Ok, so this is probably not your typical MacBook fix request, rather, this is something that will make you scratch your head and call me a bloody fool probably.
Here's what I have:
Mac OS X, v. 10.5.8
2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Essentially, everything that can go wrong with my laptop is going wrong. I was a PC guy my whole life, and only recently became a Mac user. You see, I actually found this Macbook at my college. Much to the dismay of all my friends, I turned it into the campus police. They took and recorded its serial number and all that and waited for someone to come asking for it or whatever it is they do. After 5 months, and discovering they actually were just going to junk it, I asked if I could have it, and to my joy, they gave it to me. This worked perfectly as my Toshiba laptop had just flamed out, and I'm not the kind of guy that can even afford to get a $400 laptop. And that's how I became a Mac guy. Now, to some people, they'll think I simply stole it and made up this fanciful story. Well, there's no way I can prove it, so why the heck bother. I just felt this was necessary, because I can already see the questions piling up if I just went on to the following problems. Which are:
Since it was found, all I have is the laptop and the charger.
From the outset, I discovered the DVD player wasn't working. Nearly half the times I closed my laptop into sleep mode, it would wake up every 10 seconds or so and act like it was spinning a disc and then go off, then repeat until whenever I opened it up. It still does that actually, just not quite as much. Because I'm an idiot I suppose, I thought a CD was stuck in this thing, so I spent a long time trying to get it out manually. Every other trick in the book wasn't working, mostly because I later realized there wasn't a CD in it obviously. But when I stuck knives or paperclips or whatever into it, it honest-to-goodness felt like there was one in there, and with this stupid flap thing on it, I can't actually see into it to see if there was.
As a result, I'm quite sure I destroyed the DVD player. Oh, and I forgot, I couldn't even put a CD in it anyways, so that made me believe there was one it it.
The past few months, the battery has been going out I guess. Sometimes my computer will last for 3 hours or more on charge, while other times, it lasts for 20 minutes. It's not too big a deal to me because I usually only have my laptop in one place anyways, so it's always plugged in.
Time Machine doesn't work, so I can never back up anything. It says that it can't locate the Airport utility or something like that. It needs to be configured. I've researched all of these problems at great length, and surprise, very little solutions out there, or any that work for me.
The last few months, all of my browsers started working at a snail's pace. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Camino, Firefox, Chrome. Eventually, each one would freeze every 5 seconds or so for like 10 seconds. Very aggravating, as I clear caches and all that kind of stuff, but to no avail, they would only work again if I reinstalled them. That gets old quick.
After getting tired of that, I just did massive amounts of cleaning on the laptop. I downloaded MacKeeper and did a ton of cleaning and removing of applications and whatnot. Thought I had the laptop running well, I stopped having the browser problems for the most part it seems.
And to the grand conclusion, if you're still reading, is the last day, the computer has virtually melted down, figuratively, although maybe literally? Everything is running at a snail's pace practically. For some reason, I can open Chrome and work on the internet decently, although if I have to open a scroll box, it takes about 5 minutes to open it. I downloaded OnyX and tried running some of it, but it tells me that my "Volume needs to be repaired"
Then it tells me to use the install disc for the Mac, which I'd be OK using, but as before, I don't have that. And even if I did, my DVD player doesn't work.
I tried opening Skype and it took about 30 minutes to open it, and even then, it would lockup every 2 seconds and sit there forever. Since my browser mostly worked, and things such as iPhoto and Word open up easily, I thought maybe it was just Skype. But after reinstalling it, and witnessing other programs take forever to load, I figured it must be something more.
Mackeeper's trial run is over, so I can't use it. Am I naive, or can I just redownload that and try it? Some of OnyX's scans took way too long for what it was, so if that's the case, I imagine a Mackeeper scan would take years.
So what on this green Earth should I do? I've had this thing for about 6 months now, and all I do is store pictures, use the internet, and Skype. That's literally all I do, and that's all I need it to do. I have almost 30GB available, so it's not as though the space is maxed out.
I'm fair with PCs, and still a complete zero with Macs, so I don't know if I'm missing something obvious to do or what. I'm very hesitant to bring it in to a store, because I'm convinced they'll think it's stolen and take it from me. Call me selfish, but this thing is mine in my head.
For my Toshiba, I had to eventually put Ubuntu on it from a flashdrive. Can I do the same with the Macbook? I looked it up, but after waiting for my computer having a spit of loading problems, I thought it'd be best to just straight up explain my situation myself. Also, my biggest flashdrive is only 2GB that I can find, and I really, really don't want to get a big one. But if to save this dying laptop, I have to invest a bit in one, I'll begrudgingly do it.
