It just works.

so no big jokes now that it's apple having issues with graphics drivers lol, considering microsofts past issues of blue screens tended to be surrounded by faulty graphics drivers, now apple has their iMac's just freezing and loosing the ability to input commands. Yet Microsoft was bi*ch slapped for the BSOD, hmm lets see....
MIcrosoft had the BSOD

Apple has the frozen screen hmmm

Serious question: why does it seem that only Apple products get full coverage of minor hardware faults like these? I mean I know somebody will joke and say it's because their products suck but I know for a fact that several other vendors over the past years have had similar hardware problems to those from Apple (Dell in particular, but also Toshiba and Sony). I was actually afflicted by a Toshiba hardware failure that was so prevalent and terrible I got $500 from a class action lawsuit over it, but I never saw it anywhere "on the blogs".

I'm (honestly) not insinuating any sort of fanboyism here (either way). Is it because of Apple's simplified product line making any glitch aflict many more users and thus affect more people? I guess a hardware problem in one of Dell's hundreds of models won't generate as many confirmation cases.

Hm, I have noticed this exact symptom - while playing itunes, endlessly spinning beachball and itunes keeps playing. I just assumed it was from trying to run aperture, photoshop, and illustrator all with 1gb of ram. probably doesn't help things though.

Apple gets a news notice when something doesn't work because they make a point that, like the first comment said, "it just works."

if their stance was, it mostly works, or it kinda works or their legion of fans wasn't so sure that they were perfect, you wouldn't see this post.

they bring it on themselves.

As much as I hate to admit it, this isn't just an apple issue. I've been having the exact same problem (computer continues running, just no interaction basically) on my newly build Windows machine. Seems like the culprit was ati's newest drivers (7.9). I went down to 7.8 and everything is back to normal.

My iMac seems to be fine now, I used to get that from time to time, so I figured it was ram. Now that I'm at 4gig no issues.

Apple doesn't crash is a big lie. My friend brought his MacBook to last week and I used it just as I do with my Acer laptop. And, I was surprised to see that it actually crashed Safari couple of times in 2 hours. Same with my iPhone. When I visit a website that has popups; it simply crashes.

@niravabhavsar:

It just crashed?

I own a windows laptop as do many of my friends (required by college for our degree) and we all have ATI Firegl v5200s or Radeons (depending where we bought it). Anyways, this isn't just an ATI on Mac thing, we all occasionally get "infinite loop errors" or problems caused by atidvag.dll or dvg(random number).exe/.dll and we have confronted ATI on it (and Lenovo where we got our Thinkpads) and they know its an issue, their drivers packages are crap. Then its made worse by companies (like Lenovo) who make their own drivers specifically for the machine which are equally as crappy. Tech support could care less, both ATI and Lenovo for us claim the problem isn't big enough to issue a recall, but if you google search it you get tons of the same complaints...sounds like ATI just could give a damn less...

Nothing new here. Most Windows XP problems are 3rd party related, be it hardware, software or whatever.

Not kidding here. If you're a stable user on Windows XP (if you don't get new hardware every month, or install everything you get on the Internet), you won't have stability problems.

I know that because I'm using Win XP sp2 on my laptop for almost 2 years without a single problem.

This is the true secret to no crashes, no BSODs, no problems: Limit your software, limit your hardware, configure everything once correctly, chances are you'll end up with a stable and pretty good computer. Be it a mac or a pc.

But ATI has to create some solution fast for it. As most manufacturers should do to Vista. Major problems on Vista are also because of 3rd party hardware/software.

@Bokusatsu_Tenshi:

"This is the true secret to no crashes, no BSODs, no problems: Limit your software, limit your hardware, configure everything once correctly, chances are you'll end up with a stable and pretty good computer. Be it a mac or a pc."

Very true. I've got both a Dell P4 at home as well as a mirrored door dual G4 867mhz Mac that I've been using for years with very little problems.

Yeah but guys it can be a driver issue. Then even if you make the best setup possible, it will happen.

It was only a matter of time before Apple had issues with ATI just like all the windows runners. Soon they will know like everyone else that they should have gotten Nvidia.

The reason you hear about Apple having small issues like this is because it's a closed system. Apple knows every configuration that can go out with their systems and can build drivers to fit them. Windows computers have an infinite number of configurations. It's no wonder that there are so many issues. I kind of amazed their aren't more.

So, Apple has, what, 3 graphics cards ensure work fine with their OS and they can't even do that now? MS and the graphics chip companies have easily over 20 different graphics chipsets, that are put out by a multitude of companies and they get a whole years worth of flack if a graphics card doesn't work 100% the day of launch?

This is an ATI problem first, and an apple problem as a side effect.
@Padriac: Its because the monoculture (lack of diversity) of apple hardware means this affects more people, and people who primarily bought something because that monoculture implied simpler support.

ATI's had a reputation for a long time as being unable to write decent drivers. Driver instability is one of the main reasons they lost the market against the Nvidia 4x00 series, and why they were losing market share to Nvidia until getting bought by AMD. They had a brief stroke of luck with the 9x00 series, but unfortunately they couldn't keep it up past that.

I'm a little surprised that Apple went with ATI for their graphics given this history. Nvidia's done pretty good with the 7 and 8 series hardware and accompanying drivers.

