Please Help: All Browsers LOCKING UP iMac

[classicaliberal]

I have a 4 year old 24" iMac. It's still quite fast at iMovie, iPhoto, and just about everything else... but lately there's been a BIG problem.

It started with Safari. I'd notice that Safari would really slow things down. According to iStat the RAM and the Processors weren't being overly strained, but the machine would really slow down.

Then, it stopped slowing down and started to STOP everything. The iMac would grind to a complete Hault whenever Safari was started up. So, I switched to Chrome and that worked fine for a while, but starting last night, now Chrome has ground to a hault. I have to manually shut off the machine whenever this happens because the machine becomes completely unresponsive. In the event that I am able to force-quit the application, everything returns to normal. As a side note, last night spotlight was indexing my drive for some reason? Not sure if this is related, but thought I'd mention it. Also, I did try and uninstall Adobe Flash a few nights ago but the problem remains. Maybe I didn't get it uninstalled completely? Thought it was flash related, but now I'm not sure?

Any help would be much appreciated!!!

 

[geoffreak]

Pull up your disk usage with iStat and watch that. I used to have a problem with my MBP where something was writing to disk constantly causing my computer to run at 1/4 the speed.

You might also want to look into running Disk Utility to verify and repair the disk. There could be errors on it or it might be failing.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Does it also happen in another, even temporarily created, user account?
How much RAM do you have and what Mac OS X version do you use?

 

[zulkiflim]

Important ,, do you have Tech tool pro installed?

If you do dump it....

 

[classicaliberal]

Pull up your disk usage with iStat and watch that. I used to have a problem with my MBP where something was writing to disk constantly causing my computer to run at 1/4 the speed.

You might also want to look into running Disk Utility to verify and repair the disk. There could be errors on it or it might be failing.

I'll try iStat disk usage and see what shows up.
I did do the disk utility repair thing. No change.

Does it also happen in another, even temporarily created, user account?
How much RAM do you have and what Mac OS X version do you use?

I just logged in as a guest and the problem does not seem to be happening there. What are the implications here?

Important ,, do you have Tech tool pro installed?

If you do dump it....

Do not have that installed.

 

[aarond12]

Sounds like a browser plug-in got corrupted. Check your ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder since this is not affecting the guest account. If there's anything there, move the files to the trash and restart your browser.

 

[classicaliberal]

Pull up your disk usage with iStat and watch that. I used to have a problem with my MBP where something was writing to disk constantly causing my computer to run at 1/4 the speed.

I tried this but had an error come up which read "Could not load extra. iState Menus could not load drives extra."

Sounds like a browser plug-in got corrupted. Check your ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder since this is not affecting the guest account. If there's anything there, move the files to the trash and restart your browser.

I tried that, thought it was working, but alas... everything is still really slow.

 

[geoffreak]

Under Disk Utility, if you click on the drive and look at the bottom of the window, you should see something called "S.M.A.R.T. Status". What does this say?

Also, have you considered backing up your hard drive and starting with a fresh OSX install?

 

[classicaliberal]

Under Disk Utility, if you click on the drive and look at the bottom of the window, you should see something called "S.M.A.R.T. Status". What does this say?

Also, have you considered backing up your hard drive and starting with a fresh OSX install?

It says 'verified'.

I'm starting to think a clean install is my only hope. This is infuriating! I can get Google Chome to work kinda... very slow most of the time, then sometimes it just locks up completely. I can't even open Safari without fear of the computer locking up and having to be forced to shut down by holding the power button. Other apps seem a bit slow, but the browsers are completely F'd!

 

[ezranm]

I had a similar problem with a macbook 2008. Turned out to be some bad sectors in the hard drive. It wasn't easy to figure out as the apple software couldn't find it. I did use a s.m.a.r.t. reporter program that kept saying there was some sort of problem. I wound up having to copy the hard drive almost file by file to a backup disc because time machine or any other method wouldn't work. It would get hung up and crash when it hit what I presumed was a damaged sector. A clean install didn't help. I replaced the hard drive and its as good as new.

 

[classicaliberal]

I had a similar problem with a macbook 2008. Turned out to be some bad sectors in the hard drive. It wasn't easy to figure out as the apple software couldn't find it. I did use a s.m.a.r.t. reporter program that kept saying there was some sort of problem. I wound up having to copy the hard drive almost file by file to a backup disc because time machine or any other method wouldn't work. It would get hung up and crash when it hit what I presumed was a damaged sector. A clean install didn't help. I replaced the hard drive and its as good as new.

I'm really starting to think this is the problem, exranm. I've tried to back up the HD unsuccessfully several times now... Going to try to do it file by file over the next few days. Any suggestions after that? Are there programs which can flag the broken sectors so they can be ignored or is the only solution to replace the hard drive?