I have a late 2009 MacBook. OS X 10.6.8. 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. 2 GB memory.
My problem:
For about the last week it has been acting strange, pausing at seemingly random times when using various programs. I'll just be playing music on iTunes, with no other programs running, and the music will pause, for anywhere from a blip to 15 seconds. And when using internet (Safari, Firefox, I even downloaded Chrome just to check), it will stall, that infuriating color wheel starts spinning, usually when a page is loading or I'm typing something, but also sometimes when I'm not doing anything. I haven't had to restart, and don't usually have to force quit even, but sometimes the pausing happens every few seconds, and I'm worried that I'm my computer is dying... (I have everything backed up already.)
I've looked at tons of other threads and advice, and everything I've tried hasn't helped. Also I really don't know what I'm doing, but here's what I've looked into:
-Hard drive isn't full (I have over 100 GB free).
-Downloaded/installed all most recent software updates.
-Desktop isn't cluttered, no big programs running in the background or anything.
-I've repaired disk permissions, and it seemed to work fine, but with lots of messages about Java and Airport.
-Reset Safari, put bookmarks into folders
-Looked at Activity Monitor. iTunes usually only using 15% of CPU, nothing else significant, sometimes internet will spike up to 50% or so when loading something (don't know what's considered normal).
-Downloaded updated Flash player (didn't delete the old one, is that necessary?)
-Ran a virus scan, nothing was found.
-Downloaded and ran Onyx.
-Logged into Guest Account, experienced the same unpredictable stalling.
Besides the sporadic pausing, the computer is actually running pretty smoothly. But could this be a dying hard drive...? Thanks for any advice!
My problem:
For about the last week it has been acting strange, pausing at seemingly random times when using various programs. I'll just be playing music on iTunes, with no other programs running, and the music will pause, for anywhere from a blip to 15 seconds. And when using internet (Safari, Firefox, I even downloaded Chrome just to check), it will stall, that infuriating color wheel starts spinning, usually when a page is loading or I'm typing something, but also sometimes when I'm not doing anything. I haven't had to restart, and don't usually have to force quit even, but sometimes the pausing happens every few seconds, and I'm worried that I'm my computer is dying... (I have everything backed up already.)
I've looked at tons of other threads and advice, and everything I've tried hasn't helped. Also I really don't know what I'm doing, but here's what I've looked into:
-Hard drive isn't full (I have over 100 GB free).
-Downloaded/installed all most recent software updates.
-Desktop isn't cluttered, no big programs running in the background or anything.
-I've repaired disk permissions, and it seemed to work fine, but with lots of messages about Java and Airport.
-Reset Safari, put bookmarks into folders
-Looked at Activity Monitor. iTunes usually only using 15% of CPU, nothing else significant, sometimes internet will spike up to 50% or so when loading something (don't know what's considered normal).
-Downloaded updated Flash player (didn't delete the old one, is that necessary?)
-Ran a virus scan, nothing was found.
-Downloaded and ran Onyx.
-Logged into Guest Account, experienced the same unpredictable stalling.
Besides the sporadic pausing, the computer is actually running pretty smoothly. But could this be a dying hard drive...? Thanks for any advice!
