[cheeryble]

Hi there I need some help please.

I have a Macbook running 10.4.11.
Last month I upped the RAM and it is now maxxed out at 2 gb. Things were fast and clean. I installed Virtualbox a while ago and it runs Windows faultlessly.

Just the last few days I have been getting the spinning beachball, reminiscent of my old iBook when it couldn't keep up. It sticks around for an annoying amount of time......can be minutes.....and often freezes things up all round.....often cannot close other apps than the one I'm in down.

I never had this before, it is definitely a change with a cause.

Apart from Virtualbox I haven't been using anything terribly onerous.
I added Macspeech a month ago which is quite meaty but this didn't start in any way obviously related to that. I have plenty of HD space. I have had the beachball without Virtualbox open.
It can happen in any app, or, like now, not happen.

Can anyone suggest some sort of cleanup procedure?
thanks v much indeed
Cheeryble

[ibook_steve]

Welcome to the forums!

Open up Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Click on the "CPU" column header to organize processes by % CPU use. Let us know if there is anything that is eating up your CPU.

Steve

[cheeryble2]

Thanks Steve

Afraid i seem to be locked out so have started as Cheeryble 2.

I might add that half the time things work crisp and fast. Then I will get a minute clam up every couple of minutes. Grrr.

Here's a snapshot of the activity you requested.

Oh oh.
I can't see how to add an attachment.

Firefox is using about 20%-30%+
Next is the Activity Monitor itself at a couple of %.
Ahh! Interesting. I just had the beachball for a while. Twice.
I checked the Activity and Firefox had gone red and to 0%.

Hmmmm??

thanks for the quick reply
John

[cheeryble2]

Steve I tried opening Safari also.
What was odd was that Safari after a fluster of acticity went back to a low percent when it was inactive whilst Firefox seems to be staying up in the 25%+ area even when left alone with nothing happening.

....after another beachball spell the Firefox % is low at about 4% + or -.
Safari would go up as far as the 60% range with a couple of u tube downloads going concurrently as a test, but usually much lower.

Very late here in Chiangmai Thailand I'll look for your reply tomorrow.

goodnight
Cheeryble

[cheeryble2]

I have made some progress in my quest to solve this, and learned a lot doing it.

I have installed applejack and checked all permissions etc.
I have done a hardware test with a control D start....it says OK.

Still i had the problem. Ten minutes in beachball time. And again. And again.

I went to Maczone Chiangmai and the guy favoured a RAM, HD or mainboard problem which he would spend some time checking by sequential isolation.
As it would be a couple of days I took things into my own hands.
I had upgraded the RAM a month ago, but still had my old sticks.
Last night I replaced them back again and am down to total 1gb.

THat is part of the purpose of this post, apart from perhaps getting more input.
Strangely it seemed that the beachball would often start spinning when I was either typing in anything or playing around in the finder window (does that use resources? I wouldn't have thought so). Is this a clue?

So far I have been undisturbed by the freeze ups whilst typing here, so it looks as if the RAM may be something to do with it.
The one thing I'm thinking is that when he put the faster RAM in, at first it wouldn't connect and work, the same happened when I replaced back the RAM yesterday, the slower RAM also took a bit of fiddling to make connect properly.
It seems to me a good course of action is to run this RAM another day and double check it's OK. Then replace to the faster RAM again, and see how that goes.

Then the question will be, is the new KVR667D2S5-1G Kingston RAM matched to the Macbook? it seemed to work just fine until the problem started a couple of weeks later.

cheers john

[Big Mac]

Pull the RAM and see if the problem continues because it's possible that the RAM is the culprit. When you're experiencing a strange problem that you can't figure out, taking the computer back to its hardware defaults is a good place to start troubleshooting.

[cheeryble2]

OK more information

Changing back to the 2x512 RAM (strangely to me) worked just fine for about 24 hours. Now it pinwheels up regularly just the same as with the 2x1028.

I have re-applejacked, hardware tested etc and PRammed.

Now my question is, bearing in mind I prefer not to give it to Apple (things can be very slow in Thailand) and would have nothing to use (if intermittently) for possibly some time, shall I do an update to 10.5? (I just got my first large ext HD.) Is it possible this could cure things?

cheers John

Strangely after PRAMming I am writing OK here. And it is writing in boxes like I'm doing now that seems most likely to set off the freeze-ups. Could there be something in my system that could affect both types of RAM in the same malicious way? (of course this could slow up any minute)

[Cold Warrior]

You could try. Since you have a large external HD, you should install Leopard onto it then boot from that HD to see how your machine works with a clean Leopard install.

[cheeryble2]

Thanks CW

I just slotted the 10.5 install disk and tried through disk utility to send it to my WD 1TB HD which I had partitioned 8 ways (My first time). I then intended to try booting from there. Seemed to be going OK then after a half hour I got a message saying

restore failure-could not restore-input/output error

Can anyone enlighten me about this. I don't even know what it means

cheers Cheeryble

[Big Mac]

It's a vague error that could point to a few different hardware culprits. I'd first suspect the hard drive, then the installation disc, then perhaps the RAM and the SATA controller, in that order, but it's really hard to say. It's obviously a hardware issue of some sort.

[Cold Warrior]

What is the partition scheme on the external drive, APM or GUID? To find out open Disk Utility, click on the external drive (the top-level one, not the partitions themselves) and look at the bottom of Disk Utility's window for 'Partition Map Scheme'. It should say 'GUID Partition Table'.

[cheeryble2]

Big Mac:

It's obviously a hardware issue of some sort.

Which seems odd to me as I've started noticing the beginnings of a pattern. Apart from often starting to freeze when I'm typing in a box (though happily not now) it happens (not always) very specifically when I've opened a new finder window, clicked from Macbook to Applications, then try to scroll down towards utilities to open disk utility. It is a slight moment after I start scrolling that it freezes, with the blue scroll slider just a mm or two from the top. This has happened at exactly the same spot at least a half dozen times. I can't seem to reconcile that with hardware but then my expertise is in other areas..........can you?

Cold Warrior

What is the partition scheme on the external drive, APM or GUID?

I seem to remember asking to make the partition GUID however here's what it says:

Partition Scheme : Master Boot Record

I also notice the first partition on which I attempted to place 10.5 is now "unmounted" and no longer called "10.5 clean" but "disk 2s1". More confused than ever but willing to learn :-)

In case the install disk I used was dodgy I think I may try to copy my old 10.4 install disk in the next partition. Good idea?

Once again I'm really grateful for you both sticking with me.....

Cheeryble

ps: I have just tried another suggestion. Opened a new user acct. and started from that. It went OK for the short while i was there but then again so is this, my regular acct, right now. Though actually when I came back i had the blue slider clamming up 2 mm from the top whilst heading down to Utilities EXACTLY the same again!!!

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by cheeryble2 

Big Mac:

Which seems odd to me as I've started noticing the beginnings of a pattern. Apart from often starting to freeze when I'm typing in a box (though happily not now) it happens (not always) very specifically when I've opened a new finder window, clicked from Macbook to Applications, then try to scroll down towards utilities to open disk utility. It is a slight moment after I start scrolling that it freezes, with the blue scroll slider just a mm or two from the top. This has happened at exactly the same spot at least a half dozen times. I can't seem to reconcile that with hardware but then my expertise is in other areas..........can you?

When you're listing items on the hard drive, you're (obviously) reading off of the hard drive. Perhaps you've got a bad "catalog" and it's freezing when hitting a bad sector in the catalog. DiskWarrior may be able to clear that up for you, but the problem may be a failing hard drive, and DiskWarrior would just mask the problem for awhile.