Freeze! Hold it right there!

[Superslow]

Bad news. My 24" i7 iMac has started freezing up. Happened yesterday as I was booting up RL to test the Silverado model a-rod showed me. When RL got to the Ambrosia Napkin® the whole computer froze, except for the sound. iTunes was still playing, and I heard incoming messages from iChat. I could also move the pointer, but every now and then it would completely disappear. Eventually I decided to do a force shut down, which worked. I booted the computer back up, logged in, and started work again. Everything was fine. I booted up RL, no problems. After a few RL starts, it froze again. Same thing. Again, force shut down. This time I left the computer off for the whole night.

Booted it up this morning, did some more work, and suddenly, it froze again. I didn't start up RL even. I can't think of anything I did to make it freeze. Force shut down, then rebooted again. Kept working. Froze AGAIN. Except for the first two times, it's frozen at seemingly random times.

Specs:

24" iMac
Running 10.6.4
2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4850 (512 VRAM)

Sorry for the long post, but I'm getting quite concerned about this freezing stuff.

[djpimley]

Most common causes of that kind of freeze are bad ram, overheating CPU, overheating/failing GPU. Not the only causes, but a good place to begin your deductions.

[C14ru5]

I agree with djpimley's assessments: It's most likely faulty GPU/CPU/RAM. Have you gotten any kernel panic(s) yet? If so, you can go into Console.app and read the most recent logs at /Library/Logs/PanicReporter. If you don't know how to interpret all that text, post it here. Also try running Apple Hardware Test from the DVD that came along with your iMac (or TechTool if you have it).

[Superslow]

Most common causes of that kind of freeze are bad ram, overheating CPU, overheating/failing GPU. Not the only causes, but a good place to begin your deductions.

Out of those suggestions, I would think it's most likely bad ram. I've been playing ToCA Race Driver 3 for quite a while, and while my computer is hot, it hasn't frozen.

@C14ru5 - I have not had any kernel panics. Every time I restart, it seems to have no problems at all.

I have a hunch that it has something to do with iTunes. I saw it download a couple updates right before the first freeze, but it finished before I could see what they were. Since the latest freeze I have not had iTunes open, and it's worked for much longer than the other times (when I had iTunes up and playing).

[Superslow]

Update: It's not iTunes. I just had another freeze. I was booting up Redline this time. Maybe it was Wings3D? I hope it's just a bad app. I'll run the Hardware Test now though.

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