frequent system freezes on MBP 2009

[lenisik]

I am experiencing global system freezes where the spinning rainbow wheel appear and all applications are unresponsive, though the cursor can still be moved around.
They are very frequent (every 10 seconds at the worst) and they last between 30 seconds and forever (meaning that I have had to force-shutdown many times).
I am running Mac OS X Lion (updated to latest) on a Mid 2009 15" Macbook Pro with 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB RAM (Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB).

After some research I formed the hypothesis that it has to do with an incompatibility between Lion OS and the NVidia graphic drivers.
I tried to fix it by deleting files containing "windowserver" from ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and /Library/Preferences/ByHost (as seen in this article), but it helped me only temporarily, and now I am back to the frustrating rainbow wheel.

I need help to find out what exactly is causing the problem and how to fix it.
Are there any logs that I can consult to discover the source of the problem?
Does anyone have suggestions as to how to fix the issue?

 

[neilhart]

Solutions - ideas

Do you recall when this first started? What were you doing when it stated?

Do you have a Time Machine that could be used for a system restore?
Do you have a clone of your system drive.
How large is the hard disk?
How much open space is currently on the hard disk?
Do you use any housekeeping utilities?

 

[benthewraith]

I am experiencing global system freezes where the spinning rainbow wheel appear and all applications are unresponsive, though the cursor can still be moved around.
They are very frequent (every 10 seconds at the worst) and they last between 30 seconds and forever (meaning that I have had to force-shutdown many times).
I am running Mac OS X Lion (updated to latest) on a Mid 2009 15" Macbook Pro with 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB RAM (Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB).

After some research I formed the hypothesis that it has to do with an incompatibility between Lion OS and the NVidia graphic drivers.
I tried to fix it by deleting files containing "windowserver" from ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and /Library/Preferences/ByHost (as seen in this article), but it helped me only temporarily, and now I am back to the frustrating rainbow wheel.

I need help to find out what exactly is causing the problem and how to fix it.
Are there any logs that I can consult to discover the source of the problem?
Does anyone have suggestions as to how to fix the issue?

What's the current condition of the hard drive? It may need to be replaced.