Imac 2008 dying.

[andrewc]

My home desktop is a late 2008 iMac with a 3rd party SSD running El Capitan.
Yesterday it froze, then began to reboot constantly.  Notes refer to a kernel panic.


I’ve tried resetting PRAM & SMC. Neither had any effect.
Rebooting while holding R should put me into recovery mode, but doesn’t work.
Rebooting holding the Alt key gives the option of booting from the SSD, the recovery drive or Time Machine .
Neither Recovery drive or Time Machine seem to do anything.


I was able to start in Safe mode, this was very slow & kept redrawing the screen.  I was able to get Disk Utility in First Aid mode to Repair the SSD, but it’s had no effect. I was also able to use Migration Assistant to restore from Time Machine, but the only version offered was after the problem started. I did this & it remained stable during the process, but when it finished just began to reboot again.


What other steps does the panel suggest? I have the original Snow Leopard disk here.  Can I boot from that & then try restoring from Time Machine again?


It’s tempting to just order a new one, but I wanted to hang on until the rumoured bigger screen is launched.

[Jaded]

A Diagnostic Test?

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202731

[ian]

What Jaded says, it does sound like a hardware fault.

[andrewc]

I booted into Safe mode shift key held down & it prompted me for login details , I now seem to have a fully working system again, not the stripped down version I was led to expect.


Everything has been stable for approx 30 minutes. I'm quite reluctant to do another restart now .....


I tried booting up whilst holding D down for diagnostic mode earlier and nothing happened. 

[andrewc]

It died again earlier.    Seemed to be a bit warm, so I unclogged the vents at the bottom.   Booted up again OK & installed Mac Fan Controller & manually set the fans to max to test they are still working.   That was 30 minutes ago. 

[philip]

Apple has a console application that allows you to view the system log, that might have messages to indicate what is failing: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/console/welcome/mac

[andrewc]

It's now running for approx 30 mins + then reboots.   I ran Apple Hardware Test using the original install disk from 2008 & it gives error code 4MOT/1/40000003:hdd-144 .    I think this is a Fan problem,  they are not running unless I manually turn them on using the fan utility.    I reattached the temperature sensor when I installed the SSD several years ago.   Might see if I can take the front off & give it a bit of an internal clean.     


It's not worth spending money on but I'd rather not replace it until I see what's available at the next launch event. 


If anyone is looking for a new IMac then Costco seen the cheapest place at the moment.  About £150 cheaper than Apple for most builds and with a better choice than John Lewis, who don't offer models with more than 8G of memory. 

[andrewc]

Ah well.  It staggered on until Sunday evening, but now appears totally borked.  It tries to boot but just keeps recycling. 14 years service isn’t bad I suppose.


Shiny new PURPLE iMac on order & it looks like I’ll be restoring from my backup drive. Which of course needs a USB A to USB C adaptor. As will all my other bits & bobs.

[Kim]

I hadn't realised they were doing them in purple again.  Took them long enough...

[andrewc]

It’s a nice deep purple on the back, which will be against the wall, the bit facing you & the keyboard are pale lilac.  I’d have preferred plain silver but Costco didn’t have that in stock.

[Kim]

*googles*

That's not the good kind of purple   I was hoping for a reprise of the original CRT iMac that looked like a steam iron's purple.

[andrewc]

I had the choice of yellow, orange or purple from Costco with a quoted 2 day delivery, or go direct to Apple & pay full price (£150 extra).   If you check the John Lewis site they are selling the Pink one at a discount.


I have pink shirts, pink trousers & even a pink duvet cover, but a chap has to draw the line somewhere.

[Kim]

Followers of Big Clive know that when it comes to electrical items, the pink ones are the most deadly.


(I recall paying about 40% of the RRP for a flatbed scanner in not-quite-iMac-green when I was a PSO.  The other colours were full price.)

[Lightning Phil]

I bought a magenta (pink) ME ultra fleece around 1984. I seem to remember it was £16 when the going rate for the other colours was £32. 

[Mr Larrington]

Magenta != pink ~ Tim Hall, yesterday 

[andrewc]

A large box was delivered just after 12 today, containing a Shiny Purple iMac and its assorted bits.  No receipt or delivery note, no install disks nuffin!   


Connected it all up,  plugged in my Time Machine backup using a USB-C adaptor & copied everything across. 


Good news:  All hardware seems to work, external drives, trackpad, SD card reader, printer & Apple DVD SuperDuperdrive (has to be connected directly, not via a hub)


I had to install up to date versions of few things such as Garmin Basecamp & VLC.  The Retroactive hack worked to bring Aperture back to life, though it had lost my library(now found).


Bad news.  A lot of my saved passwords are missing from Safari.  Unless I can work out where they are I'm going to have a bit of resetting to do.   

I had Rosetta Stone language software installed which is 32 bit so now no longer works.  I shall have to see if there are any workarounds. 


Fonts seem rather small .


I've let it go to "sleep", come back & the keyboard & trackpad have been unresponsive 


The purple isn't too offensive.  I actually wish they'd kept the metallic purple from the back on the "chin" instead of the faded lilac they've used.

[chrisbainbridge]

Passwords may be on icloud but i found that when I upgraded I still needed to reinstall a lot of passwords.