My Dad's Frozen iMac
This is a story about my father's iMac. But it could be anybody's dad, and any 20-inch Intel iMac equipped with ATI Radeon HD graphics cards.
At the end of August, my 85-year-old father ordered one of the new skinny iMacs. A few days after it arrived, I took a train to Boston and helped him transfer files from an ancient Mac running OS 9. It took most of a weekend, but by the time I left, everything was working fine.
On September 26, he sent this e-mail.
The Mac crashed. The pointer did not move. I restarted with the power button and it came up with a white bar pattern. I restarted with the pointer and apple and all was normal. — Dad
It was the first of long string of similar messages. His tale of woe — and Apple's (AAPL) eventual response — continues below the fold.
