How much stuff you are running has nothing to do with OS stability.
The OS is either good or not.
If your Apple crashed, either the OS or the hardware has a problem.
The idea that "certain apps" cause crashes is complete mythology.
A properly written OS on good hardware should work regardless of what an application does. That's its job.
No. Certain apps will cause crashes. How come? Not all applications leverage the same areas of an operating system. Depending on the exception handling in a certain application there can be subclassing that exploits aspects of a GPU that hasn't be tested or certified by the OS Vendor.
The point of having a wide variety of 3rd party pre-release testers is to find the flaws in the way the OS interacts with all third party hardware.
Being that development is an iterative process the logical step is to send crash files to Apple to show the low level results and for them to capture all flaws.
With Leopard, tools like dtrace/X-ray make more of these flaws easier to catch.
People should not expect a device driver to be flawless. The OEM vendor doesn't make flawless hardware registries.
I'm having these problems too with my MacBook Pro and it only happens when I'm in Second Life. I can move the mouse but no functions work and people that I'm talking to on Skype can still hear me and I can still hear them. I just have to do a hard restart. I've had my MBP for over a year and it hasn't done this always. I have no idea what to do!
I have a new mac mini that I got a month ago and I have noticed the beach ball cursor a couple of time but have managed to restart the computer under the apple logo.
I got the apple because I was tired of xp shutting down.
Happens on my Macbook (First Gen - Core Duo/2GB RAM - May 2006) also... I have been to the Apple Store almost 10 different times... Did a fresh install lots of times but neither me nor Apple were able to fix the issue... My macbook freezes every 30 seconds....so there is no possible way for me to get my work done...So I just use XP now ....and XP runs fine.... So felt I was the only person having this problem but I am so relieved now there r others too..... Hopefully Leopard will fix the issue....
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulingraham
This is absolutely not exclusively an ATI issue.
My symptoms have always been exactly like everyone is suddenly reporting about the new iMacs ... on nvidia Macs from early 2007.
I have been through the wringer with this problem on both a 24" iMac (nvidia), and a MacBook of the same vintage. Apple rebuilt the iMac once (new RAM, HD, motherboard), and replaced it entirely once, but the problem is not solved. Exhaustive troubleshooting has thoroughly eliminated every imaginable common system stability problem.
Nice to have company with the new reports. I felt so alone until now ...
...So I decided to give a try to Leopard, my idea was that this New iMac should has been more designed to run Leopard than Tiger, so it might run it better.
And it DOES. I'm running Leopard for now 3 days, and I got no freezes.
What a deliverance to know that it might just be a software issue and not an hardware issue.
I posted about it on apple discussion but they deleted all my post, apple don't want us to talk about Leopard.
Excellent! An early adopter! Please keep us up to date on this. Try loading your iMac heavily with demanding tasks for several hours, monitor system temperatures and keep an eye peeled for system instabilty. If the machine plays up again tell us ASAP, please. Thanks very much!
We are all hoping it will be a driver issue, but OTOH it may be flaky HW. The sooner we find out, the better. I've had my share of buggy firmware and heat instability issues in electronic devices throughout the years, as well as immature software device drivers. But flaky drivers are easier to deal with from the logistics point of view, of course.
Apple could have given us the choice between the MBP nVidia 8600 and the ATI HD2600. It certainly would have simplified diagnostics in this particular case. Just my two bits worth...
I'm disappointed to see this continues to be an issue for Apple. I purchased a Rev A 20" Imac G5 when they were first introduced around May of 2005. The following December my machine started displaying the symptoms discussed here.
I brought it in under warranty and Apple replaced the motherboard and power supply. 8 months later and now out of warranty, my machine once again began to lock up on a regular basis, most of the time upon reboot.
Apple refused to fix the problem free of charge (since the warranty had run out), until a few months later (and after I had finally caved and purchased a C2D iMac) when Apple issued a warranty extension that included my model.
I finally brought it back down to the store the following May (for those of you in the city, you know the sheer annoyance factor of having to cab your way to the store sine the thing is too bulky to train it) and they once again replaced the motherboard and power supply under warranty.
When I picked the machine up and previewed the repair, it seemed to work fine. I noticed the screen redraws were "chunky" and found that the service dept disables the Quartz Extreme driver (for some reason) as part of their procedure. So I opened up Terminal, turned the driver back on, played around for a few more minutes at the store, signed off on the work, packed it back up and headed home.
