[zigzag]

I'm running 10.2.4 on an 800 mhz FP iMac w/ 784 MB RAM. It has started to freeze on occasion. When this happens, I hold the power button down for 5 seconds and force it to turn off. I then press the power button to turn it back on. It shows the gray Apple and the spinning cog, but stays there indefinitely. I've waited as long as 10 minutes, but it doesn't finish booting up. I repeat the process - sometimes three times, sometimes as many as ten - until it finally boots up at a normal speed and works fine until the next freeze. Apple diagnosis disk shows all systems OK.

Any ideas? TIA

[kingskel]

Very strange. Sounds frustrating. Since it is a boot problem, I'd normally suspect a theme (did you install any?) as some older ones replace the bootx file. Still, that would cause a hang at boot _every_ time. Guesses:

1. Bad ram - is this a recent problem, or did it occur since you installed the ram?

2. Bad prefs - try creating another user and logging in as them - does the problem still occur? If not, stick with the new user ID, re-register all your apps and delete the old user account.

3. Keep the console open and see what it has to say. Did you check your crash logs (I forget where they are kept - maybe someone else can tell us)?

4. Do you have any new peripherals (USB, Firewire,etc.) or non-apple keyboard or mouse? Any hardware mods to your system?

Hope this helps.

[zigzag]

Thanks - none of those seem to be the problem. After doing some digging, I've decided to download the 10.2.4 combo update and install it over my regular 10.2.4 update. This seems to have solved similar problems for others. We'll see.