I thought macs didn't freeze!

Ok so my mac has been acting up for a little while now and I have no idea. Obviously when I first bought my MBP, everything ran flawlessly... Now, it does and sometimes it doesn't.

It freezes up on me for no reason, but I can still move the mouse around just nothing is clickable or responds. Simply frozen. I have noticed that it does it more when I first open up the internet. It takes forever to load now and every time it starts up it always says, Application not responding, until it FINALLY opens. And then it is hit or miss on whether or not it will freeze. If it does, I have to hold down the power button to turn it off. Then turn it on like 5 more times before it will actually start up. Sometimes the screen just stays blue, and other times it gets to my desktop, but everything is already frozen. Any ideas on what could be going on? and where I should start trouble shooting? This is really starting to make me dislike my MBP! HELP!

First off, all computers freeze. Nothing prevents an operating system from freezing perfectly.

Alright, let's start with the basics. What are the specs of your MBP? What applications do you have installed and running when you notice the problem is particularly bad?

Apparently you were misinformed. It's a computer...

haha I know, but it's all the time now. Mac OS X 10.4.11 and it's primarily when it starts up and while running safari or after jumping back on my comp after it's not been used for a couple hours.

how full is your hard drive, when did you last perform any maintenance on it, do you ever let it run overnight so that it will automatically run periodic?

I like to reformat my computer about every 2 years.
I back up all the important things (files, music, videos etc)
Take note of my applications.
Pop the OSX disk in, whip, reinstall.
Computer is like new.
Put the important things back and install the applications.

I guess its a habit that i have from when i used PC's.

But a full hard drive can cause slow speeds, freeze/locks ups, definitely.

- Dont run alot of applications upon boot up.

- Dont use a ton of widgets.

- Try running a system maintenance program like Onyx.

Hmmm.. theres a few other tips out there that i'm forgetting to keep your computer speedy.

Periodic? And yeah there are times when it is on all the time day and night. And i have not really done any maintenance on it as I don't know what that maintenance is supposed to consist of... And I bought an external HD a while back for all my pics and music, so my HD on my mac is not too full. I've used 25g out of 75g

orcas1013 said:

If it does, I have to hold down the power button to turn it off.

Click to expand...

That, I suspect, is the source of your problem. Keep doing this, and I guarantee that your computer will be totally unusable in a few weeks.

Download MainMenu version 1.7.4 which is still free and run the various maintenance task. Also a little utility called Applejack will assist no end. Download, print the instructions, read them, and run Applejack auto restart in single user mode.

Don't worry about the fans taking off - that happens in single user mode.

http://mac.wareseeker.com/Utilities/mainmenu-1.7.4.zip/bcb7a249c

http://sourceforge.net/projects/applejack/

orcas1013 said:

Then turn it on like 5 more times before it will actually start up. Sometimes the screen just stays blue...

Click to expand...

If the screen is blue, leave it alone for a long while. That may be the system trying to fix it self. Apple really needs to give a feedback message when this occurs. Pressing the power button when the system is repairing problems can have undefined consequences.

Start up Disk Utility app in the Applications/Utilities folder, select the startup disk in the left pane, click on Verify Disk in the lower right corner. If you get errors back, then put in your DVD system disc and run Repair Disk on your startup drive by using by using the Disk Utility app available in the menu.

That first time you have Disk Utility open, you may also want to try running 'Repair Disk Permissions'.

If non of the above fixes your problem, then I recommend backing up and reinstalling OS X from scratch.

Thanks for the help everyone!