MBP starting to freeze =(

[Hydrocity]

Hey everyone. I have a MBP (full specs listed in sig) and I have had it for about 7 months. I upgraded its 4GB default ram to 8GB of the GSkill ram. Its been perfectly fine up till about a week ago.

Sometimes my MBP will freeze, and the spinning beach ball will occur for times upto 10 sec. I know its not alot, but it gets annoying. Scrolling down webpages randomly starts to skip, and then after getting annoyed and try scrolling again, the beach ball occurs.

I notice it happens alot when something else happens. Ex) I have a video importing into iMovie and while its importing, I will go surf the web. After it imports, the iMovie icon in my dock starts bouncing up and down, which alot of the times freezes my comp again.

Im worried it might be the RAM craping out...but maybe a restore will fix it?

If I do have to restore, how should I save my important files? I dont have my comp backed up entirely, just have some files backed up. But applications such as Photoshop, iLife 11, and the Microsoft Suite are not backed up. If I put these apps onto a seperate hardrive, can I just import them into my MBP easily, or do I have to redownload the software again?

ANy help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Erasmus]

How much hard disk space do you have free?

If you find the system install DVD that came with your computer, you can run a hardware test to check your RAM and other bits and pieces.

 

[Hydrocity]

How much hard disk space do you have free?

If you find the system install DVD that came with your computer, you can run a hardware test to check your RAM and other bits and pieces.

I have 300GB out of 500GB.

I will try that test tom morning, thanks.

 

[tekksan]

I have 300GB out of 500GB.

I will try that test tom morning, thanks.

Did you upgrade the RAM when you got it 7 months ago or recently? You could take out one 4 gig stick and use the laptop for a few days to see if the problem still occurs, if it does, swap the RAM stick for the other one and see if there is still an issue.

I will say whenever I've had issues like that are system wide (e.g. not attributable to a specific application) it usually indicates a hard drive getting ready to fail. You could check the SMART status of the drive via the Disk Utility and see what that shows though it is not 100% reliable. You could also drive "Repair/Verify Disk/Permissions" (also found in Disk Utility) and see if that does anything.

 

[Detrius]

Bad RAM won't cause spinning beach balls, and this is not the same as a freeze, where the mouse stops moving. Yes, your system is momentarily unresponsive, but it's not frozen.

Open Console and look at /var/log/kernel.log. You'll likely see "disk0s2: I/O error" every time your system stops responding, and this generally means your hard drive is failing.

Using Disk Utility or Disk Warrior to check the SMART status is completely unreliable. From my experience, these utilities don't fail the drive until it's too late, which defeats the purpose of having them.


Repairing permissions or the directory structure will do absolutely nothing good in this case. Voodoo, fairy dust, pixie dust, and unicorns' blood will all work just as well. Except, if you have a bad hard drive, attempting to repair the directory structure could make it worse.

 

[Hydrocity]

Did you upgrade the RAM when you got it 7 months ago or recently? You could take out one 4 gig stick and use the laptop for a few days to see if the problem still occurs, if it does, swap the RAM stick for the other one and see if there is still an issue.

I will say whenever I've had issues like that are system wide (e.g. not attributable to a specific application) it usually indicates a hard drive getting ready to fail. You could check the SMART status of the drive via the Disk Utility and see what that shows though it is not 100% reliable. You could also drive "Repair/Verify Disk/Permissions" (also found in Disk Utility) and see if that does anything.

I bought my MBP with 4GB of ram, then I upgraded it to 8GB around November. I have not tried putting back the 4GB ram yet, although if I dont need to, I would rather not.

Hardrive failing? Thats not good. I guess I should back up my computer then. Like my previous post said, should I back up my APP folder? Can I just drag them back into a new hardrive if I get one, or is it a waste since I would need to redownload the apps.

The quote under this says not to do those tests, so Im unsure whether to do it or not.

Bad RAM won't cause spinning beach balls, and this is not the same as a freeze, where the mouse stops moving. Yes, your system is momentarily unresponsive, but it's not frozen.

Open Console and look at /var/log/kernel.log. You'll likely see "disk0s2: I/O error" every time your system stops responding, and this generally means your hard drive is failing.

Using Disk Utility or Disk Warrior to check the SMART status is completely unreliable. From my experience, these utilities don't fail the drive until it's too late, which defeats the purpose of having them.


Repairing permissions or the directory structure will do absolutely nothing good in this case. Voodoo, fairy dust, pixie dust, and unicorns' blood will all work just as well. Except, if you have a bad hard drive, attempting to repair the directory structure could make it worse.

What is console? I tried a spotlight search and nothing came up.

 

[tekksan]

I bought my MBP with 4GB of ram, then I upgraded it to 8GB around November. I have not tried putting back the 4GB ram yet, although if I dont need to, I would rather not.

Hardrive failing? Thats not good. I guess I should back up my computer then. Like my previous post said, should I back up my APP folder? Can I just drag them back into a new hardrive if I get one, or is it a waste since I would need to redownload the apps.

The quote under this says not to do those tests, so Im unsure whether to do it or not.



What is console? I tried a spotlight search and nothing came up.

If you still have AppleCare, I suggest you set up an appointment with a Genius and have them check it out. Also, you might want to invest in an external USB drive and do a Time Machine backup to it. If you have to get a new hard disk, having a time machine backup will make it very easy to get your machine going again.

 

[Hydrocity]

If you still have AppleCare, I suggest you set up an appointment with a Genius and have them check it out. Also, you might want to invest in an external USB drive and do a Time Machine backup to it. If you have to get a new hard disk, having a time machine backup will make it very easy to get your machine going again.

I might have to make an appt. I have a external 250GB drive so Ill try to use that. The only thing is, last time I tried to use it with time machine, it wanted to wipe the drive. Theres some other important files on there, so is there anyway to use the time machine on the drive while it has other files on it?

 

[tekksan]

I might have to make an appt. I have a external 250GB drive so Ill try to use that. The only thing is, last time I tried to use it with time machine, it wanted to wipe the drive. Theres some other important files on there, so is there anyway to use the time machine on the drive while it has other files on it?

Hmm...I don't think time machine formats the drive or anything (unless it isn't MAC formatted already.) How big are the files? If they aren't too big, you could copy them to a dropbox account or something (2GB free).

 

[Hydrocity]

Hmm...I don't think time machine formats the drive or anything (unless it isn't MAC formatted already.) How big are the files? If they aren't too big, you could copy them to a dropbox account or something (2GB free).

I dont think they are very big. I might just try to find a usb stick or something for them. Or just use dropbox or something.