Why does my mac keep freezing?

Hello,

I just recently got the new imac 21.5 inch base model, and for some reason when I am just using it like you would do the little loading sign comes with no notice and the that colour wheel stays the and then eventually the wheel freezes and I have to turn of the computer by the power which is bad for it ( I think ). Any way would really like some help before it is to late!

Moved your thread to a more appropriate forum - this is not an Apple rumor or report.

This will likely be a good forum for most of your tech questions until you learn your way around the forum and your Mac.

Thanks for understanding.

Tell us more about your iMac. Click on the Apple in the upper left corner, then About This Mac and tell us the OSX version, processor, memory, etc. Also, what does "using it like you would" mean? What are you doing when it freezes? Remember, unlike Windows, the red X does NOT close the program, it just pushes it into the background, still running, so if you have lots of things running, taking up CPU and memory, then your iMac will get slower and slower in responding to you.

If it is new straight back for replacement.

it is an intel i5 quad core processor with 8g of ram and 1tb flash memory with NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512 MB and 1920X1080 pixels. and what i mean bye using as you would is either playing a game messaging, web surfing etc. normally when it happens it is at random and i know that you can right click on the icon on the dock and click "quit" and normally i have 1 or 2 programs open and 4 at the top ever. so could you help?

Well, your machine is fast enough and you have plenty of memory, so it shouldn't be showing the beach ball for either of them. That leaves your internet/network as a prime candidate. You said it's random, which is the worst condition to diagnose. Is there anything you do that triggers it? Opening mail, new website, etc? Unless you can make it happen when you want it to, even taking it back to the store for a genius to look at will be uncertain. The genius will ask you to make it happen.

But I will say that if it's new, and still within warranty, I'd think about taking it to them after eliminating the network/internet connection. You shouldn't be seeing beachballs.

I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed at times with my Macbook Pro 13” (mid 2012) as well. It has 4GB of RAM, i5, 2,5ghz and a 500 GB hard drive. I typically surf the web, have my mail open (Mail for Mac and Outlook) and thats about it.

I bought this Macbook Pro 3 months ago.

I am seeing more often the ”beach ball”, which at times happens when wanting to switch tabs going from Facebook to Youtube ... or to a site which is using Adobe Flash video. I know Flash and Mac aren't the biggest friends, but still.

My Outlook for Mac crashed 7 times today as an example. I dont have gigabytes of mail saved, and when I opened Outlook today it was downloading 20 emails, and whilst clicking on one, it would create an error (+ error report) asking me to restart Outlook. Without bashing Microsoft, the only programs that have been crashing are Outlook and Word.

I am planning though to buy an SSD hard disk (256GB) and to use the 500 GB hard drive as a place to save pictures/movies etc. In my opinion the Macbook Pro 13” that I have is sometimes on the slow side and sometimes just hanging without any reason. Perhaps I should consider upgrading the RAM as well.

In reply to your answer i took to my local apple store (the one i bought the imac from) the apple genius said that the mac had caught a virus or something like that and it was partly my falt because i did not have any protection but he also said that this was a faulty imac so he said come back in 3 days and if the problem is not fixed they will replace the imac. But i thought mac cant catch virus that quickly or easily? at the moment there are no "beach balls" because the genius did somethings on it i have no clue what he did but it seems to be working so hopefully its fixed but it is quite slow now in step of just freezing.

Thanks

Lol a world first a virus! Ring the press immediately and you got a scoop!

Max230999, I am surprised that an Apple genius would say that the problem is a virus. There are NO viruses in the wild that affect Macs. I am also surprised that he/she would have you keep the machine another three days to see if the beach balls reappear, as the machine is either good or not and he/she should have been able to test it there for you immediately. Are you sure this is a reputable and official Apple store? There are some counterfeit stores in some countries that sell counterfeit equipment.

Buc021, your problems, as you gave them, are all with Microsoft products or Flash, yet you say you are disappointed with the MBP because of them. That seems a bit unfair to Apple. Flash is simply awful as a product--hogs resources and has gaping security issues. I don't have it installed on any of my Macs. You may want to consider getting rid of it.

