Late 2008 MacBook Pro Freezing Daily

I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro that I've had since about December 2008. It keeps freezing on me, especially if I have a few windows up on Safari or am streaming video. It probably freezes once or twice a day. I installed Mountain Lion this summer and am wondering if I should revert back to an older OS X.

I back up my computer regularly with an external hard drive, it has plenty of space on the actual computer, I do regular checks and have used OnyX to test the system and it says everything is running normally.

I want to save myself a trip to the Apple Store because I don't know what can be done.

Any suggestions or tips?

Thanks a lot.

The freezing can be caused by hardware or software. It's best to test the hardware first. Boot to the ML recovery partition by holding down the command + r keys as soon as you hear the boot chime (bong!). Once in recovery, go to Disk Utility and do a verify on the hard drive. If it says the hard drive appears to be OK, the next thing to try is boot to safe mode. Reboot the computer but this time hold down the shift key when you hear the boot noise. That will put the machine into safe boot mode. Run that way for a bit to see if the freezing occurs.

Okay, so I did a hardware test and it says that the hard drives appears to be okay. Now I am in safe mode. What does safe mode do and how long should I stay in it? What are my next steps?

Thanks so much.

Safe mode eliminates most drivers of third party software and also kills off your audio but otherwise functional. See if you can work for awhile that way in order to test whether or not the freezing will occur. Let us know and we'll go from there. Next step would be to run the Apple Hardware Test.

Great. So I haven't had any freezing occur since I've been using my computer in safe mode, which is a good sign. Most of the freezing would occur when I was streaming video or music, which I can't do in safe mode anyway. What would you recommend I do next?

Turn off the computer and run the Apple Hardware Test:
Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test

I wonder if it's because I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro and I have 10.8 OS X installed. Would any of you suggest reverting back to an earlier OS? If so, which?

Thanks!

You can always revert back to a previous version of OS X, for example Snow Leopard, but it means you'll have to do a clean install.