What's wrong with my MBP?

[SephirothXR]

I'm getting the beachball frequently when using Safari and Microsoft Office. At times the beachball doesn't go away for even 1-2 hours, so now I have to frequently hold the power button to reset it. Sometimes when I reset it and get to the start up screen, I see a circle with a line through it (like a DO NOT DO THIS sign) instead of the Apple logo. Apple wants to charge me money to walk me through troubleshooting steps. I can't find/think of any program running in the background that would be slowing it down. Why might my computer be slowing down? It's a 1 year old 13" MBP..

ALSO, how do I defragment my harddrive?

 

[kny3twalker]

call and make an appointment for in store service or to have it shipped to apple.
It sounds like a hardware issue, which is not fixable really via forum advice.

 

[Pixellated]

You cannot defragment a Mac as they do not need it. Also, how old is your Mac? Just you say 1 year and that may mean in or out of warranty. If it is in warranty, take it to an Apple store and get it looked at and then buy Applecare.

 

[davidlv]

You cannot defragment a Mac as they do not need it.

That is rather confusing for the original poster, and not exactly correct. Of course you can defragment a Mac, using iDefrag or Disk Genius, or by copying the files to another, empty, HD, but in most cases it is not necessary at all as the OS will defragment smaller files on the run, forgot the actual size limitation, but it is something like 20MB or so. Some professionals working with large video files will copy their work files to an empty HD just to defrag them on occasion. (I personally think this is not necessary for the work I do)

 

[SephirothXR]

I have 15 days on my warranty luckily, though the nearest Apple store is 2 hours away.. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I'll have to pay to get something like AppleCare. Microsoft actually helped me with my PC 2 years after I bought it, and I bought a MBP for the whole reason of avoiding the problems that I'm experiencing now. I understand that all PCs will experience problems, but to almost getting to the state of completely broken down less than a year after I bought it is perplexing to say the least.

 

[Bankaimadness]

I have 15 days on my warranty luckily, though the nearest Apple store is 2 hours away.. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I'll have to pay to get something like AppleCare. Microsoft actually helped me with my PC 2 years after I bought it, and I bought a MBP for the whole reason of avoiding the problems that I'm experiencing now. I understand that all PCs will experience problems, but to almost getting to the state of completely broken down less than a year after I bought it is perplexing to say the least.

Yup most people buy their macs for quality and look how Apple has screw them.

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

I have 15 days on my warranty luckily, though the nearest Apple store is 2 hours away.. I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I'll have to pay to get something like AppleCare. Microsoft actually helped me with my PC 2 years after I bought it, and I bought a MBP for the whole reason of avoiding the problems that I'm experiencing now. I understand that all PCs will experience problems, but to almost getting to the state of completely broken down less than a year after I bought it is perplexing to say the least.

It's probably the HD. Of course you have to pay for additional warranty. That's why it's called additional.

 

[blunderboy]

Sounds like a hard drive problem. If a Mac shows you the international "no" sign on startup, it usually means that Mac OS X can't recognise the hard drive for whatever reason. If possible, take it to the Apple Store to get it looked at, as it's under warranty. Otherwise, you might have to spend around $200 to get the hard drive replaced. (I've had this happen to me—with an iBook, not a MBP, though—and I had to pay $200 to get the HDD replaced.)

 

[elpmas]

i use onyx