Problems with new Imac

[toohuge]

I have just got a new Imac, a basic 20" model. Safari and iphoto seem to crash a lot of the time. Is this normal? Also, will upgrading the ram in the machine make a lot of difference?

Thanks

[nightfever]

Can't help with the crashing (although oddly my macbook crashes when I try to open apple.com/uk).

I would recommend a 1gb RAM stick from Crucial though. For the macbook it was £30 and made a big difference.

[cyberface]

The basic model should work 100% with no bullshit. It's a Mac. They are meant to 'just work' - if they don't - take it back and demand one that *does* 'just work'.

However help yourself by doing the following checks, it makes it easier:

• Make sure the hardware is reported OK by the machine. Stick in the DVD it came with, and boot up holding down the D key. This should bring you into 'Hardware Test' mode. If this doesn't seem to do anything, put the disk in the drive, shut down and boot holding down the 'alt' key. This should show a list of possible boot volumes, click on Hardware Test and 'go' (hit the arrow). Run the Hardware Test, do the full test, and preferably do it a couple of times. If you have any errors at all, write them down and return the iMac to the shop and demand a new one, job done. If Hardware Test says the machine is OK....

• ....you have a software problem. Assuming it's 'right out of the box' and you haven't copied a load of stuff onto it, then wipe and reinstall - put in the OS X disk and boot holding the C key - opt for an Erase and Install - you can then tailor what you want installed onto the box (I always do this, I don't need 100s of MB of Chinese / Polish / Portuguese localisation on my machine, I only speak English, French and a bit of Spanish, so that's all I keep).

If you're still having problems that repeated Hardware Test doesn't pick up, then I'm surprised. Most hardware problems are due to bad RAM, and the Hardware Test picks those up immediately with the Full Test (it does a super-thorough RAM test).


Now, of course, what you haven't said is how long you've been using the machine, and what you've downloaded. If you've plugged it in, it's asked you if you want to transfer info from your 'old mac' and you've eagerly linked up an old G4 iBook by Firewire and copied over a load of software... then that could be the reason for crashing. Especially with Safari, which can be borked by old Tiger-style SIMBL / InputManager crap that Leopard needs to be hacked to support. Logitech mouse drivers infamously installed an unsupported kernel extension on Tiger that, when transferred to Leopard, caused loads of aggro.

A clean machine should be OK. Making sure you haven't installed any dodgy apps from old installs, I'd try using Disk Utility (it's in /Applications/Utilities) and repairing permissions on the root volume just for safety's sake (this is voodoo, I still argue about its effectiveness, but the one time it *is* effective is where you've either done a Firewire 'Migration Assistant' copy, or where you've logged in to the GUI as 'root' and messed around... which you shouldn't be doing).

Any other detail you can give us? There are many people here who know Macs better than me and can help.


ETA - yeah, more RAM is *always* good. If it's not too expensive, then it's a no-brainer. OS X, like all Unix-based OSes, loves RAM. Hell, I paid more for RAM for my Macbook than the actual Macbook cost in the first place. RAM is king.

Edited by cyberface on Sunday 3rd February 18:36

[toohuge]

Thank you very much for all the advice. The reason i posted was that this is brand new, it arrived on thursday and i have not installed anything myself. It came from the iansyst people (education authorities) very kind of them!

I have not installed any apps myself, it has the latest version of Word on it, some palm software and some educational programmes.

That is why i posted, it seemed odd that straight out of the box things went wrong. I'll call them on monday and see what they say. It's simply unacceptable.

Thanks for the advice on the ram, use www.macupgrades.co.uk this site is great for advice on all macs and offers 2gb of ram for these machines at £40 each so i am going to order two sticks to give it the full noise.

Cheers

[PJ S]

Safari crashing could be as simple as a preference file corruption.
Here's what's the best thing to find out if it's a User account issue, or a System issue.
Create a new Admin Privileged account, and log into it.
Use both Safari and iPhoto extensively, and see if they continue to drop a clanger - if so, then it's not your account that is at issue.
If both run fine and show no sign of buckling, then log out and back into the original account, and in User>Library>Preferences, you'll find both com.apple.xxxx.plist files relating to the Apps you're having trouble with.
Delete (with both Apps closed) and launch both Apps - you'll need to redo any setting changes you made from default. If you didn't, then you don't need to bother with opening their Preferences, and can add back your photos.
Now, this is where things can be a bit tricky with deleting pref files - make a copy of the iPhoto folder, before deleting the .plist file, just in case! Better safe than sorry.

That should be it, unless it's deeper, in which case a simple Archive & Install (replaces the System files) using the DVD supplied, will be worth a shot. You'll find the option for A&I (and other pre-installation options) in the menubar along the top once the Installer window is displayed.
Sounds more complicated from reading the above than it is when you come to do it.

[PJR]

OS 10.5 (Leopard) has been a bit of a rough ride for some people. But i've had no problems with it at all. It's unlikely your new iMac has a hardware problem. And it isnt unheard for factory OS installs to be borked in some way (Although not exactly common).
If you have not spent hours installing new stuff already (and have tried repairing permissions already), then it isnt a bad idea to do a fresh custom OS install from scratch. I say custom because that way you can opt out of installing unused printer drivers and foreign language kits etc. Saves some space.
It should only take an hour or so, tops. If you still have the same problems after that, then I would contact Apple.

P,

[toohuge]

Thanks guys, i will try some of these solutions. Its not a major issue, just a little annoying!

Much appreciated.