Deteriorating MBP - Can anyone help diagnose?

[NeedAssistance]

I bought a 13" MBP back in 2010 and its never given me any problems through an upgrade to Lion. About a week ago, I dropped it and dented the case so now the top and bottom scrape when I open it. Initially, it worked fine, but then I updated to 10.7.1 and it began spotlight indexing all the time. After discovering this is a semi-common (?) problem with Lion, I decide to go back to 10.7 because it never had that problem.

First OSX Reinstall - Lion

After installing Lion, I put all my stuff back on it (manually; did not use time machine). After about a day it started having random freezes where i can move the cursor but nothing responds. It would usually happen when I try to load a webpage in chrome, and the loading icon would animate and I could move my mouse but nothing would respond. So then I tried to backtrack to Snow Leopard, the original OS that came with my system. At this point I was beginning to suspect a failing hard drive, so I figure the more I strain it, the faster I could confirm and replace it.

Second OSX Reinstall - Snow Leopard

At first, it was fine, quick like usual. After loading my stuff back on though, it started hanging just like before. Except now it was getting worse and seemed to happen every time I had it read from disk. In addition to chrome, it would hang a lot when I tried to open itunes, pages, finder, etc. And it started not recovering, and I had to force restarts. Through all this, it never once gave me a kernal panic, though, so I figure the ram is fine? I ran verify disk off the snow leopard DVD and it passed so I thought that was weird.

Third OSX Reinstall - Lion

I dont really know why I thought another fresh install would fix anything but I tried it anyways and it failed about halfway through, telling me to restart and try again. Tried snow leopard and it gave me the same thing. Disk utility passed the drive on verify disk again though so perhaps its not the hard disk?

Its out of warranty, but I'm going to bring it to an Apple store to see what they say later this week. Until then, I wanted to see if anyone here could provide some insight into my problem. If I could confirm its the hard drive, I could order a new one and have my computer up and running much sooner.

Thanks!

 

[abdu2s]

I bought a 13" MBP back in 2010 and its never given me any problems through an upgrade to Lion. About a week ago, I dropped it and dented the case so now the top and bottom scrape when I open it. Initially, it worked fine, but then I updated to 10.7.1 and it began spotlight indexing all the time. After discovering this is a semi-common (?) problem with Lion, I decide to go back to 10.7 because it never had that problem.

First OSX Reinstall - Lion

After installing Lion, I put all my stuff back on it (manually; did not use time machine). After about a day it started having random freezes where i can move the cursor but nothing responds. It would usually happen when I try to load a webpage in chrome, and the loading icon would animate and I could move my mouse but nothing would respond. So then I tried to backtrack to Snow Leopard, the original OS that came with my system. At this point I was beginning to suspect a failing hard drive, so I figure the more I strain it, the faster I could confirm and replace it.

Second OSX Reinstall - Snow Leopard

At first, it was fine, quick like usual. After loading my stuff back on though, it started hanging just like before. Except now it was getting worse and seemed to happen every time I had it read from disk. In addition to chrome, it would hang a lot when I tried to open itunes, pages, finder, etc. And it started not recovering, and I had to force restarts. Through all this, it never once gave me a kernal panic, though, so I figure the ram is fine? I ran verify disk off the snow leopard DVD and it passed so I thought that was weird.

Third OSX Reinstall - Lion

I dont really know why I thought another fresh install would fix anything but I tried it anyways and it failed about halfway through, telling me to restart and try again. Tried snow leopard and it gave me the same thing. Disk utility passed the drive on verify disk again though so perhaps its not the hard disk?

Its out of warranty, but I'm going to bring it to an Apple store to see what they say later this week. Until then, I wanted to see if anyone here could provide some insight into my problem. If I could confirm its the hard drive, I could order a new one and have my computer up and running much sooner.

Thanks!

Can't you get your hands on another HDD? unwanted one i mean


i'm not sure how bad is the dent on it or on which side, but i doubt that you broke an internal organ.


it's more likely to be the harddrive cause i had similar symptoms and when i checked and verified the disk it seemed OK and the smart status was OK

then i took it to apple and got it replaced because it failed.


i suggest you get your hands on a HDD and try booting




P.S When i went to apple they saw a small dent on the left down side corner of the keyboard , they refused to replace it under-warranty, but i went to another store and they accepted it

 

[Prodo123]

A drop is much, much, MUCH more likely to cause damage than a simple OS update.
Keep laptop use to minimum, replace hard drive, done.

 

[NeedAssistance]

it's more likely to be the harddrive cause i had similar symptoms and when i checked and verified the disk it seemed OK and the smart status was OK

Thanks for the tip. I would have thought that a failing hard drive would def show up on verify disk but I guess you have shown otherwise. Unfortunately, I dont have an extra hard disk lying around and I would prefer not to spend the money on another one unless I can make sure that would fix the problem.

I agree that it was definitely the drop that is causing the problems. I just mentioned the bit around updating to explain why I began trying fresh installs.

I have discovered that the Apple Hardware Test refuses to finish, even on the short test. I tried swapping ram sticks, one at a time but it always freezes just before the bar reaches the end. Could a bad hard drive cause AHT to fail?

 

[Prodo123]

Thanks for the tip. I would have thought that a failing hard drive would def show up on verify disk but I guess you have shown otherwise. Unfortunately, I dont have an extra hard disk lying around and I would prefer not to spend the money on another one unless I can make sure that would fix the problem.

I agree that it was definitely the drop that is causing the problems. I just mentioned the bit around updating to explain why I began trying fresh installs.

I have discovered that the Apple Hardware Test refuses to finish, even on the short test. I tried swapping ram sticks, one at a time but it always freezes just before the bar reaches the end. Could a bad hard drive cause AHT to fail?

Yes.