When I returned home I started to perform a clean install, but part-way through the machine froze again. I rebooted and it froze after I made it to the desktop. Another reboot and this time is froze during the boot process.
One thing that consistently works for me (as far as preventing the machine from freezing) is to boot into "safe" mode. Has anyone here tried that? Just hold down the SHIFT key while booting. In addition to the graphic card drivers it also disables other areas such as Airport and blue tooth, essentially rendering the machine useless (except to hook up an external drive and get your data off the computer's drive).
My G5 iMac is still sitting boxed up in my closet. I refuse to sell it for parts because part of me keeps hoping that a "miracle cure" will surface.
Although, I haven't had the severe problems that the AI members have posted in this thread, I do get freezes periodically in certain applications. I have found that using "Force Quit" unfreezes the problem. I'm not referring to actually force quitting an application or browser, but just entering option-cmd-esc alone will unfreeze the app or browser. In over 5 years, I have only had 3 or4 freezes that required rebooting. I consider myself very lucky in this respect. I've been using a G4 800 tower with Panther (3rd OS).
One of the apps that freezes most often is MacSolitaire.
Although, I haven't had the severe problems that the AI members have posted in this thread, I do get freezes periodically in certain applications. I have found that using "Force Quit" unfreezes the problem. I'm not referring to actually force quitting an application or browser, but just entering option-cmd-esc alone will unfreeze the app or browser. In over 5 years, I have only had 3 or4 freezes that required rebooting. I consider myself very lucky in this respect. I've been using a G4 800 tower with Panther (3rd OS).
One of the apps that freezes most often is MacSolitaire.
I wish that would work for me, that was one of the first things I tried but no commands work at all for me when it locks-up.
A growing number of users have reported that Apple's aluminum all-in-one computers suffer from a flaw that locks up the interface, rendering the system all but inert until a reboot.
Customers participating in Apple's official support discussions (one, two) have reported that the new iMac will technically continue to run when the freeze occurs, but that it becomes impossible to control or switch to programs without a hard reset.
"Whatever was going on at the time continues, so if you were listening to music it continues to play," one user wrote. "The mouse pointer moves but you cannot select anything. Tabbing through apps doesn't work."
Significantly, some can still control basic functions from the keyboard, such as pausing music or activating the Caps Lock key.
The issue appears to be related to the ATI Radeon HD graphics hardware and its drivers, but has proven unpredictable. While some customers have said they can reliably trigger the freeze by running games, iTunes, or other programs that push the video chipset, others have had the lockups occur at seemingly random intervals or after running the iMac for a long time.
Those who have contacted Apple for help have found that the company is aware of the issue, but hasn't yet responded with a permanent fix. Both the 1.0 and 1.1 iMac Software Update packages released since the iMac's August launch have included "important bug fixes" which users later discovered were almost exclusively centered around video drivers, but none of these included a fix for the freezing issue.
Some users' systems even appear to have been made worse by the latest of the updates. AppleInsider's own review unit, while stable during the review period and for weeks afterwards, now suffers from the same issue since the 1.1 update and will occasionally refuse to respond regardless of what was running at the time.
A handful of users claim to have repaired the issue by manually reinstalling earlier drivers, though this unofficial fix has not been successful for AppleInsider as well as other users. However close Apple may be to a fix, the widespread nature of the problem is making some prospective buyers think twice before purchasing the system so soon into its release cycle.
"I would hate to get a new iMac, and then experience problems with it right out of the box," said one visitor to Apple's discussions.
I agree. The problem also happens on my MBP but only after I upgraded to 10.4.10. When I downgraded back to 10.4.9 the problem went away. Until Apple discover what they put into 10.4.10 that is causing the problem I would recommend to everyone to downgrade.
To all you "troubleshooters" who can't reason your way out of a wet paper bag, I will just keep repeating it: there are numerous reports of this problem on machines with nvidia cards.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
Stop saying it seems to be ATI!
I was talking specifically about the iMac (aluminum) - and its "static" issues that also lead to hangs. I don't think the hangs relating to the Mac Book Pro and others are the same issue at all. It seems a lot of reporters are simply grouping together all "hangs" as one - yourself included, it seems.
