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+--- Thread: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen (/showthread.php?tid=118816)
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Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - pinkoos - 06-17-2011
My mom told me that the last few days her eMac has been freezing randomly and becomes completely unresponsive. A hard reboot fixes the problem for usually just a few minutes and then it happens again.
When I was over there last night for dinner, I tried a few things:
-repaired permissions (but couldn't repair disk since I had no way of booting it from anything other than the boot drive)
-tried downloading a free antivirus program (Clamxav), but couldn't get it to the point of starting a scan b/c the Mac would freeze
That's about it. Couldn't do much else b/c we had to get the kids home to bed. So, I didn't have time to create a clean user account and see if the problems persisted within the newly created account. I may be able to get there this weekend and try again, though.
One weird thing is that sometimes when it would freeze, it would freeze with a huge pixelated image taking up the whole screen. The first time, it looked kinda like a radioactive or biohazard symbol and the second time it looked like a bunny or smiley face.
Obviously, I'm wondering about some kind of virus, but I'm not sure.
Anybody have any ideas?
Thanks.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - bazookaman - 06-17-2011
nuke and pave.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - rgG - 06-17-2011
Hope you get it fixed, but I did have to LOL at the description of the images that it leaves.
it looked kinda like a radioactive or biohazard symbol and the second time it looked like a bunny or smiley face.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - pinkoos - 06-17-2011
rgG wrote:
Hope you get it fixed, but I did have to LOL at the description of the images that it leaves.
it looked kinda like a radioactive or biohazard symbol and the second time it looked like a bunny or smiley face.
Yeah, actually kinda freaked me out in a Monty Python sort of way.
My mom may have a used iMac in her future. The eMac was always pretty dog slow.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - N-OS X-tasy! - 06-17-2011
bazookaman wrote:
nuke and pave.
Agreed.
IIRC, certain models of the eMac experienced faulty video adapters. Your mom's may be failing.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - Ted King - 06-17-2011
It might be a Ram problem. If there is more than one stick of Ram in the eMac, you can leave one in at a time and see if the problem goes away. You can try pulling the Ram out and reseating it first, just in case a Ram stick has somehow worked loose.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - pinkoos - 06-17-2011
Ted King wrote:
It might be a Ram problem. If there is more than one stick of Ram in the eMac, you can leave one in at a time and see if the problem goes away. You can try pulling the Ram out and reseating it first, just in case a Ram stick has somehow worked loose.
It's got 512MB RAM (yes, MB!). Two 256MB sticks. Rather than messing with all this troubleshooting, I may just take the hit and get her a used iMac.
Forgot to mention the specs: 1.25GHz G4, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, combo drive, heavy as all heck.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - haikuman - 06-17-2011
The Lope had to occasionally drop his from about 12" to 18"" to get it to work properly ... *(:>*
Rudie
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - MikeF - 06-17-2011
Certain versions of eMacs also had the bad capacitors.
Re: Trouble with Mom's eMac - freezes with huge pixelated image on screen - bazookaman - 06-17-2011
I recently switched out an emac for a newer 21 inch imac. the lady was ecstatic to say the least.