Hello! I've been encountering a strange issue since about three updates back on my system, and I'm wondering if anybody could help me out.
I'm fairly new to Mac - I just got one late July/early August. I had to order via telephone as we really don't have any shoppes that would support a Mac where I live. That said, it's making it increasingly hard for me to get help about this issue.
I have a 500GB harddrive and 4GB RAM that came with my Mac, and I have changed absolutely nothing about that. I don't consider myself 'tech'-y enough to open up my computer and play with its insides, and the HD space is more than enough for my needs. The only things I've put on the Mac since its purchase have been Kaspersky antivirus (I am aware that Mac brags about its lack of viruses, but I'd rather be protected just in case), Mozilla Firefox as a secondary browser (Safari is lovely, but not supported on my online banking's website), and my Spore game, which I have been told and have read in its user guide is fully supported by Mac.
Three updates ago, as I said to restart my computer, I began to encounter a freezing issue. It applies to all applications. It used to be that when I would shut down my Mac, it would be immediate after hitting the apple in the upper left-hand corner and selecting shut-down, and restarting was as fast as opening my lid, and hitting the power button.
Now, my Mac will not power down if I ask it to. When trying to power-down, it says something about updating a cache. I kept it on this screen for over three hours in hopes of it turning off. When it would not, I quickly hit the power button, and selected the 'shut down' option. It continued to stay on just my background (the typical, pretty purple blast Mac background) - nothing else.
I wound up having to hold down the power button to shut it off, which is not something I like to do.
When I turned it back on, my Mac was freezing so poorly I couldn't even use it to search for any answers online. I couldn't check battery life, use force quit, open my Macintosh HD, or anything. I got what my friends are affectionately calling the "pinwheel of doom" for anywhere upwards of fifteen minutes trying to do anything with my Mac. I tried to shut it down (the menu to do so took over a half hour to appear), and when I was finally able to select shut-down, it would not do so. I blamed the freezing, and kept trying... after four hours, I unplugged my Mac and let the battery die to shut it off.
When I got back on two days later, figuring I'd given it enough time to recover from what I had originally assumed was just a large update, I realised the problem was not resolved. I was still freezing. This time, it fixed itself and I was relatively fine for a few days, until I did the next update and again, during a restart for these updates, my Mac refused to shut down. Again, I let it drain its battery to shut off, and came back to it freezing later.
It fixed itself for approximately two days before freezing solid. Nothing I did could get a reaction sooner than fifteen or more minutes later. I realised the airport had also hopped onto my neighbour's network instead of staying on my own. My Mac has ceased freezing today, after another 36 hours of freezing and acting up, and I'm still too terrified to touch Safari (I am currently using Firefox) as opening a new tab on Safari would end any progress I had made during these previous sessions.
Putting my Mac to sleep or leaving it on and plugged in, however, does not cause the freezing issue - only trying to power down.
Was there something corrupt in those updates? Is it being resolved? I'm really at a loss for what to do - if I want to take advantage of my warranty, there are no authorised dealers within a minimum of a thirteen hour radius, potentially more.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
P.S. I have never used my Time Machine, so I don't have any back-ups generated. I realise now this was a poor decision on my part.
The only other things I can think of having were a few pictures I had taken off of my friends facebook to put on a flash drive - I deleted them and cleared all my internet histories, caches, and cookies off of both Safari and Firefox in desperation.
I should mention that iTunes, since I wanted to start using it for a few CD's, also does not work anymore. I know it did previously, as I had opened it to charge my iPod (which had things from another computer, but I had brought nothing over to this one yet).
I'm also not 100% certain if this is hardware or software, so I apologise if I'm in the wrong forum!
I'm fairly new to Mac - I just got one late July/early August. I had to order via telephone as we really don't have any shoppes that would support a Mac where I live. That said, it's making it increasingly hard for me to get help about this issue.
I have a 500GB harddrive and 4GB RAM that came with my Mac, and I have changed absolutely nothing about that. I don't consider myself 'tech'-y enough to open up my computer and play with its insides, and the HD space is more than enough for my needs. The only things I've put on the Mac since its purchase have been Kaspersky antivirus (I am aware that Mac brags about its lack of viruses, but I'd rather be protected just in case), Mozilla Firefox as a secondary browser (Safari is lovely, but not supported on my online banking's website), and my Spore game, which I have been told and have read in its user guide is fully supported by Mac.
Three updates ago, as I said to restart my computer, I began to encounter a freezing issue. It applies to all applications. It used to be that when I would shut down my Mac, it would be immediate after hitting the apple in the upper left-hand corner and selecting shut-down, and restarting was as fast as opening my lid, and hitting the power button.
Now, my Mac will not power down if I ask it to. When trying to power-down, it says something about updating a cache. I kept it on this screen for over three hours in hopes of it turning off. When it would not, I quickly hit the power button, and selected the 'shut down' option. It continued to stay on just my background (the typical, pretty purple blast Mac background) - nothing else.
I wound up having to hold down the power button to shut it off, which is not something I like to do.
When I turned it back on, my Mac was freezing so poorly I couldn't even use it to search for any answers online. I couldn't check battery life, use force quit, open my Macintosh HD, or anything. I got what my friends are affectionately calling the "pinwheel of doom" for anywhere upwards of fifteen minutes trying to do anything with my Mac. I tried to shut it down (the menu to do so took over a half hour to appear), and when I was finally able to select shut-down, it would not do so. I blamed the freezing, and kept trying... after four hours, I unplugged my Mac and let the battery die to shut it off.
When I got back on two days later, figuring I'd given it enough time to recover from what I had originally assumed was just a large update, I realised the problem was not resolved. I was still freezing. This time, it fixed itself and I was relatively fine for a few days, until I did the next update and again, during a restart for these updates, my Mac refused to shut down. Again, I let it drain its battery to shut off, and came back to it freezing later.
It fixed itself for approximately two days before freezing solid. Nothing I did could get a reaction sooner than fifteen or more minutes later. I realised the airport had also hopped onto my neighbour's network instead of staying on my own. My Mac has ceased freezing today, after another 36 hours of freezing and acting up, and I'm still too terrified to touch Safari (I am currently using Firefox) as opening a new tab on Safari would end any progress I had made during these previous sessions.
Putting my Mac to sleep or leaving it on and plugged in, however, does not cause the freezing issue - only trying to power down.
Was there something corrupt in those updates? Is it being resolved? I'm really at a loss for what to do - if I want to take advantage of my warranty, there are no authorised dealers within a minimum of a thirteen hour radius, potentially more.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
P.S. I have never used my Time Machine, so I don't have any back-ups generated. I realise now this was a poor decision on my part.
The only other things I can think of having were a few pictures I had taken off of my friends facebook to put on a flash drive - I deleted them and cleared all my internet histories, caches, and cookies off of both Safari and Firefox in desperation.
I should mention that iTunes, since I wanted to start using it for a few CD's, also does not work anymore. I know it did previously, as I had opened it to charge my iPod (which had things from another computer, but I had brought nothing over to this one yet).
I'm also not 100% certain if this is hardware or software, so I apologise if I'm in the wrong forum!