I posted to allow others to compare to my issue, and see if theirs is the same. If you had actually read the link I had posted, you would have realized this.
In my machine's case, it was definitely a testable hardware fault. I am aware of many others with identical problems on these early release iMacs. I am simply attempting to give them a resource for contacting Apple Care, not attempting to solve all of Apple's issues with a magical panacea.
Hopefully, this is now a bit clearer to those users who believe repeating a sentence in a childish fashion equates to an argument.
my powerbook g4 has been doing this for months now. Mine's definitely a soft or firmware issue between the login interface and the rest of the computer. like an invisible blanket. reboot and pram zapping have not helped. I have to actually ditch the hard drive and reload, then it kills it again. the first few times it will fix on reboot, after that it just stays in invisible blanket mode. glad i did not recycle my laptop for a new iMac over this issue or I'd be very angry when the iMac did the same.
the guy on page one with the SSH solution has the best fix for my invisible blanket issue. Apple just needs to add some command level tinkering I think.
re the power cord LED not staying lit...my keyboard also is brand new and the light on the caps lock key will not stay lit, which really sux cause I have to press the thing three times to figure out whether I'm in caps lock when tying passwords that show only asterisks on the screen. it'll light then go out in a few seconds, even though caps lock is still on. other times caps lock will just not stay locked at all, which defeats the purpose of having a caps key that "locks."
my random comments are not a response to the above posts. just posting my recent problems.
Weird graphic issues may have many origins on "low end" machines but it would make sense to try the following.
1)Hard format of the internal drive from the CD. Build your partitions there etc.
2)Reinstall OS X including Dev Tools (Yes Software update can use gcc to recompile stuff on your system).
3)Run the whole updates set.
4)Reboot.
5)Zap Pram and Nvram.
6)Reboot.
Work up from there .
Loads of problem actually emerge from operating on a preloaded installation of mac os X and/or parameter being out of whack in Pram and or Nvram. The first thing i do out of the box for new machines is reinstall from scratch . Keeps systems clean of trouble so far (20 assorted machines so far and counting).
Weird graphic issues may have many origins on "low end" machines but it would make sense to try the following.
1)Hard format of the internal drive from the CD. Build your partitions there etc.
2)Reinstall OS X including Dev Tools (Yes Software update can use gcc to recompile stuff on your system).
3)Run the whole updates set.
4)Reboot.
5)Zap Pram and Nvram.
6)Reboot.
Work up from there .
Loads of problem actually emerge from operating on a preloaded installation of mac os X and/or parameter being out of whack in Pram and or Nvram. The first thing i do out of the box for new machines is reinstall from scratch . Keeps systems clean of trouble so far (20 assorted machines so far and counting).
Yes my new 24", 2.8GHz, 750HD, 4mb RAM (from OWC) iMac just went black and cannot be powered back up.
No problems for the first month that I had it, no freezes or anything (well that graphics card is not too robust, and the keys on the keyboard are a bit to close together).
Then while a DVD game was in and running the screen just went black.
No sound, no warning, no error message, nada.
Cant reboot (again no sound at all).
Tried to reset SMC, no luck.
Took it to the local Genius Bar, they removed the 3rd party RAM (2gb X2 from OWC) and used their RAM, still dead.
So now I await the verdict.
Power supply issue? Logic Board? Who knows.
Have not seen this issue mentioned much so perhaps I just got a lemon
We just purchased two new iMacs for our office, a regular 24in. and an extreme. We've had them both for a week with no freezes and no other problems. We are very happy with their performance so far.
My problems w/ freezing began about a week after purchase. So bad I can't use computer at all. I'm sceptical that a replacement will be any different...
My 20", 2.4 GHz, 3 Gig Ram, runs reliably and works well, but it's only my backup machine.
My 24", 2.8 GHz, 4 Gig Ram, locks up as often as once an hour. It happens even if I'm doing nothing special like browsing the web, and it also happens when I'm power-using like running reports for work, which after a few crashes causes me to lose hours of work per night. It seems that the majority of people with freezing problems are using the larger, faster iMacs. It's unacceptable that their best model, used for the most important work, is the least reliable.
If I were to guess I would say that heat could be an issue. The back of it feels hotter to the touch than I am comfortable with. If this were one of my PCs I'd stick another fan in it at this temperature. I like how quiet the iMacs are, but it's not worth the frustration. I would like to see a Control Panel addition that lets users turn up the fan speed as needed.
