Please, please, please, can someone enlighten me?
I just got a new aluminum macbook (the less expensive one) from work about a month ago. They also bought me a 4GB ram set, which the notebook is recognizing as 4GB, per the "about this mac" section.
However, I get a freaking pinwheel about every hour or so, and I can't figure out why.
I am a heavy system user with Firefox 3, Entourage, Word and often iTunes running at the same time. Now I know firefox is a memory beast, but with 4GB of ram?
Plus, the pinwheel usually occurs while using Firefox, but it will also happen when I'm using other programs, even Word. It's like it just gets constipated over the smallest thing, like clicking on one thing and then another too soon.
The reason I'm so frustrated is that this thing is the cutting-edge laptop with maxed out ram and it is performing worse than my old white macbook 13".
I've seen some of the other complaints about the new alumibooks, but mine is built well (no creeking, noise, loose battery covers, etc.). It's just this stupid pinwheel. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!
Thanks in advance.
I hate firefox, the only time i ever seen a pinwheel on any of my Macs is when using firefox.
I also think it's the RAM/new DDR3 spec that's causing the problems.
It's the Flash player.
It's happening on my G5 quad with a Quadro 512mb video card and my new 2.4ghz Macbook Aluminum with four gigs of ram.
Apple needs to patch Flash for the Macs... it's rendering our machines obsolete before their time. It is a serious problem, think about it. Four years ago, my PPC machines ran flawlessly with one gig of ram or thereabouts.
Now, faster processors, tons more ram, better video cards and we are beachballing? It is the Adobe Flash problem. Apple needs to do a software update and stop benefitting from the forced Mac sales to us on this fake obselesence.
Oh, and it WILL NOT be acceptable when Snow Leopard comes out for Apple to say -- "we fixed it in SLeopard, we can't be responsible for older machines anymore, it's been three years since the switch to Intel"
because this is obviously a firmware/software/patch issue. Apple needs to realize that we have overcome their former 'hands off our hardware" problem -- I mean I remember physically shaking and perspiring the first time I had to open my Titanium Powerbook to put ram into it -- I was so scared of the Apple warranty and implied 'hands off" dictum that Apple had over their hardware.
This is a FLASH patch problem. I love Apple but resent having to upgrade every three months in hopes of overcoming beachballs.
Hmm makes sense. Is it just me or is anybody else like over Flash? I hear all this talk from the iPhone crowd (of which I'm also one) crying out for Apple to put Flash on the iPhone and I'm like NOOOOOO! I don't like it on the computer; I don't want it on my phone--I would much rather see Java used than Flash!
SO, how do you disable Flash on OSX and will doing this affect anything else other than Safari/Internet apps?
If it's a Flash problem, wouldn't that fall to Adobe to fix, not Apple...?
Just wanted to chime in here and say that I see a very similar problem with my early-2008 macbook pro. I get the pinwheel of death when using the wireless connection for an extended period of time. I don't run firefox however; usually, I only have Safari, and several ssh connections open when the problem occurs. Unfortunately, I was never able to find a fix, so I've resorted to turning off airport and using a wired connection whenever I know I'm going to use the laptop for a while.
I did get as far as tracing my problem to the Yukon wireless driver. It seems like this driver, for whatever reason, eventually craps out, thus causing the system to crash. Check out my previous post here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/577905/
The system.log entry tells me that the problem might be due to a memory leak in the wireless driver, but I don't see any symptoms that would lead me to suspect this as the root cause. That is, the pinwheel of death is not preceded by a period of unresponsiveness or excessive paging.
Do any of you see something similar?
My last Mac was a 2.16 MacBook with 2gb DDR2 Ram and I expected to be blown away with the performance difference of the MBP and it's faster Ram, processor and FSB. It's faster but i haven't noticed the huge performances increases I thought would come.
For what it's worth, I had this problem until I stopped using Safari entirely. Now that I use Firefox exclusively, I almost never get any beachballing. Not sure what about Safari was causing the problem, but I'll wait for an update to try using it again.