Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
spinning beachball hell
- Thread starter marly
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
What were you doing just before it crashed? What have you recently installed (hardware and software)? Is the computer starting up? Is it reacting at all or are you simply getting a beachball and no other response? 
it has been working fine, have not installed anything recently so dont think its that, the lastthing i was doing was burning some dvds as imovie is really full and i need to clear some memory, after start up the ball appears when the arrow hovers over the top right of the menu bar (where the time date battery etc is) then if iclick on anything it starts also my dock did not appear when i hovered over that,
How much free space do you have? If you open up Activity Monitor, is there a single process using a lot of resources (RAM and CPU) or is there one coloured red? Sorry for all the questions.
Forget Activity Monitor then. Do you know how much free space you have? It should be more than 8GB.
Maybe try running fsck to clean up the file system and ensure the hard drive is behaving itself. Of course, if you have less than 8GB of free space then don't worry about this part, just make some room and reboot.
If fsck does nothing, see if you can start up from the system disks.
Maybe try running fsck to clean up the file system and ensure the hard drive is behaving itself. Of course, if you have less than 8GB of free space then don't worry about this part, just make some room and reboot.
If fsck does nothing, see if you can start up from the system disks.
okay, i ran fsck and no problem appears there, i guess its the memory, the question is how do i clear some space considering the eternal beach ball, can i
do something during startup to get into it and trash files,
ps sorry got called away and thanks again for your help
do something during startup to get into it and trash files,
ps sorry got called away and thanks again for your help
mad jew said:
Why (if I may ask) should you have more than 8GB? I was under the assumption it's a good idea to have 30% of your total HD space free (in general) to keep things peppy, but any OS after 10.2 it doesn't really need that much free space compared to say Windows....
marly said:
Well, if you have another Mac then I strongly recommend using Target Disk Mode to make back ups and then clear up some space.
JDOG_ said:
OSX needs a lot of free space for swap files (Virtual RAM) and 8GB is a pretty good rule-of-thumb minimum. The amount of space needed is based on what you use the computer for and more specifically, the apps you use, rather than the total size of the hard drive which is why I recommend a flat 8GB of free space compared to a percentage of the original start up drive.
If you open up Activity Monitor, and look at the Virtual Memory size under the memory tab, you need at least a matching amount of free space.
Percentages are less reliable as guides considering the variation in HDD size. For instance, I would need to keep 36GB free using 30% as a guide. I've found that less than 5 or 6GB usually starts making things act strange on my PB.JDOG_ said:
I often see activity monitor reporting 6-10GB used in virtual memory, so madjew's advice makes sense to me.
can't believe MadJew hasn't suggested this already... (maybe it's of no possible benefit) but have you tried zapping the PRAM?
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
(maybe it's of no possible benefit) but have you tried zapping the PRAM?1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.
Try starting up from your Mac OS X install disk and running Permission Repair and Disk Repair from the Disk Utility app on the disk.
If you can find it, run the Hardware Test CD first. It's not the greatest set of utilities but it may help narrow things down. It'd be annoying to do a full reinstall, only to find out it was a bad RAM chip.