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gallagb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 28, 2004
461
0
IN
so- i'm helping a friend of mine out w/ her MacBook

2.0ghz white - 2gb ram - 80 HD
osx - up to date-

long and the short of it-
there are 2 issues- one of which i think i know the prbm- the 2nd i have no clue on-

1) occasionally her machine will just kinda 'black out'
screen will go black-
white light will flash-
it may or may not be plugged in- battery seems to be charged...etc

we think this is a RAM issue
-maybe faulty ram
or
-ram might not be 'fully "in"'

i've read around these forums and also the apple forums- and when the light flashes on short intervals like it does- that means the ram isn't in

2) (this is the one that has me baffled)
it feels like the HD just isn't really responding

when we first got the machine-
we also had a similar prbm

basically it just doesn't start up (ok- vauge i know)
it goes through the welcome to mac...etc
and then pops a blue screen- (just the background blue)_ and never really gets beyond that-
may or may not have spinning beach ball

so- i ran Apple Hardware test- thinking HD's got issues
everything (incld ram) comes back clean-

i'll pop in the DVD - and just boot from CD
and it takes FOREVER to load/boot -- over 4 hrs

just to even 'verify' the disk- it takes forever

when we first got the machine- we also had this prbm
apple eventually told us to run the machine back to 1 & 0's
deleting the HD completly...etc

we did that- eventually the machine worked fine-
worked fine for like 4 weeks

just the other day- she started up the machine and it never loaded (as described earlier)
the apple screen takes 5 min to load
then the machine goes to blue screen & sits there - we've left it for over an hour- and to no avail

any ideas/clues?

i really don't even know how to describe what's happening-
it just feels like the machine is
a) sluggish
b) dragging
c) (obviously) - just not loading

sorry this was long & rambly & really not helpful
if i find better words- i'll post something better
 
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