Lots of problems with OS X on MacBook Pro -- hangs, slow boots, etc

[rogersmj]

I turn to you, dear MR members, because I don't want to hand my MacBook Pro over to the IT department for an undetermined amount of time. I'd like to have some solid theories first.

I have a 2.16 GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM issued to me by my company. This is an important point: I run the exact same software on this machine as I do on my two personally-owned Macs (a new AL iMac and a 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook), with three exceptions: Lotus Notes (which I don't use); Adobe CS2 (instead of CS3 I have at home); and whatever secret mojo they have installed to get OS X to talk to our Windows domain servers in the proper way.

Here's the problems: first, the thing won't shut down. Ever. If I tell it to shut down or reboot, it closes all apps, closes the Finder (so all I see is the desktop background), and then just stops. It doesn't matter if I let it sit for 30 minutes; the only way for me to shut it down is to hold the power button down. It has been doing this since pretty much since it was issued to me.

Second problem: randomly, apps won't load. Sometimes it's Adium. Sometimes it's TextMate. Sometimes it's Mail. The other morning it was Terminal. They just bounce in the dock for a second, then lock up and I have to force-quit. The only way to get them working is to reboot, which brings me to my third problem:

I can't start up reliably. It will hang either at the login screen, or when the desktop is half-loaded (I have the menu bar and spotlight icon, but nothing else). I have to hard-reboot it until it boots up fully. The other morning I had to do this six times.

My theory is that since it's so random, and it's happening to so many apps, it might be hardware related. This is a first-gen MBP and it has the hissing/whining logic board (getting things replaced around here doesn't seem to be easy). I'm wondering if it could contribute to system instability. But before I go through that nightmare of giving up my work computer, which I can't really do for awhile because we're so busy, I'd love to know if any OS X ninjas have some other ideas I can try.

 

[macgeek77]

Hmm. I'd try reinstalling OS X if at all possible. It could he hardware, and then it could not. Reduce your possibilities. It could just be some applications not playing nice with others and just causing the system to act all wierd. Try reinstalling OS X. See if that helps.

 

[odinsride]

Hmm. I'd try reinstalling OS X if at all possible. It could he hardware, and then it could not. Reduce your possibilities. It could just be some applications not playing nice with others and just causing the system to act all wierd. Try reinstalling OS X. See if that helps.

QFE

 

[rogersmj]

OK, I'll explore that possibility. If it were my own computer, I wouldn't have any trouble doing it; but the IT department here doesn't like handing over the reigns. We do have admin access to our Macs, but we're not supposed to use anything other than the company-provided hard drive image pre-installs. I would just outright do it, but then they'll get pissy when I ask them for CS2 and other things and they find out what I did. I'll see what I can work out.

 

[myshkin]

maybe a bad stick of memory

 

[G. I.]

It could be something with mounted network volumes? The Finder is a piece of ***** regarding networking, it hangs for 10 minutes if for some reason the network is down and you had mounted shares. In this state the shutdown process halts or if you try to start applications they will just bounce in the dock and won't start until the Finder brings up the Disconnect share/volume/whatever dialog. Your symptoms sound similar. It's really pathetic from a supposedly Unix system. Some says that in Leopard this will be sorted out. We'll see.

 

[rogersmj]

^ That's a good suggestion, it did occur to me. It does it whether or not I have had network shares mounted though. And yeah I agree, the way Finder handles share timeouts is one of my biggest, biggest complaints with OS X. I'll pay $129 for Leopard for a fix to that alone.

 

[Animalk]

Sorry to bump an old thread but using the search is proper forum etiquette apparently

Anyways, I have an MBP (see my signature for details) and i am experiencing these exact problems in the exact way the OP describes them. My laptop came with Tiger installed back in March. I don't have any crazy interface tweaks or sketchy programs. The only programs that may be sketchy are DivX, Flip4Mac and Adium. Everything else is straight as an arrow as they say.

I installed Leopard over all this on launch day and everything has been working perfectly. No problems whatsoever and Time Machine is working beautifully.

Starting this week, i get all the symptoms from the original post. I have googled and searched and this is the best find I have.

Has this problem been resolved? If yes how so?