Chosen Solution
Hi. I hope someone can help. My iMac freezes constantly, and will only ever get through one or two operations before it freezes. ‘Operation’ meaning clicking to view something or go to a next step; to see system information, log into the App store, open a utility, open a new tab in Safari … literally anything will break it. I then have to power down and restart it to get to a next step. The full Apple Hardware Test has been run (the comprehensive test) and it reported no errors or faults. Snow leopard has been fresh installed, from deleting all partitions, erasing the hard drive, creating a single partition and installing to that. Lterally spent three days getting through this - very broken! - process, hours and hours of freezes, hard restarts and retries! Once through the OS install, all updates other than iTunes and remote assist have been downloaded and applied. (That too took hours, because of it hanging randomly.) Oh! And the network connection - whether WiFi or Ethernet - is very very flaky too. All other devices have good stable connections, but the iMac has very unstable erratic connections. Possible causes and logic; because the issue is so constant and that NOTHING other than tne OS install has been done to it, I’ve pretty much ruled out everything except maybe logic board related, or Apple built-in obsolescence(!). But I’m guessing. The freezes are so prevalent, so I can’t image it being software, the CPU, memory or the hard drive. Ideas? Thanks all. Adrian. Update (10/12/2018) Is these a tool to diagnose these issues? Otherwise its time to open ‘er up. There mab be a loose or faulty connection causing these constant issues with hanging?. Whether it be trying to … get through a clean install, aunch an application, download software updates, eject the install DVD, check disk permissions, …. The darn thing just keeps hanging. About the fifth or seventh reinstall- after clearing everything, erasing everything, … still it don’t wanna play nice. Hm?.
Hi Solved. At last. With thanks to Dan - for taking so much of your time to advise me. The one constant in everything I’d been doing was trying to reinstall from the original Mac OS X 10.06 Snow Leopard DVD. It was what came with the iMac originally, so would be the best option … you’d think. What is it they say? If you keep doing the same thing you keep getting the same results! So change of tack; I created a boot USB for Mac OS 10.12 Sierra using TransMac on my PC and have installed that instead. (Links for doing that below. Ta DA! Absolutely painless install process, and the system is running perfectly. I’m on it now. Officially my mid-2010 A1311 Intel i3 3.03 GHz iMac with 4GB RAM doesn’t support Sierra, but everything seems fine. If it continues to be stable I’ll upgrade the RAM to 8GB to bring it closer in line with what’s required for Sierra. So … advice for anyone struggling with persistent Snow Leopard stability issues; ditch it for a later OS. To create a macOS install USB; have a look at https://www.wikigain.com/create-macos-hi…. I did it on my Windows 7 PC as the iMac was inoperable : MacOS High Sierra 10.13 DMG file download - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kxXe58x...TransMac download - https://www.youtube.com/redirect?redir_t…
Hopefully you have access to a second Mac system. What we want to try is either connect your system to the other using Target Disk Mode or from the other system create a bootable OS installer drive so we can run Disk Utility on your systems drive. Here’s how to connect your system to the other in How to use target disk mode to move files to another computer and here’s how to setup a USB thumb drive How to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive. Having a better idea on what your exact system is will help focus things on what is needed.
