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Serious Problems with my laptop!

A

Applexilef

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 3, 2004
127
0
Please help me!

I bought a 14in iBook in January 2004. I have been marveled at the quality and features of my laptop, never had a problem, not until now.

All of a sudden, and I really mean all of sudden. It freezes to a point where I can do nothing but shut it down and restart. When I restart it, I'll get lucky if it boots correctly, other times it will work fine for 10 mins before crashing again. Keep in mind all this happened for the first time yesterday while I was watching an episode of Fifth Gear that I had downloaded online. From then on, I've had no luck in doing much to my laptop

So what can I do, why did this happen to me all of a sudden? My only thought is a hardware problem, but my computer does work for a certain period of time.

My laptop battery barely lasts 15 min. because it's been used so much (I was in the process of getting one), so I have to keep my computer plugged in whenever I use it. I believe this has nothing to do with the event though

Any thoughts?
 
Back everything up because I agree with Lacero in that it sounds like a failing hard drive. Hopefully it's bad RAM though because that's cheaper and easier to replace.

By the way, have you tried reinstalling your OS? If it is a software problem, then maybe a fresh install will help. Either way, make sure everything's backed up as always. :)
 
Well. I guess I'll buy an external hard drive, transfer some stuff over and then take it somewhere where they can fix apple computers. The Genius bar at the apple store can help me, right?

Thanks guys
 
If you have AppleCare, you got a TechTools disk that should help you check for hardware problems.

It could be bad RAM, but I don't think so.

How much free space do you have left on your harddrive?
 
I've tried booting it up and for the last 20 tries I haven't been able to load it up to the main screen of Mac OSX. All I get is a very dark spot of blue that kinda morphs around the screen right after I turn it on.

THIS SUCKS!
 
Also, is there any key that I can press right after I turn it on to see if I can access some features or something? I have an external hard drive hanging around and I'd like to put my data in there!
 
Hard drive failure..

Same thing happened to me...and there was NOTHING I could do to mount the internal hard drive to transfer the data.

Thankfully, I had backed up recently...but (and I am really sorry about this) if you have not...you are most likely out of luck...
 
iBooks just aren't made like the PowerBooks are.

My friend had this problem with his 14" iBook.

My 12" PB has never crashed and continues to work flawlessly.

It's becoming a rule of thumb... if you're thinking about a 14" iBook, it's better to get a 12" PB... I actually find the smaller size nicer and they don't have the flaws that the iBooks have.

Daniel
 
So appleretailguy, how did you end up fixing your computer? Did they swap out the hard drive for you?

Oh, and I had 21.76 Gb of space left
 
BurtonCCC said:
iBooks just aren't made like the PowerBooks are.

My friend had this problem with his 14" iBook.

My 12" PB has never crashed and continues to work flawlessly.

It's becoming a rule of thumb... if you're thinking about a 14" iBook, it's better to get a 12" PB... I actually find the smaller size nicer and they don't have the flaws that the iBooks have.

Daniel
Click to expand...

That's not right at all dude, the pb's have just as many if not more problems than the iBook line does...
 
I had this problem too. I would get beachballs and everything would lock up. The hard drive went nuts... and I kept hearing loud clicking noises from the left side of the computer. I checked Disk Utility and the hard drive status was verified. I used the hardware test CD and it said the hard drive was done. I was soooo upset. I turned my computer off for about an hour... (because it would no longer turn on... hard drive would spin up then down) and I told my sister that my computer broke. She was like "No way...." im like "Yep, watch" so i turned on the power button... and it booted up like normal. since then it has been fine. just do some back up and hope the problem doesnt get worse or that it goes away.
 
ITASOR said:
That's not right at all dude, the pb's have just as many if not more problems than the iBook line does...
Click to expand...

Well maybe it's just the way I respect my computer in comparison to my buddy. I use torrents instead of LimeWire and crap like that, but I don't know where you're getting that PowerBooks have as many or more problems. I don't think I've ever heard of a PowerBook problem aside from the hard drive not stopping spinning... maybe I'm just extremely carefull in respecting my machine, but I haven't had a single problem with mine and neither have any of the 5+ friends of mine that have them... yet every person I know with an iBook has come to me asking what the heck is going on...

You have to admit... my person experience allows me to have that opinion, but remember, it's just an opinion.

Daniel
 
BurtonCCC, remember that a person who spends the extra money to get a PowerBook will probably look after their laptop better and, considering they are obviously very serious about their machine, they may even look after it better and have a slightly better knowledge of what's good for it. In other words, the higher price may cut out some relative computing n00bs.

Of course, this isn't directed at your iBook-owning friends and I myself have an iBook so I like to think this isn't the rule, but rather a very general theory. :)

Applexilef, is there another Mac you could use to start up in Target Disk Mode?
 
BurtonCCC said:
Well maybe it's just the way I respect my computer in comparison to my buddy. I use torrents instead of LimeWire and crap like that, but I don't know where you're getting that PowerBooks have as many or more problems. I don't think I've ever heard of a PowerBook problem aside from the hard drive not stopping spinning... maybe I'm just extremely carefull in respecting my machine, but I haven't had a single problem with mine and neither have any of the 5+ friends of mine that have them... yet every person I know with an iBook has come to me asking what the heck is going on...

You have to admit... my person experience allows me to have that opinion, but remember, it's just an opinion.

Daniel
Click to expand...

Still within probability.

No matter how well Apple builds their PBs, they still don't make their own harddisks, so it's not about build. They also use brand name HDs for both iBooks and PBooks. ;)
 
Yeah if the hard drive is the problem, which it seems to be, it's not the model of the computer that is the problem. My buddy who had this problem recently got a new one from Apple. If all else fails, just tell Apple the hard drive they put in it isn't functioning properly.

Daniel
 
Vote for hard drive failure...

BurtonCCC said:
Yeah if the hard drive is the problem, which it seems to be, it's not the model of the computer that is the problem. My buddy who had this problem recently got a new one from Apple. If all else fails, just tell Apple the hard drive they put in it isn't functioning properly.

Daniel
Click to expand...

My friend had an iBook G4 with the 30GB IBM hard drive. It failed once and was replaced under Apple's warranty. After the iBook was out of warranty, the hard drive failed AGAIN the same way. If you have a 30GB IBM hard drive, you might be experiencing the same failures she was experiencing.

We took the iBook apart (not for the faint-of-heart) and replaced the hard drive with a 40GB Fujitsu drive and haven't had the problem again.

-Aaron-
 
Applexilef said:
Also, is there any key that I can press right after I turn it on to see if I can access some features or something? I have an external hard drive hanging around and I'd like to put my data in there!
Click to expand...

Options for startup (hold down the key-combination listed to get into this option)

Boot Manager: option
Verbose Mode: ⌘-V
Single User Mode (also is verbose): ⌘-S
Open Firmware:⌘-option-O-F
Boot from Optical Drive: C
"Safe" Mode: shift

Here is a list of options to try when you just can't get MacOS X started (provided through Apple's own support page).
 
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