Intel iMac lockup

W

warragul

Registered
We've replaced 2 G5 iMacs with Intel iMacs. They are in adjacent offices. The networking is via ethernet and, since the ethernet has been a little flakey and there is an Airport just down the hall, via Airport as a backup. Connection to the network/Internet is via ethernet.

Once the iMac is logged in the signal strength indicator for the Airport is at about 4 or 5. After a couple of minutes is fades down to 1 or 2 and then drops out. At this point the iMac locks up and only a power off/on will get it going again.

My iBook, on the desk next to the iMac shows no drop in signal.

Both iMacs do the same thing. Neither of the G5s had a problem with the same setup.

The iMacs are at 10.4.7, running pretty standard office applications and no oddball hardware. Unless by oddball you mean Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard/mouse. But even with an Aple keyboard/mouse the problem still occurs.

Thanks, warragul
 
you using dial up? or DSL/Cable? Dial-up as you know can slow a connection down or kill it.. with that many computers.. to a network.. ? If not than I hope sincerely someone who has bigger networking know how can help you.
 
By "lock up" do you mean the computer seriously stops responding to keypresses and mouse clicks? Because that's seriously not supposed to happen, no matter what kind of Internet connection you're dealing with...

If you don't enable wireless, do the iMacs work fine?
 
The iMac seriously stops responding. Even with no applications open. I don't think it's anything to do with Internet access. With the Mac just turned on you can watch as the bars disappear on the Airport menu bar icon. When they reach one or none the iMac stops responding.
With no Airport the iMac behaves as expected.

The previous G5 iMac was set up identically and didn't do this.

Thanks for your replies.

Regds, warragul
 
Warragul, did you try turning off Airport completely, doing a fresh boot with it turned off, and seeing if the iMacs still lock up? If you boot into Safe Mode, does it still happen? Booting from the CD? If so, maybe you could get them replaced by Apple.
 
With Airport off the iMacs behave as you would expect and as the G5s used to behave. There is definitely some sort of correlation between having both network adaptors active and the iMacs failing. But it should work.

Can anyone else with an Intel iMac confirm that it does work?

Thanks again, warragul
 
Are you using DSL/CABLE? or Dial-Up? If its on Dial-UP... Than I can see the bottleneck... I have an Intel-Imac 20" and mine is working fine... With both Wireless and wired ethernet should I choose to hook the wire to it.

To me this is sounding like a hardware airport issue on your end.
 
I think mentioning the Internet has confused some people.

Leave the Internet out of the picture for now. We don't get a chance to fire up the browser, let alone anything else. From power up to lock up is about two minutes. And that's when we do nothing except turn the iMacs on.

The ethernet is just there to allow server accesss and printing; not that we get the chance to do either if the Airport is on.

We wiped both hard drives and re-installed, and then upgraded to 10.4.7; on Monday I suppose I'll upgrade to 10.4.8. So far the problem remains.

As always, very grateful for your help.

warragul
 
The intel iMacs use different wireless adapters than the G5 iMacs. It's possible that you got defective ones, but you machines have a 1-year parts warranty. It's likely a hardware issue if re-installing did not fix it.
 
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