So my machine ran fine for 2 yrs. Then I started hearing crackling or a fan noise, caused comp to get hot, but never a problem other than annoyance of the sound, sounded like it was frying in there. It seem to do this while playing video or streaming. I thought Hard Drive was going south. Ran machine another 6 months, then found an apple guy who refurbs. I had him bump my Ram from 512 to 1.5. He also installed a used Toshiba 100GB HD along with all the latest and greatest Lep 10.5.6 with Life and office 2008. He could not duplicate the issue of crackling. So, I get home with computer and notice I get the beach ball spinning quite often, sometimes a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, very annoying and the crackling was still there. I decide to run disk utility, repair permissions then erase free space with the x's and o's. Did this several times with 1 pass feature. Tried a 7 pass, but was taking waaaaaay too long(about 1week) before it would finish, so after 14 hours, i decided to skip. I ran the single pass one more time and the machine appeared to be working fine. This lasted 2 weeks until recently I have been getting the beach ball of death quite often again. Kinda like before, sometimes a few seconds or minutes, but now with a freeze that ends with a grey screen telling me to "hold power button for a few seconds to shut down", and in 4 different languages. So I have tried to run the disk utility again, it allows me to run repair permissions, but EVERY time I try and run a single pass to erase free space, it goes in this order, erasing free space for a couple minutes, quickly followed by creating temp folder, then freeze and telling me to hold power button to shut down. I also hear clicks and clunks from drive that does not sound healthy. I never have a problem rebooting, everything come back up fine, but beach ball spins are driving me crazy.
So anyway, I am in worse shape than before I started, story of my life, but I am curious what could be causing this. I have pulled battery and reset power options by holding power button for 5 seconds and the comp appears to be running better as far as no beach ball spinning, but the disk utility problem remains. I am going to contact my guy and ask if he can replace this with another HD, or fix this, but I just wanted to see if it was a silly fix I could do myself first. I appreciate you reading and thanks ahead for any replies. Thank you.... Joe
So anyway, I am in worse shape than before I started, story of my life, but I am curious what could be causing this. I have pulled battery and reset power options by holding power button for 5 seconds and the comp appears to be running better as far as no beach ball spinning, but the disk utility problem remains. I am going to contact my guy and ask if he can replace this with another HD, or fix this, but I just wanted to see if it was a silly fix I could do myself first. I appreciate you reading and thanks ahead for any replies. Thank you.... Joe
