Macbook takes forever to boot

[ivnds]

Ok, my macbook is starting to scare me. I bought it in august, so ive had it roughly for 2months now. I've noticed its getting slower and slower to boot up each time i turn it on. i have 2 gbs of ram, so it shouldnt be slow, ive verified and repaired the disk too. I also have random software jams, especially safari, just closes for no reason.

Any thought on what may cause this?

 

[clevin]

Ok, my macbook is starting to scare me. I bought it in august, so ive had it roughly for 2months now. I've noticed its getting slower and slower to boot up each time i turn it on. i have 2 gbs of ram, so it shouldnt be slow, ive verified and repaired the disk too. I also have random software jams, especially safari, just closes for no reason.

Any thought on what may cause this?

sounds like a software problem, machine is ok, maybe clean up system?
try OnyX?

 

[ivnds]

sounds like a software problem, machine is ok, maybe clean up system?
try OnyX?

wow! thanks for the quick reply!


ive used onyx last week, i think i did a clean up but dont know wich one i need to do...

is it a regular maintenance?

 

[xappeal]

It's third party ram, you have it right?

 

[ivnds]

It's third party ram, you have it right?

yeah, but i did a hardware test not long ago and it came out ok, a full hardware test, so it shouldnt be a hardware problem.

 

[xappeal]

It'll show up fine in any hardware test, but it's the problem. Put your old ram back in and save your volume before it crashes.

If you put the old ram in the problems should go away.

If it's similar to the many cases i've seen, your install will fail when you try and reload your software. If you have no other option, take out one stick and force it to run in single channel mode, this should help.

 

[ivnds]

It'll show up fine in any hardware test, but it's the problem. Put your old ram back in and save your volume before it crashes.

If you put the old ram in the problems should go away.

If it's similar to the many cases i've seen, your install will fail when you try and reload your software. If you have no other option, take out one stick and force it to run in single channel mode, this should help.

ok so my computer will die now? im typing on it as we speak and i have to take the ram out, but the old factory 512 in it? i dont think il last a day in photoshop or ilustrator with that..

o have to reinstall the OS too?

i made a backup like 2 hours ago so im ready to fix this.

 

[frenetic]

Could be a hard disk problem. Have you started up from the dvd that came along with your mac and repaired the disk (not the permissions) from that dvd? I once had a faulty hard drive and it started out like you describe, but throughout the whole process the disk's SMART status remained "verified", so you cannot trust it wholeheartedly. Do you have a disk repair tool like DiskWarrior available? Rather use that one, in my experience it is far better in seeing hard drive errors...

Frenetic

 

[ivnds]

Could be a hard disk problem. Have you started up from the dvd that came along with your mac and repaired the disk (not the permissions) from that dvd? I once had a faulty hard drive and it started out like you describe, but throughout the whole process the disk's SMART status remained "verified", so you cannot trust it wholeheartedly. Do you have a disk repair tool like DiskWarrior available? Rather use that one, in my experience it is far better in seeing hard drive errors...

Frenetic

that sounds logical... and i bought this one thinking itd be reliable! i had a toshiba with a bad disk and it put me trhu a really bad year, ill try getting diskwarrior, i did verify the disk a while ago also, i think i had some read things, like [illegal name] or something like that, ill run a scan

 

[xappeal]

I think TechTools is the only universal disk utility so far. You can try it, but it's your ram.

 

[ivnds]

I think TechTools is the only universal disk utility so far. You can try it, but it's your ram.

I think the ram has lifetime warranty, so ill try taking that out as well, is there a tool to diagnose the ram?

 

[frenetic]

ivnds,

First follow x-appeal's instructions and put in the old ram. If everything works fine you have found the culprit. If not, I would think it is the hard disk, and then you should use tech tools - sorry btw about recommending diskwarrior, had forgotten it is not UB yet. BTW, there is also an independent memory tester available called memtest, just look it up on versiontracker...

 

[ivnds]

ivnds,

First follow x-appeal's instructions and put in the old ram. If everything works fine you have found the culprit. If not, I would think it is the hard disk, and then you should use tech tools - sorry btw about recommending diskwarrior, had forgotten it is not UB yet. BTW, there is also an independent memory tester available called memtest, just look it up on versiontracker...

thanks! ill try those things, too bad its the ram or the hard drive, none seem like an esasy thing to fix.

 

[xappeal]

There is nothing wrong with the ram. I don't know why, but some MacBooks are just really picky with ram. I cut my losses and bought 2gb of Samsung and replaced the adata ram that was playing up in my computer.

The only way I knew it worked was because the problems disappeared when I changed the ram. I ran every diognostic I could find, the bad ram cleared all of them.

The long boot time and the safari crashes were the beginning then I'd try to repair the disk, it would work the first few times till the problem got worse and would give the "failed on exit" problem in the disk utility. TechTool Pro would tell me it had fixed the drive, but then it would just hang for ages on the boot screen.

If it gets bad enough to reinstall, do a fresh install and use the migration assistant to copy your data (I assume your backup is a dmg).

 

[ivnds]

There is nothing wrong with the ram. I don't know why, but some MacBooks are just really picky with ram. I cut my losses and bought 2gb of Samsung and replaced the adata ram that was playing up in my computer.

The only way I knew it worked was because the problems disappeared when I changed the ram. I ran every diognostic I could find, the bad ram cleared all of them.

The long boot time and the safari crashes were the beginning then I'd try to repair the disk, it would work the first few times till the problem got worse and would give the "failed on exit" problem in the disk utility. TechTool Pro would tell me it had fixed the drive, but then it would just hang for ages on the boot screen.

If it gets bad enough to reinstall, do a fresh install and use the migration assistant to copy your data (I assume your backup is a dmg).

oh no! thats just like my problems, then that means i have to buy new ram, not just send it in for warranty....


oh... mmm no, my backups are just like the file and u drop it in a external drive and done .. i dont know how to make dmg backups..

 

[xappeal]

Here is how to do a complete image from your disk, you will need the same size external to hold all of the data (HFS not FAT32).

Restart your computer using the install disk, hold down "c".

Open the disk utility

Use the disk utility, select the name of the volume. Go to the file menu, then new, disk image from "your volume name". It will take a long time to do the image. Once it is done, restart and make sure it mounts (press skip while it is verifying otherwise it will take forever).

Reload your OS, using a different name for the main user, enter the account, use the migration assistant in the utilities folder to reload all your data.

You can delete the unused account if you want using system preferences.

Hope this helps

 

[Shadow]

I fully recommend Memtest. Try running it-it'll expose any problems with RAM.
http://www.memtestosx.org/