We've had two freezes in three weks from our new 24" iMac. Mouse cursor moves, can still ssh in, but hangs on shutdown - video hardware seems as likely as anything and liable to be fixed/worked around in an update hopefully fairly soon.
No similar trouble on my 1st gen MBP, or 1st gen 20" G5 iMac.
We're having this same issue on several new 20in iMacs at the 2.4/ATI 2600 config w/2Gig ram, at 1.1 update. Freezing happens apparently unrelated to any particular software - One froze while I was in console trying to trace why it froze last time. Rarely, once or twice, there are screen artifacts. All machines with the problem have long ** asic hang log start ** ... ** asic hang log end ** blocks in the system.log. I'd like to ship them all back but from what I've read you're just as likely to get the same issue on the new ones. We're all waiting on apple for something here - labs full of these machines failing unexpectedly in a production environment is a headache, to say the least... *should have just gone with Mac Pros* \
Comments
How much stuff you are running has nothing to do with OS stability.
The OS is either good or not.
If your Apple crashed, either the OS or the hardware has a problem.
The idea that "certain apps" cause crashes is complete mythology.
A properly written OS on good hardware should work regardless of what an application does. That's its job.
No. Certain apps will cause crashes. How come? Not all applications leverage the same areas of an operating system. Depending on the exception handling in a certain application there can be subclassing that exploits aspects of a GPU that hasn't be tested or certified by the OS Vendor.
The point of having a wide variety of 3rd party pre-release testers is to find the flaws in the way the OS interacts with all third party hardware.
Being that development is an iterative process the logical step is to send crash files to Apple to show the low level results and for them to capture all flaws.
With Leopard, tools like dtrace/X-ray make more of these flaws easier to catch.
People should not expect a device driver to be flawless. The OEM vendor doesn't make flawless hardware registries.
I got the apple because I was tired of xp shutting down.
Randy
This is absolutely not exclusively an ATI issue.
My symptoms have always been exactly like everyone is suddenly reporting about the new iMacs ... on nvidia Macs from early 2007.
I have been through the wringer with this problem on both a 24" iMac (nvidia), and a MacBook of the same vintage. Apple rebuilt the iMac once (new RAM, HD, motherboard), and replaced it entirely once, but the problem is not solved. Exhaustive troubleshooting has thoroughly eliminated every imaginable common system stability problem.
Nice to have company with the new reports. I felt so alone until now ...
Same for my Macbook 2.1
/Adrian
...So I decided to give a try to Leopard, my idea was that this New iMac should has been more designed to run Leopard than Tiger, so it might run it better.
And it DOES. I'm running Leopard for now 3 days, and I got no freezes.
What a deliverance to know that it might just be a software issue and not an hardware issue.
I posted about it on apple discussion but they deleted all my post, apple don't want us to talk about Leopard.
Excellent! An early adopter! Please keep us up to date on this. Try loading your iMac heavily with demanding tasks for several hours, monitor system temperatures and keep an eye peeled for system instabilty. If the machine plays up again tell us ASAP, please. Thanks very much!
We are all hoping it will be a driver issue, but OTOH it may be flaky HW. The sooner we find out, the better. I've had my share of buggy firmware and heat instability issues in electronic devices throughout the years, as well as immature software device drivers. But flaky drivers are easier to deal with from the logistics point of view, of course.
Apple could have given us the choice between the MBP nVidia 8600 and the ATI HD2600. It certainly would have simplified diagnostics in this particular case. Just my two bits worth...
I'm disappointed to see this continues to be an issue for Apple. I purchased a Rev A 20" Imac G5 when they were first introduced around May of 2005. The following December my machine started displaying the symptoms discussed here.
I brought it in under warranty and Apple replaced the motherboard and power supply. 8 months later and now out of warranty, my machine once again began to lock up on a regular basis, most of the time upon reboot.
Apple refused to fix the problem free of charge (since the warranty had run out), until a few months later (and after I had finally caved and purchased a C2D iMac) when Apple issued a warranty extension that included my model.
I finally brought it back down to the store the following May (for those of you in the city, you know the sheer annoyance factor of having to cab your way to the store sine the thing is too bulky to train it) and they once again replaced the motherboard and power supply under warranty.
