An Interesting Occurrence: Graphics issue resolved by clean install

I was using my 15inch rPro ( 2.6GHz, 16GB, 256GB ) last night and noticed the graphics and system UI were beginning to slow down and become less fluid. Before playing a game of CIV5 with some friends I thought it would be best to reset the PRAM and SMC to get the systems performance back to normal. The system would then boot up to a point, where a bar would load to about 1/10 and the spinning icon would appear for two or three seconds, then disappear and the system would shut down.

To try and solve this, booted into 10.8 Recovery, tried to verify and repair the disk but neither would work properly or fix the drive. Booked a genius bar appointment for earlier today, the guy at the desk then used a tool called Disk Warrior to try and mend the disk, which stated it was successful, along with disk utility confirming so, yet the problem still persisted.

The issue was fixed through a completely clean install.

Essentially I'm interested to see if any other users have experienced similar problems to this before and if you know what causes this to happen?

It's also worth noting that the system actually feels snappier and UI transitions appear smoother. Placebo effect or not, a clean install is always good

 

Yep, that definitely is the most plausible reason for what occurred.

On the plus side, It finally made me purchase an external drive to make back ups on, along with using it for my media storage.

It is indeed very interesting that the fresh install rectified the graphics and SMC issue, I'm curious to know why, but I doubt we'll ever find out.