locked everything and cannot access safari .it like it is frozen ?it says its from interpol . i guess its a virus how do i remove ??

Trevor – http://www.malwareremovalguides.info/fbi-ransomware-now-targeting-mac-os-x-users/

Obviously we back up regularly now.

Time Machine FTW

nach – Member
dirtyrider, try repairing permissions in Disk Utility.

Yeah that’s far more likely – I think I’ll exit at this point 😉

Thanks for the replies to my hijacked request for advice on my wifes suddenly slow computer.

Her solution was to go out and buy a new one. I didn’t protest as it now means we have the old one at home. Looks liek we might be replacing the hard drive for it soon though. Is that simple enough to do at home?

Just a note to all with mac problems, my out of warranty crashing mac book was repaired completely free of charge by apple (actually by stormfront, a reseller who were brilliant, hadn’t bought from them). There is an eu ruling about reasonable lifespan of electronics and apple paid for the repair (2x logic boards, 1x screen) under that. Persue these problems with your nearest store if ?<6 years old.

Good luck!

@TomB I think the EU window is 2yrs (you posted 6)

Mine was 4 years old and Ithink 6 was stated. 2 years for phones, iirc?

Looks liek we might be replacing the hard drive for it soon though. Is that simple enough to do at home?

It’s easy enough but considerably more fiddly than a normal desktop PC. Depends how confident you are with this sort of thing really. Here is a guide that explains it all step-by-step: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+27-Inch+EMC+2390+Hard+Drive+Replacement/8919

The worst part is removing the glass to gain access to the inside (it’s held on by magnets so the best method is to use suckers although I’ve found you can do it with fingernails if you start from the middle at the top) and then putting it back without getting any dust behind it.

HYD1 – like I asked before – how full is the hard drive on the slow machine?

my mac book pro flashed upa pay £100 to unlock and then locked everything and cannot access safari .it like it is frozen ?it says its from interpol . i guess its a virus how do i remove ??

I had that once, just switched it off and back on again and it was fine.