When I picked the machine up and previewed the repair, it seemed to work fine. I noticed the screen redraws were "chunky" and found that the service dept disables the Quartz Extreme driver (for some reason) as part of their procedure. So I opened up Terminal, turned the driver back on, played around for a few more minutes at the store, signed off on the work, packed it back up and headed home.
When I returned home I started to perform a clean install, but part-way through the machine froze again. I rebooted and it froze after I made it to the desktop. Another reboot and this time is froze during the boot process.
One thing that consistently works for me (as far as preventing the machine from freezing) is to boot into "safe" mode. Has anyone here tried that? Just hold down the SHIFT key while booting. In addition to the graphic card drivers it also disables other areas such as Airport and blue tooth, essentially rendering the machine useless (except to hook up an external drive and get your data off the computer's drive).
My G5 iMac is still sitting boxed up in my closet. I refuse to sell it for parts because part of me keeps hoping that a "miracle cure" will surface.
I'll keep waiting...
Best of luck and thanks for reading.
j
One of the apps that freezes most often is MacSolitaire.
Although, I haven't had the severe problems that the AI members have posted in this thread, I do get freezes periodically in certain applications. I have found that using "Force Quit" unfreezes the problem. I'm not referring to actually force quitting an application or browser, but just entering option-cmd-esc alone will unfreeze the app or browser. In over 5 years, I have only had 3 or4 freezes that required rebooting. I consider myself very lucky in this respect. I've been using a G4 800 tower with Panther (3rd OS).
One of the apps that freezes most often is MacSolitaire.
I wish that would work for me, that was one of the first things I tried but no commands work at all for me when it locks-up.
A growing number of users have reported that Apple's aluminum all-in-one computers suffer from a flaw that locks up the interface, rendering the system all but inert until a reboot.
Customers participating in Apple's official support discussions (one, two) have reported that the new iMac will technically continue to run when the freeze occurs, but that it becomes impossible to control or switch to programs without a hard reset.
"Whatever was going on at the time continues, so if you were listening to music it continues to play," one user wrote. "The mouse pointer moves but you cannot select anything. Tabbing through apps doesn't work."
Significantly, some can still control basic functions from the keyboard, such as pausing music or activating the Caps Lock key.
The issue appears to be related to the ATI Radeon HD graphics hardware and its drivers, but has proven unpredictable. While some customers have said they can reliably trigger the freeze by running games, iTunes, or other programs that push the video chipset, others have had the lockups occur at seemingly random intervals or after running the iMac for a long time.
Those who have contacted Apple for help have found that the company is aware of the issue, but hasn't yet responded with a permanent fix. Both the 1.0 and 1.1 iMac Software Update packages released since the iMac's August launch have included "important bug fixes" which users later discovered were almost exclusively centered around video drivers, but none of these included a fix for the freezing issue.
Some users' systems even appear to have been made worse by the latest of the updates. AppleInsider's own review unit, while stable during the review period and for weeks afterwards, now suffers from the same issue since the 1.1 update and will occasionally refuse to respond regardless of what was running at the time.
A handful of users claim to have repaired the issue by manually reinstalling earlier drivers, though this unofficial fix has not been successful for AppleInsider as well as other users. However close Apple may be to a fix, the widespread nature of the problem is making some prospective buyers think twice before purchasing the system so soon into its release cycle.
"I would hate to get a new iMac, and then experience problems with it right out of the box," said one visitor to Apple's discussions.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
[ Digg this story ]
I agree. The problem also happens on my MBP but only after I upgraded to 10.4.10. When I downgraded back to 10.4.9 the problem went away. Until Apple discover what they put into 10.4.10 that is causing the problem I would recommend to everyone to downgrade.
My new iMac 20" 4GB ram and 2.4 GHZ c2d runs nice. NO problem at all.
I have the same as you, only mine is 24". No problems with this whatsoever.
To all you "troubleshooters" who can't reason your way out of a wet paper bag, I will just keep repeating it: there are numerous reports of this problem on machines with nvidia cards.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
It's not just Macs with ATI.
Stop saying it seems to be ATI!
I was talking specifically about the iMac (aluminum) - and its "static" issues that also lead to hangs. I don't think the hangs relating to the Mac Book Pro and others are the same issue at all. It seems a lot of reporters are simply grouping together all "hangs" as one - yourself included, it seems.
