macbook freezes

A week ago my 2010 macbook with osx 6.3 started freezing up. The freezes are bad, nothing short of rebooting with the power button works. No ball just a screen freeze. It does not appear to be connecte to a single app. It got increasingly worse, happening more often. I ran disc utility with the startup disc, problems were found and resolved, i rebootwd pram and ram, it freezes in safe mode, in single user mode. I ran hardware test with the disc. The short test die not find anything, the long test is now runninng.
Edit update: the long hardware check did not find any problems.
Suggestions anyone?

How full is your hard drive (amount free & amount used)?

- Nick

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I already thought of that, yet there is 62 gb free space, seems enough.

Bye, Tom.

TomD1 said:

I already thought of that, yet there is 62 gb free space, seems enough.

Click to expand...

You may have already thought of this...but since you didn't tell us...we have to ask.

- Have you done any hardware upgrades lately...such as a ram upgrade?
- Do you have any idea if your MacBook has been running hot lately?
- Are the MacBook's fans running at high rpm's before it freezes?
- Any idea if your MacBook's fan is working?
- Any idea if your MacBook needs a cleaning inside?
- Did you install any new software/apps lately?

Let us know,

- Nick

Hi Nick,

Thanks for being so thorough!

No hardware upgrades.
doesn't seem to be running hot (though Istat regularly gives a CPU temp of 70).
The fan seems to be working and this is not running usually when it freezes.
It could be that it needs a cleaning, it is getting a bit older and I am not the cleanest of typs dragging that thing all over the place and regularly eating while working
I do not believe I installed any new software, asides from addblock plus for firefox (yet the problems started later).

One thing that is amiss is the battery. This has just recently become worse quickly, jumping from 4 to 5 hours working time to under three within a month, and the status also says replace soon. Due to this, the mac has been shut down a number of times due to lack of energy. Could this have anything to do with it?

Really appreciate the help!

Thanks, Tom.

Since you mentioned a possible battery issue. One other thing to try is an SMC Reset:

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

- Nick

Thanks very much for the tip!

I did that, not sure if it worked since the freezing is irregular, but thanks for the tip. I did not get a notification of the reset however, is that normal?

Som more diagnostics: it appears to me that the freezing is random, yet there are a few remarkable things. It has frozen a number of times now after I moved the mac (say from one room to the other), not necessarily when moving but very short after the move. Also, when it freezes and I need to shut it down with the power button, when I start it up again immediately it seems to be more likely to freeze (this even happens during startup). Yet when I leave it for 10 mins or so, it is less likely to freeze.

Bye, Tom.

TomD1 said:

I did that, not sure if it worked since the freezing is irregular, but thanks for the tip. I did not get a notification of the reset however, is that normal?

Click to expand...

Normal. There is no feedback when doing an SMC reset.

- Nick

TomD1 said:

...I ran disc utility with the startup disc, problems were found and resolved,...

Click to expand...

I am "assuming" you are talking about the Verify/Repair of the hard drive and not repairing permissions.

Sounds to me like it is a failing hard drive.

Boot up with your Snow Leopard disc and run the Verify/Repair on the drive again.
Does it come back with errors again?

Do you have a bootable clone backup?
If so, boot from that and see if the problem goes away.

If you don't, I would suggest you make one NOW.
And use Superduper! or CarbonCopyCloner to make a bootable clone.
If the machine will run long enough to do that.

You also did not mention the size of your drive or the used vs. free space as requested.
Only providing us with the amount of free space and particularly with it being <100 GB does not really provide enough info. If that 63 GB is on a 1 TB drive, that is not nearly enough free space to keep the machine running properly.

(And why are you running 10.6.3 and not 10.6.8?)

Hi,

Sorry about the unlclear info. I think it repaired permissions but I will run it again. I did indeed make a full backup of all my files yet I'll make a clone as well. hard drive 188 used 62 gb free.

I am still using 6.3 because I like the way it works and I am lazy I guess. Would updating help? If it is a HD problem, wha would that mean? New HD?

BTW I performed an SMC reset as advised and the problem has not returned for about 24 hrs so keeping my fingers crossed.

And again, thanks for all the info!

Bye, Tom.

TomD1 said:

BTW I performed an SMC reset as advised and the problem has not returned for about 24 hrs so keeping my fingers crossed.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Keeping the fingers crossed here as well that the SMC reset did the trick!

- Nick

Merry Xmas y'all. Not so merry for my macbook though, freezing continues and is getting worse so I fear a broken HD. According to the booklet that came with it replacing it is quite easy, yet I am having trouble finding where to buy them. Any ideas?

regards, Tom.

TomD1 said:

Merry Xmas y'all. Not so merry for my macbook though, freezing continues and is getting worse so I fear a broken HD. According to the booklet that came with it replacing it is quite easy, yet I am having trouble finding where to buy them. Any ideas?

regards, Tom.

Click to expand...

Lots & lots of places:

- eBay.com
- macsales.com
- newegg.com
- tigerdirect.com
- amazon.com
- walmart.com
- microcenter.com
- bestbuy.com
- target.com
- staples.com
- officemax.com
- dealmac.com
- crucial.com


...and many many more.

- Nick

Hihi,

You are right of course. Yet I am not sure which HD is the right one. Apple does not seem to say anything about this so google was my friend. Would this work?

part nr MQ01ABD050, for instance here:

http://www.redcoon.nl/B401713-Toshiba-MQ01ABD050-500GB_Tot-25

Regards, Tom

TomD1 said:

Hihi,

You are right of course. Yet I am not sure which HD is the right one. Apple does not seem to say anything about this so google was my friend. Would this work?

Click to expand...

Pretty much any SATA 2.5" hard drive will work.

Also...I did not realize that you were not in the United States...otherwise I would not have suggested many of those retailers. You should add (if you want) your location (at least the country) to your Mac-Forums profile so we have a rough idea where you are from.

- Nick

Haha yes I should have made that clear. Thanks anyway for all the help. This makes a cheap solution for a huge problem. I do not have to spend a lot of time and money on diagnostics and have my mac away for days on end. I'm ordering a new disc today and putting it in this weekend. Thanks!!!

Tom.

A last update. I installed a new hdd and all the problems seem to have gone. It was actually quite easy. I am very thankful for the help I found here, this enabled me to solve a major problem in 30 minutes at very little cost, great! And I doubled the size of my hdd.

Regards, Tom.

So I am not a very happy camper. After mounting the new HD and a clean install of OSX 6.8, no problems at all for about 10 days. Then my mac started freezing up again. I am pretty sure it is related to the hd, since in two occasions the sound of a movie I was playing in vlc started skipping like a broken record. I am at a loss what could cause this with a new hdd. Could it be the cable connecting the drive?
I was also thinking to install mavericks. If it is a software problem, could this solve it?

Bye, Tom.

Another thing that sprang to mind was the question if this problem could be connected to firmware. Freezing seems to be random, yet is more frequent when running more programs or certain types of programs (for instance, it freezes more often with firefox running than with safari). However, I am not able to find firmware updates for my type (macbook 6 1).

Tom

It's very unlikely a firmware update would help and besides, there are none for your machine anyway. Something to consider: Freezing is usually a hardware error. Most common causes are bad or intermittent memory modules and a defective or failing hard drive. Since you changed out the hard drive, you can eliminate that. Of course it's always possible to have another bad hard drive but the chances of that happening are small.

I suggest first trying to determine if the memory is acting up. A good memory test program will thoroughly check the modules and stress them. Memtest for the Mac is a good one to use.

Let us know how that goes.