This is long, probably nearly ranting, and might make you facepalm all night long, and I'm sorry for that, but please, what the heck should I do?
Here's what I have:
Mac OS X, v. 10.5.8
2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Essentially, everything that can go wrong with my laptop is going wrong. I was a PC guy my whole life, and only recently became a Mac user. You see, I actually found this Macbook at my college. Much to the dismay of all my friends, I turned it into the campus police. They took and recorded its serial number and all that and waited for someone to come asking for it or whatever it is they do. After 5 months, and discovering they actually were just going to junk it, I asked if I could have it, and to my joy, they gave it to me. This worked perfectly as my Toshiba laptop had just flamed out, and I'm not the kind of guy that can even afford to get a $400 laptop. And that's how I became a Mac guy. Now, to some people, they'll think I simply stole it and made up this fanciful story. Well, there's no way I can prove it, so why the heck bother. I just felt this was necessary, because I can already see the questions piling up if I just went on to the following problems. Which are:
Since it was found, all I have is the laptop and the charger.
From the outset, I discovered the DVD player wasn't working. Nearly half the times I closed my laptop into sleep mode, it would wake up every 10 seconds or so and act like it was spinning a disc and then go off, then repeat until whenever I opened it up. It still does that actually, just not quite as much. Because I'm an idiot I suppose, I thought a CD was stuck in this thing, so I spent a long time trying to get it out manually. Every other trick in the book wasn't working, mostly because I later realized there wasn't a CD in it obviously. But when I stuck knives or paperclips or whatever into it, it honest-to-goodness felt like there was one in there, and with this stupid flap thing on it, I can't actually see into it to see if there was.
As a result, I'm quite sure I destroyed the DVD player. Oh, and I forgot, I couldn't even put a CD in it anyways, so that made me believe there was one it it.
The past few months, the battery has been going out I guess. Sometimes my computer will last for 3 hours or more on charge, while other times, it lasts for 20 minutes. It's not too big a deal to me because I usually only have my laptop in one place anyways, so it's always plugged in.
Time Machine doesn't work, so I can never back up anything. It says that it can't locate the Airport utility or something like that. It needs to be configured. I've researched all of these problems at great length, and surprise, very little solutions out there, or any that work for me.
The last few months, all of my browsers started working at a snail's pace. Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Camino, Firefox, Chrome. Eventually, each one would freeze every 5 seconds or so for like 10 seconds. Very aggravating, as I clear caches and all that kind of stuff, but to no avail, they would only work again if I reinstalled them. That gets old quick.
After getting tired of that, I just did massive amounts of cleaning on the laptop. I downloaded MacKeeper and did a ton of cleaning and removing of applications and whatnot. Thought I had the laptop running well, I stopped having the browser problems for the most part it seems.
And to the grand conclusion, if you're still reading, is the last day, the computer has virtually melted down, figuratively, although maybe literally? Everything is running at a snail's pace practically. For some reason, I can open Chrome and work on the internet decently, although if I have to open a scroll box, it takes about 5 minutes to open it. I downloaded OnyX and tried running some of it, but it tells me that my "Volume needs to be repaired"
Then it tells me to use the install disc for the Mac, which I'd be OK using, but as before, I don't have that. And even if I did, my DVD player doesn't work.
I tried opening Skype and it took about 30 minutes to open it, and even then, it would lockup every 2 seconds and sit there forever. Since my browser mostly worked, and things such as iPhoto and Word open up easily, I thought maybe it was just Skype. But after reinstalling it, and witnessing other programs take forever to load, I figured it must be something more.
Mackeeper's trial run is over, so I can't use it. Am I naive, or can I just redownload that and try it? Some of OnyX's scans took way too long for what it was, so if that's the case, I imagine a Mackeeper scan would take years.
So what on this green Earth should I do? I've had this thing for about 6 months now, and all I do is store pictures, use the internet, and Skype. That's literally all I do, and that's all I need it to do. I have almost 30GB available, so it's not as though the space is maxed out.
I'm fair with PCs, and still a complete zero with Macs, so I don't know if I'm missing something obvious to do or what. I'm very hesitant to bring it in to a store, because I'm convinced they'll think it's stolen and take it from me. Call me selfish, but this thing is mine in my head.
For my Toshiba, I had to eventually put Ubuntu on it from a flashdrive. Can I do the same with the Macbook? I looked it up, but after waiting for my computer having a spit of loading problems, I thought it'd be best to just straight up explain my situation myself. Also, my biggest flashdrive is only 2GB that I can find, and I really, really don't want to get a big one. But if to save this dying laptop, I have to invest a bit in one, I'll begrudgingly do it.
This is long, probably nearly ranting, and might make you facepalm all night long, and I'm sorry for that, but please, what the heck should I do?
