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Constant beachball in Leopard on MB. Hair - mostly torn out.

J

jSunbeam

macrumors regular
Original poster
I'm beginning to go slightly insane.

I'm running a 2.16 Macbook, upgraded to Leopard and now running 10.5.1.

I am getting the beachball when I try to do...well, pretty much anything in any program.

Click a link in safari - the beachball appears and the whole system freezes up. Same with Firefox.

Try to close a program - beachball appears, whole system freezes up.

Play a song in iTunes - FREEEEEZE.

Observing the activity monitor shows very little increase in CPU usage during these moments.

I've tried verifying and repairing both the permissions and the internal HD. No errors.

I'm beginning to think that perhaps I have a duff Macbook. Of course, boot camp running XP is flawless which makes me doubt that theory.

I noticed the DivXNetworks thing but I presume that's just for PPC macs?

Does anyone have any ideas at all? I'm finding myself using windows as I cannot bear the constant crashing on OSX!

🙁
 
Have you tried booting in Safe Mode to see if there is still a problem opening the apps?

Have you tried creating a new user?

Have you looked at the System log and the crash logs to see if there is a problem?

Run Disk Utility from the DVD, and repaired the drive?

---

In reality, if it isn't a software issue, that sort of sounds like a dying drive.

Freezes with drive access are a sign of the drive dying, even though it'll likely still say smart status ok.
 
Sun Baked said:
Have you tried booting in Safe Mode to see if there is still a problem opening the apps?

Have you tried creating a new user?

Have you looked at the System log and the crash logs to see if there is a problem?

Run Disk Utility from the DVD, and repaired the drive?

---

In reality, if it isn't a software issue, that sort of sounds like a dying drive.

Freezes with drive access are a sign of the drive dying, even though it'll likely still say smart status ok.
Click to expand...

I've not tried these. Will have a go. Cheers.
 
In Disk Utility check the SMART status of your hard drive. If it says ANYTHING other than Verified it means your drive is failing (this includes saying it is unavailable).

Constant beachballs doing everything can be a sign of a failing hard drive.
 
Ok, well I tried creating a new account and using that - I loaded up a bunch of programs and gave it a good workout and didn't see the beachball once. Everything was lightning fast. So I guess it's something I've done on this profile. I've done a fair few things - set up mysql and postgresql, added DivX codecs (bear in mind this is an intel mac so the divx thing may not be relevant), and installed a load of third-party software (nothing insane, just the usual - firefox, thunderbird, adium, skype etc etc)...

Anyone have any ideas on where to start?
 
Could be some of the preferences are screwed up on the old user, so trashing them may work.

Though that sort of defeats the purpose of not creating a new user.

Some of the caches could also be whacked, don't know if they are user dependent or not.
 
If you have any divx plugins prior to 6.6 remove them as they will be causing at least some of the issue. This is for PPC and Intel macs.
 
a few weeks later...

...and still no joy whatsoever.

I have tried absolutely everything, to no avail.

Created new user.
Verified/Repaired permissions.
Verified HD.
Repaired HD from install DVD.
Booted with safe mode.
Unplugged all external devices.
Archive and install.
The DivX thing.
Erase and install.

I've basically restored the computer to its out-of-the-box state. Doesn't go more than 2 minutes without giving me the beachball. I guess my next step is to try installing Tiger, but I *really* don't want to do that. I've spoken to Apple tech support and they've run out of suggestions - suggested i take it to an Apple store to have one of the geniiiii look at it.

I guess my next question is - Do Apple replace 2-month old computers when the Hard Drive fails, or are they going to take it off me for weeks while they repair it? I'm a programmer and web designer and abasolutely can't afford to be without my computer for more than about a day...

Sigh.

Help?!
 
update 2.

i've also installed Tiger and it's behaving in exactly the same way. I'm pretty convinced this is a hardware issue now. Oh well, off to the Apple Store tomorrow!
 
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