2009 Macbook Pro 10.6.8 Freezing

[notapusy]

Hello! I already asked this question on the Apple forums but unfortunately no matter what I do, my apple ID won't let me sign in again to respond to the comment so I figured I'd ask here for any follow up help.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/26306356#26306356

I did what they said and used the Adware Removal thing and it found something called "Spogit" and put it in my trash can (which had stuff from Amazon, Ebay etc in it) and told me it was done and I could delete anything in my trash can. I did that and then I restarted my computer and it was still freezing a lot. I know it's not a disk space issue, I have 229 GB of 499 GB available. I ran Verify Disk on Disk Utilities and it said everything was okay. I already did Verify Disk Permissions and Repair Disk permissions yesterday and that came out fine as well. Now I'm stuck where I was before with the same problem of freezing and sluggishness and feeling like there's some sort of bug on my computer. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Fishrrman]

If all else fails, you could try a re-installation of the system software.

One other thing with "random freezes" that seem to come out of nowhere -- these can often be symptoms of a failing hard drive. The drive's controller tries to access a block of data (that has gone bad), and the first attempt fails, so it tries, tries, tries again -- and it seems like the computer is going nowhere.

Actually, if you'd like to rejuvenate the laptop, it might be time to think about getting an SSD to put inside. It's VERY easy to open the case and swap the drives. All you need are THE RIGHT TOOLS (shouting intentional) and about 30 minutes' time (hardest part is removing the screws from the back, and then replacing them later on).

The price of 480+/- size SSD's has dropped to the $200 range. You can keep an eye on sale pricing over at dealmac.com.

I won't write my entire guide here as to prepping and doing the swap, but if you decide to go this route, you should also pick up either a USB3 external enclosure or a USB3/SATA dock -- either one will be VERY useful in doing the "pre-swap prep" of the new SSD.

I would advise putting a CLEAN COPY of the OS onto the new drive, and then use Migration Assistant to move things over. If you are worried about "bringing bad stuff" over, it's possible to do a very selective "manual migration", but that's a little more work.

Once you get the new drive in, you might consider re-initializing and testing the old drive (in the external enclosure or dock). If it "tests ok" after several tries, it could come in handy as a backup drive...

 

[notapusy]

Hi thank you for replying. Ignoring for a moment the possibility that my harddrive is failing (I have everything backed up thank goodness!), is there any possibility that it still might be some sort of problem with Flash player or something like that? I have run every test I could find to scan for any infections and removed every single movie player or dmg that I didn't need but I was wondering if there was any chance it still might be some sort of third party plugin or whatever that was making it act up? And also, if as a last resort I did have to get a new drive, do you really think there's something on my laptop that meant I couldn't just have someone transfer all of my files over in case of a bug???