KEY POINTS:
Apple's shiny new aluminium iMacs are locking up with what is believed to be a graphics card problem.
AppleInsider.com is one of several sites reporting the freezes, and a lengthy thread on Apple's support site seem consistent with news on the net.
The problem means the computer will hang, but background processes like music playing will continue, and the cursor will still happily move, but nothing else will work properly.
Some very basic functions will still work from the keyboard, like pausing music or adjusting volume.
The only escape is to hit reset.
It seems that the problem is on aluminium iMacs with the ATI Radeon HD card, and generally occurs when running graphics-intensive applications.
Some claim to be able to trigger the freezes by running games, others say that leaving the machine for any length of time will stop it responding.
Apple has already released two software update packages for the new machines since their launch two months ago. Both the 1.0 and 1.1 update carried video-focused patches, but nothing to address this problem.
However, with the next version of OS X, code-named 'Leopard', just around the corner, users might just have to stump up the upgrade fee to fix their frozen Macs.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
