[atomised]

hey

so i thought perhaps i try this as a software issue first but it could well be hardware...

my 13" pb had been becoming more and more troublesome with beach balls appearing when waking from sleep, using web apps and generally hanging and being unresponsive with even the most basic of functions.

yesterday after another episode i force started and on restarting i attempted to login. password was entered...got to that awful space photo and then it goes back to blue screen and the login window again. i have since then been unable to get past this loop.

the interesting thing is a norton window pops up at this point (which is notifying me of my outdated snow leopard software), this message previously would appear when i had got to the desktop...so it's like its in desktop with the trapped in login phase.

i have force reset, reset pram all to no avail.

any thoughts on the next process before i roll the dice with apple care?

[64stang06]

Boot into safe mode and see if you can login that way.

Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Starting up in safe mode

[atomised]

Originally Posted by 64stang06 

Boot into safe mode and see if you can login that way.

Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Starting up in safe mode

thanks for the advice, i'm going to try this and see what happens. my concern has been that it seems like it was building to this...

[atomised]

so i'm in safe mode which is a huge improvement, thanks!

though advice on the process to ascertain the problem please!

[64stang06]

Go to System Preferences-->Accounts-->Login Items.

Anything associated with Norton, remove. Actually, while you're in safe mode, I would just run the uninstaller for Norton, restart normally and see if you can login that way.