I posted to allow others to compare to my issue, and see if theirs is the same. If you had actually read the link I had posted, you would have realized this.
In my machine's case, it was definitely a testable hardware fault. I am aware of many others with identical problems on these early release iMacs. I am simply attempting to give them a resource for contacting Apple Care, not attempting to solve all of Apple's issues with a magical panacea.
Hopefully, this is now a bit clearer to those users who believe repeating a sentence in a childish fashion equates to an argument.
the guy on page one with the SSH solution has the best fix for my invisible blanket issue. Apple just needs to add some command level tinkering I think.
re the power cord LED not staying lit...my keyboard also is brand new and the light on the caps lock key will not stay lit, which really sux cause I have to press the thing three times to figure out whether I'm in caps lock when tying passwords that show only asterisks on the screen. it'll light then go out in a few seconds, even though caps lock is still on. other times caps lock will just not stay locked at all, which defeats the purpose of having a caps key that "locks."
my random comments are not a response to the above posts. just posting my recent problems.
I'd say. I hope Leopard sorts this out and quick.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Weird graphic issues may have many origins on "low end" machines but it would make sense to try the following.
1)Hard format of the internal drive from the CD. Build your partitions there etc.
2)Reinstall OS X including Dev Tools (Yes Software update can use gcc to recompile stuff on your system).
3)Run the whole updates set.
4)Reboot.
5)Zap Pram and Nvram.
6)Reboot.
Work up from there .
Loads of problem actually emerge from operating on a preloaded installation of mac os X and/or parameter being out of whack in Pram and or Nvram. The first thing i do out of the box for new machines is reinstall from scratch . Keeps systems clean of trouble so far (20 assorted machines so far and counting).
Weird graphic issues may have many origins on "low end" machines but it would make sense to try the following.
1)Hard format of the internal drive from the CD. Build your partitions there etc.
2)Reinstall OS X including Dev Tools (Yes Software update can use gcc to recompile stuff on your system).
3)Run the whole updates set.
4)Reboot.
5)Zap Pram and Nvram.
6)Reboot.
Work up from there .
Loads of problem actually emerge from operating on a preloaded installation of mac os X and/or parameter being out of whack in Pram and or Nvram. The first thing i do out of the box for new machines is reinstall from scratch . Keeps systems clean of trouble so far (20 assorted machines so far and counting).
What is considered a low end MacBook Pro?
No problems for the first month that I had it, no freezes or anything (well that graphics card is not too robust, and the keys on the keyboard are a bit to close together).
Then while a DVD game was in and running the screen just went black.
No sound, no warning, no error message, nada.
Cant reboot (again no sound at all).
Tried to reset SMC, no luck.
Took it to the local Genius Bar, they removed the 3rd party RAM (2gb X2 from OWC) and used their RAM, still dead.
So now I await the verdict.
Power supply issue? Logic Board? Who knows.
Have not seen this issue mentioned much so perhaps I just got a lemon
maybe this topic will be re-posted and people can inform us of their fortune/misfortunes.
i'm waiting for 10.5 to come out so i can get an imac; right now im sporting the imac G3...it's so slow and useless =[.
We just purchased two new iMacs for our office, a regular 24in. and an extreme. We've had them both for a week with no freezes and no other problems. We are very happy with their performance so far.
My problems w/ freezing began about a week after purchase. So bad I can't use computer at all. I'm sceptical that a replacement will be any different...
My 20", 2.4 GHz, 3 Gig Ram, runs reliably and works well, but it's only my backup machine.
My 24", 2.8 GHz, 4 Gig Ram, locks up as often as once an hour. It happens even if I'm doing nothing special like browsing the web, and it also happens when I'm power-using like running reports for work, which after a few crashes causes me to lose hours of work per night. It seems that the majority of people with freezing problems are using the larger, faster iMacs. It's unacceptable that their best model, used for the most important work, is the least reliable.
If I were to guess I would say that heat could be an issue. The back of it feels hotter to the touch than I am comfortable with. If this were one of my PCs I'd stick another fan in it at this temperature. I like how quiet the iMacs are, but it's not worth the frustration. I would like to see a Control Panel addition that lets users turn up the fan speed as needed.
No similar trouble on my 1st gen MBP, or 1st gen 20" G5 iMac.
Cheers,
Martin.