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Freeze Up Help

O

ocdan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 10, 2010
10
0
Hey, new guy to the forum in search of some advice! I have a macbook and last night before I went to bed, as I ran Illustrator the adobe update install option came up. I haven't done it in a while so I figured before I go to bed I'll run it.
Well I wake up and a little window tells me it had a problem closing Safari, though I already shut it down beforehand, so I waived it off and clicked for it to continue.
Since then I cannot access the internet with and if I try opening Network Diagnostics it doesn't open and if I try certain things after trying to open it, it will freeze completely. Same goes for when I open up Dashboard.
This isn't a matter of internet connection, as I'm telling you all this from my desktop in the other room.

iTunes works, Illustrator works, my other adobe apps work, it just seems that it freezes whenever I try and fix the internet problem.

Any suggestions?
 
First thing I would do is repair permissions on my hard disk, using Disk Utility in the Utilities folder. The installation crapping out could have caused a bit of corruption, and that would fix it.
 
tried doing it

1st time - clicked the disk utility, froze

2nd time - as soon as I moved my cursor to the dock to have it appear, froze

3rd time - dock doesn't appear click hdd, froze

feelin a bit effed over...
 
never had to do this before, any precautions I should take?
 
Not on this one. It doesn't change your data, it just scans for permissions errors and corrects any problems found.
 
Ok, disc one I presume?

check that
It worked and so far everything is running smoothly, thank you very much!
 
That's the one. Just boot off it, then ignore the setup program and select the Installer menu at the top of the screen. You should see Disk Utility in there.

EDIT : I see you did it. Well done :)
 
Ok, it was going smoothly for a bit, but I'm still freezing up, I was able to do another repair permissions and once I ejected the install dvd the dvd icon stayed up on my desktop and the pinwheel of death once again began a spinnin.
 
Hmmmm.....I'm afraid I'm a bit stumped. Unless Activity Monitor gives you any clues. That will tell you which if any programs are using up all your CPU time.
 
ocdan said:
1st time - clicked the disk utility, froze

2nd time - as soon as I moved my cursor to the dock to have it appear, froze

3rd time - dock doesn't appear click hdd, froze
Click to expand...
When you say "froze" in these cases, do you mean the pointer stopped moving entirely, or that you got a permanent spinning pinwheel?

Given the things you've already tried, if you get a spinning pinwheel that won't stop, it's often a symptom of an attached drive that has stopped responding, but not shut off completely.

If your hard drive is dying, it could easily do this (maybe even if you're booted from the install discs, as soon as the installer tries to access the drive). If part of the problem is bad blocks, that could also explain why certain programs cause freezes--that's where the damage is. Listening closely you can usually hear the hard drive making repetitive sounds in those cases.

To rule out other hardware problems the best thing to start with is the hardware test disc that came with the computer. This may be on the same physical disc as the OS installer, but you boot into it differently (usually holding down the D key):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

...run the full test and see if it finds anything.
 
Makosuke said:
When you say "froze" in these cases, do you mean the pointer stopped moving entirely, or that you got a permanent spinning pinwheel?

To rule out other hardware problems the best thing to start with is the hardware test disc that came with the computer. This may be on the same physical disc as the OS installer, but you boot into it differently (usually holding down the D key):

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509

...run the full test and see if it finds anything.
Click to expand...

Frozen as in I can still move the cursor around, yet everything is ineffective/permanent pinwheel.
I ran the test and it came back with no trouble found.
 
ocdan said:
Frozen as in I can still move the cursor around, yet everything is ineffective/permanent pinwheel.
I ran the test and it came back with no trouble found.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Even so, if it froze when you selected Disk Utility from the menu when booted from the Installer, it's got to be a hardware problem of some sort (unless, by coincidence, your install disc is also scratched or bad). The hardware test doesn't necessarily catch everything that's wrong.

Since the data on the drive itself doesn't enter into the picture when you're booted from the install disc and running Disk Utility from there (you also unplugged everything other than keyboard and mouse when you tried that, right?), and you've already reset PRAM and PMU, that only leaves the motherboard or the hard drive itself. Hopefully the drive, since that's a lot easier and cheaper to replace.

Sadly, the only good way I can think of to diagnose further is to replace the drive, reinstall the OS, and see if that fixes it. Alternately, you could take it to a pro and see if they have better diagnostic tools.

...unless it's still under warranty, in which case take it to Apple and make them fix it. That's free, and they should do a good job (but make sure you have a full backup before you give it to them--which you really should already have if possible--because there's a good chance they'll wipe the drive.
 
thanks, unfortunately I'm past the warranty date. I may just try a new hard drive and back up my old one. Thanks anyway, everyone.
 
any chance something could happen if I am to install Snow Leopard? I've been holding back on updating, most because I didn't seem to need it, turning my cheek to some perks. I have been noticing for some time since 10.6X has came out, some operations with my mac have seemed to take more time and/or have various problems.
 
Now I have just attempted backing up my HDD onto an external but the ext. isn't being recognized and freeze up occurs again. I think I'm royally ****ed.

Same goes for backing up to a cd/dvd
 
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