24″ iMac? Do Not Update to 10.6.3
For some reason I held off installing to 10.6.3 when it was first released, and I’m glad I did. This weekend I installed the 10.6.3 Snow Leopard update on my 24″ Aluminum iMac. BAD idea…
I should have checked online before installing the update, because soon after I started having problems I did a simple search and found that I was not the only one. Basically, there is something wrong with the 10.6.3 update that causes the computer to become completely unresponsive. The screen goes completely blank then fills with vertical lines. When this happens, the computer as I said before, is completely unresponsive to mouse and keyboard input. The only thing to do is turn off the computer with the power button.
I found this topic on the Apple Forum which shows that this is happening to many others also. As of writing this blog post, the forum topic has been open for 2 weeks with no response from Apple.
This is a MAJOR problem. The 10.6.3 update makes the iMac totally unusable. Like always, I didn’t want to sit around and wait for a solution. I was going to get my computer working again, hopefully in fairly quick way. That is when a day long fight with my computer started…
First off, I knew I couldn’t just roll back to 10.6.2. So I was trying to think of a simple way to “make” the computer let me. I thought to myself, what if I just change the version number in the .plist file? That seemed like a great idea…
I changed the OS X version back to 10.6.1 so then I could reinstall the 10.6.2 update and hope for the best. Well, hoping wasn’t good enough in this instance. I installed 10.6.2 with no problem, until my iMac had to restart. Upon restart it instantly got a kernel panic. A never ending reboot loop…
At this point, I sat for a few minutes and thought logically about what to do. Upon each restart, button commands on the keyboard weren’t even working to be able to boot from the Snow Leopard disk. I decided to turn it off for good and unplug the power, hoping to clear out the ram. Once I did that, the computer would then allow me to hold down the “option” key to bring up the boot menu. I was then able to boot from the Snow Leopard disk.
Once the Snow Leopard installation began, I let it run through the whole install. It never gave any options as to what type of install I wanted. I just selected the drive that I already had Snow Leopard on and away it went. About 45 minutes later it was done. My iMac was back down to 10.6. All of my data was still there, and it seemed to be working alright.
At that point I realized my Bluetooth Apple Wireless Keyboard was being recognized as generic, so none of the special keys were working such as volume and screen brightness. I didn’t think that was a huge problem so I decided to install the 10.6.1 update.
Upon installing the 10.6.1 update, my iMac no longer recognized that it had bluetooth at all. Yes, bluetooth was completely gone from my system. At this point I thought I would install 10.6.2 and once again hope for the best, but I wasn’t able to type my password to start the install. So then I figured I would just restart the computer and hope that bluetooth decided to show up again. To my surprise, it was back.
I now installed the 10.6.2 update. On the initial restart, all functions seemed to be back to normal. Bluetooth was working, and my keyboard was now recognized as an Apple Wireless Keyboard. I did a Time Machine backup right away and ran no other updates. My computer surprisingly seems to be running faster after doing the reinstall and updates.
I will not be updating my version of OS X any time soon. I can’t believe Apple would put out an OS update that would make one of their own products completely unstable. With such limited hardware configurations, I can’t believe the update wasn’t tested enough before the release to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen.
Every day I am more and more disapointed with Apple products. They really are in it just for the money now. Gone are the days of better hardware and a nicer user experience. I really don’t know if I will purchase another Apple computer again, or even another iPhone. Especially after the latest 4.0 Firmware announcement, which states that the most requested feature of the update won’t even work on my 3g version of the phone. (Which I would like to point out is now jailbroken from the second they made the announcement.)
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Steve works in the IT field, focusing mainly on Networking, Database Management, Web Development and Programming. |
Great post Steve. I am surprised that Apple has not replied to the volume of concerns at their own forum. It is sad that so many companies today seem to forget customer service needs to be a priority or they will soon find that they have no customers.
But I thought Apple OS X was better than Windows 7? Nope, and Windows 7 is no better either. Both suck as far as I am concerned. Every day, I am more and more tempted to go with Ubuntu and forget about both of them.
Yeah, I used Ubuntu for a while prior to purchasing my iMac.
I really don’t know what I will do next. My iMac screen is also burning in. There has been a thread over on the Apple forum for 2 years now with no response from Apple about it. They just don’t seem to care about their products at all.
Wow, I really hope I dont hit any problems. I wanted a Mac for so long, so I’d really be upset if I started having problems. Its not like Steve’s iMac is that old either, I think his is the last generation model. I could see if Apple tested their current models first, then back tracked to their older models for compatibility testing, however like I said Steve’s is not that old.
So far I’ve been very happy with my iPhone and Macbook..hopefully I do not have any major issues that makes me regret my purchase…
This update F’d up my Macbook also, At least Windows lets you uninstall updates!
I’m really glad I found this blog post, the exact same thing is happening to my iMac since updating. Am just relieved it’s not a hardware problem, so now I just have to figure out how to roll back to previous snow leopard or to wait for the next update.
I’ve been a Mac user and fan since 1986. That said, I can see that Apple is becoming another Microsoft. They want to tie users into only software from their App store and expect to still own any media you download with the ability to delete it from your system whenever they decide you’ve “misused” it.
Right now, I have a 20″ iMac and three Apple laptops. But I doubt I will be purchasing anything else from Apple. Certainly not the over-hyped iPad.
I suspect some one will soon release a computer/OS combination that will run whatever you have in the way of software and hardware. I believe that’s what consumers want and will put an end to the Windows/Apple/Linux/Chrome thing forever. ABout time, too.