@wlcrm:

Oh man just think if the good old Voodoo cards was still in existence??

I have one of the new 24" inch imacs. No problems here so far. (I hope you can hear the sound of me knocking on wood)

I recently bought one of the new 20" imacs and I thought it was a ram issue as well. I upgraded this week from 1gb to 3gb and the computer is fast as sh*t and still freezes. I hope they fix it soon!

I have a 24" iMac, it's crashed once in the 2 months I've had it (azureus crashed it). Other than the one crash everything has worked perfect.

Gotta hand it to Apple. Great Job Guys!!

How about a price cut while your fixing the video freezing problem?

You guys keep calling it a problem. You're not thinking differently enough. This is clearly a feature.

I hope they get it worked out and your machines start behaving themselves again.

I know I hate it when mine misbehave.

@Havok154: Dont be mad cause your poor and cant afford a mac. You always run around and cry in Apple posts then when the Apple guys break down the Zune posts you have another hissy fit. Stop crying.

@iHeartApple: lol you're such a queer. typical apple fanboi.

Yeah, it almost certainly has to do with the pixel shader aspect of the aluminum iMac drivers. If you're a WoW player and you attempt to use their new "record WoW video straight to your Mac" feature, the game will inform you that you either don't have the latest version of Quicktime, the correct version of OSX, or a graphics card with pixel shading enabled. Obviously, the HD2600 has pixel shading capabilities. So I'm guessing the drivers are incorrect.

In a world where it seems like there's a new driver every single day, I'm surprised this hasn't been corrected yet.

But hey, that's computers for you. If they weren't constantly screwing up, I'd have to actually do something productive with my life.

@iHeartApple: Your a piece of sh*t.

Thats the problem with all you assholes. You are an elitist f**k. Mac hardware is a piece of sh*t, and ever since they moved to Intel hardware, its become clearly evident that their old G4 and G5 hardware was garbage, and so is their current, for the price you pay.

Im not poor, i can easily afford a Mac, but i would then have to commit suicide after i find out i could have gotten an equal or better PC with a substantially better graphics card for 1/2 the price of any of the macs.

I build a quad core with a 8800gtx for about 2g's with 4 gigs of OCz ram and 1TB of HD space. Rock solid, and unbelievably fast.

Why dont you just shove an apple up your ass, along with that elitist attitude.

why can't we all just get along.
linux is good at being free and mostly stable
apple is good at ilife-type stuff and mostly stable
windows is good at being well known

i could say 100 bad things easy about every system.

choosing an os is like choosing a political party, you don't choose the best, you choose what has the least negatives for what you need.

Incredible, right now is when apple fan boys are discovering that drivers are the problematic part in OSes.

If Windows is the one with the faulty driver: Windows Crashes.

If OSX is the one with the faulty driver: This bad driver that crashes our beloved OSX should has been made by Microsoft in a conspiracy to dominate the world.

@Padriac: which brings up another question: if apple has so few hardware variations, shouldn't the few they have be tested thorougly enough to catch glitches like this? quality control at apple seems to be slipping.

@diabolusunknown: I know you weren't scoffing at me, but I use both mac and pc. I'm a designer. I use computers. What's the deal. They both have their own problems, so get over yourself. It sounds like you're the elitist after reading your post.

@diabolusunknown: wow, how elitist.
i also use both pc and mac. windows for games on a pc, mac for pretty much everything else. at work i use a macbook pro with parallels so i get the best (and worst) of both worlds, and linux thrown in to boot. use what works for your needs. platform and os wars are stupid.
on a related note, i've recently put four of the new 20" imacs in service here at work, and no problems so far.

The problem is not just with new machines. I have a Powerbook G4 with the same problem. My local Apple dealer has yet to rectify the problem!!!!!!!

I have a 24" iMac, now one year old, and it has never crashed or frozen when used properly. However, once or maybe twice my 3 year old grandson has played random sequences on the keyboard while fiddling with the mouse, and things have gone wrong for a while. All easily and readily put right, once this loyal 70 year old mac fanatic has understood what was mis-used/abused. Cannot recommend macs highly enough. I enjoy working with windows pcs as well, but really for simplicity and intuitive working, I have yet to find its equal. I hold no shares in Apple.

Kitfur

FWIW, bought my 24" iMac on Friday early evening, the screen fogged up by Friday late evening (condensation I guess as it cleared up), wouldn't play WoW (screwed up textures) until I'd updated everything. Locked up (twice) by Friday night when trying to quit WoW. NOT a good start for what is other wise the best PC I've ever used. By comparison my 3 year old mini mac has been faultless since purchase. Even after I did my 1GB RAM upgrade.

All I can say is Apple need to have a short discussion with ATI, maybe armed with a broken Newcastle Brown Ale bottle.

The problem is that everyone switches to a mac because they demand this elite computer and they think apple has the answer...but then all mac users find out that macs aren't any better than any other kind of computer hardware so they log on to their blogs or e-mail all their hipster friends and complain about their hardware and software issues.

Interesting - I have a windows xp machine which exibited almost the same issues after upgrading my ATI drivers to newer versions (from the microsoft upgrade site). After some experimentation I decided to de-install the latest drivers and regress back to a microsoft generic ATI driver. Needless to say everything is working perfectly now - and has been for a couple of months!