[2008 MBP] Computer unresponsive, possible overheat??? Need advice!

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Hi all, i have a 2008 MBP intel machine with 6GB RAM running Lion. I have started to experience some issues with the computer hanging after opening certain programs while opening others are still fine. I didn't think much of it until today....

I was hooked up to a monitor today using the DVI port and granted i was doing a lot on the computer today. I had virtual box running while using excel, Firefox, activity monitor etc at the same time. I put 6GB of ram on this computer so RAM wise there was still over a gig free( not wired bur totally free).

After a while i had to restart the machine a couple of times because programs were simply not responding and i couldn't even force quit them or perform any other actions on the computer( the dreaded beachball). And whenever i open up the activity monitor to see what was going on the machine always brought me back to the hanging program window. So couldn't even force quit. The computer wouldn't' respond to anything. I also use SMC fan control to monitor my computer temp and noticed that in the heat of the problems occurring the temp was at around 85 degrees C. After one of the restarts i was able to get the activity monitor to open and noticed that simple processes( i was using remote desktop connect at the time) with firefox open that it was using almost 100% of the CPU. I was thinking my HD was going but once i saw the CPU usage i began to question that idea. Any help would be great.

Do you think the computer overheated and wasn't' able to operate? Or would it shut down. Im on the computer now and things seem ok but i didn't open anything else because i wanted to get this post off lol.

Do macs shut down if they overheat or beep or anything?

Any advice would really help because right now im at a loss for what to do....
 

chscag

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Your machine is naturally going to heat up with 100% of the CPU being consumed. Can you tell from your Activity Monitor what's using the CPU to that extent?

And yes, if the machine heats up to the point where cooling can't keep up, the thermal sensors will shut it down.
 
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To my knowledge i couldn't find a direct source to the CPU usage. That's why i figured that the laptop was just too hot to operate properly? I definitely push my laptop with with multitasking, but i have never encountered a problem like this and always track my memory and CPU usage very closely to make sure i stay with in limits. Do you think this could be related to the heat and the sensors didn't shut the laptop off so it just tried to push through the heat? But last i checked 85 degrees C is not like deathly hot for computers. Im really at a loss for what may have happened.

I also ran the repair permissions checks and the repair disk check...The permissions repaired a couple but nothing un fixable and the repair disk check came back with no problems. I also noticed that finder was indexing several times and that's odd as well. Im at total loss for what went on :(
 
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was doing a little more investigation this morning. I booted the machine up and let it load for 2-3 mins after startup to make sure to it loaded everything start up. I then clicked a program called cyberduck. For those that dont' know this is a simple FTP client program, not much too it. When i clicked it the CPU jumped up to 60% usage from the user and totaled about 78%. It stayed like this for i would say just about a minute or more and the icon for cyberduck was in the dock bouncing the whole time. At one point it stopped bouncing and gave me the option to force quit. I didn't and eventually the program opened and operated normally from that point.

Does anyone have any idea as to what may be happening here? Do you think my CPU is going or is my HD in need of some defrag or maybe a new one all together.
 
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uninstall, download the current cyberduck disk image and reinstall. See if it continues.

I don't have an issue with cyberduck sucking up that much.
 
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uninstall, download the current cyberduck disk image and reinstall. See if it continues.

I don't have an issue with cyberduck sucking up that much.

Its not the specific program i tried as much as its something going on with the system. Not sure if you read my first post the my machine as a whole has been acting very strange as of lately. So much to the point that i created a backup of the entire HD because it made me thing the HD was gonna die out at any moment.

Im just trying to figure out if the problem is related to the CPU or the HD, because if its the CPU its new laptop time, but if its the HD id be more inclined to fix it.

I also ran a slew of repairs in onyx today praying that something will fix this. Because right before school starts i cant afford to have this baby go down :(
 

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