Give me the name of this Apple Store and I will get that guy fired tout suite. There is NO WAY an authorized Apple Genius would spray such ... um, bull pucky ... about viruses and protection and such and keep a job.

If you go back, INSIST on someone other than this idiot you encountered. He's doing WORSE than just not helping you, he's giving you misinformation that will complicate future use of the machine!

chas_m said:

Give me the name of this Apple Store and I will get that guy fired tout suite. There is NO WAY an authorized Apple Genius would spray such ... um, bull pucky ... about viruses and protection and such and keep a job.

If you go back, INSIST on someone other than this idiot you encountered. He's doing WORSE than just not helping you, he's giving you misinformation that will complicate future use of the machine!

Click to expand...

If he would have said possible Malware I would not fault him as there are a couple of trojans, but saying a full out Virus and telling him to buy protection is strange for an Apple Genius to say.

The beach ball has repaired and i am going to take it back today and get a new one, and i am just as confused as you are about the genius guy he may been a trainer or something and i just followed his instructions and if he does not give me another imac i will take matters in to my own hands because it is still under warranty. chas_m thanks for your offer but i dont think i need to take it that far he was very nice to me and i dont like making big deals out of things i dont need to i mean yes i do agree he should have done something more about or giving me misinformation i will report him and like i said take matters in to my own hands. And it must be an authorized dealer because i payed the full price of $1,429 (au).

thanks for your help

Freezing Issues

My Mac Pro (early 2008) recently began freezing, OSX (Snow Leopard). I upgraded to Mountain Lion and the freezing issue continued. It would freeze while in Safari, Chrome, and even when the screen saver was active. I did disk repairs, permission repairs, you name the repair, I ran them all without any luck (including permission repairs on the Mountain Lion recovery disk).

What I finally did do that seemed to work was pull the HD out of Bay One (it took a great deal of effort to pull it free!) and placed it into Bay Three. I have another Mac Pro (2010 Mountain Lion OS) with all four Bays filled and I had never experienced such difficulty in removing a HD! I'm not sure why this effort worked or why the HD was so difficult to pull free, but it did work and thought I'd share the result for those of you experiencing similar problems with a Mac Pro.

Thank you all for your replies,

I have found out that its my falt...... I installed MacKeeper and apparently its a total scam but any way im fine now and i am enjoying mac for the first time!

So, what you're saying is that the only thing done to your machine to fix it was to remove MacKeeper?

Freezing Issues Updated

jgbowwerman said:

My Mac Pro (early 2008) recently began freezing, OSX (Snow Leopard). I upgraded to Mountain Lion and the freezing issue continued. It would freeze while in Safari, Chrome, and even when the screen saver was active. I did disk repairs, permission repairs, you name the repair, I ran them all without any luck (including permission repairs on the Mountain Lion recovery disk).

What I finally did do that seemed to work was pull the HD out of Bay One (it took a great deal of effort to pull it free!) and placed it into Bay Three. I have another Mac Pro (2010 Mountain Lion OS) with all four Bays filled and I had never experienced such difficulty in removing a HD! I'm not sure why this effort worked or why the HD was so difficult to pull free, but it did work and thought I'd share the result for those of you experiencing similar problems with a Mac Pro.

Click to expand...

Update: Problem fixed now for over a month. It must have been some sort of oxidation fouling the contacts? I could not see any, but I have heard the slightest amount of contamination, even invisible contamination, can result in operation failure.

Thanks for updating us, good to know.

Since upgrading to Mountain Lion, my Mac freezes about every two days - true Windows performance in my experience. I have Linux running in a VM which does a lot better as long as it is the only thing running on the Mac, but of course it can't do everything the Mac does.

John F, something is wrong, then. My Macs all run ML flawlessly. One has been months without a shutdown or reboot. Can you tell us something about your Mac? Which machine, exactly what version of ML do you have, how much memory, what you are doing when it freezes, any messages you may be seeing when it freezes and what third party software you may be running? In particular, have you installed any anti-virus or so-called "tuning" applications?