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Model A1225 / Early 2009 / 2.66, 2.93, or 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo processor

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Graphics Card Swap to ATI Radeon HD 2400+ / Nvidia 8600 +

Hello, my son got Counter Strike (a computer game) for Christmas and it is causing my iMac to crash. The current Mac is an Early 2009 iMac with 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Processor, 8GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 512mb video card.

The game requires the following:

OS: MacOS X 10.6.6 or higher

Processor: Intel Core Duo Processor (2GHz or better)

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 2400 or better / NVidia 8600M or better

Storage: 8 GB available space

Currently his game keeps crashing every 20 minutes and he has to reboot the computer. It is killing him and I want to try and upgrade the video card to something that will work. I am also assuming the issue is the graphics card. However I need to rule it out and I thought changing it would be a good option.

Can I put in the listed graphics card or something compatible. I love the 24" iMac and would like to keep it. It works great minus this issue.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

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Just how is it crashing? Exactly which game version and name is it?

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Install this app so you can monitor the thermal sensors: TG Pro. It's possible the system is overheating when running the game. You'll want to get the full version so you can get the logging function.

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OK...if it is overheating what would be the fix? Could the graphics card be overheating? I am going to get TG Pro and see what is going on. My son stated that the computer screen freezes and there are red, blue, and green particles on the screen and then he has to manually reboot. The game is Counter Strike: Global Offensive by Steam. he also said the computer was VERY hot.

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If the system is overheating you could try cleaning the dust out as well as cleaning and re-applying the thermal past on the CPU & GPU. Given the age of your system I would start there. You might want to check the heat sink to make sure the liquid inside hasn't leaked out. I use a good food scale and compare the weight of a good known one (if its light then its bad).

The other fact here is this system's graphics services was not designed for heavy graphics often seen in todays games. So while the cleaning & new thermal paste will help it might not offer enough for your son's usage.

As to upgrading the graphics there are limits here as you'll need to get a MXM card and it needs to be an Apple card as the firmware needs to be compatible with Apples OS drivers. Even this will won't address the root issue of the limits of the systems design.

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