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dblinton
Guest
first post on here and unfortunately it's to try to understand what's going on with my beloved powerbook. let me first say that i'm new to macs (just converted in december) and can't believe my dumb@ass didnt make the switch sooner.. that being said..
the past few days things have been strange (aside from my girlfriend and i splittiing up and me couch surfing at my buddies house).. friday night i was on my powerbook screwing around in garageband and surfing the net. just before we headed out to the bar i relaunched safari and it bounced in the dock for a second.. the little arrow came up next to the icon to indicate it was open.. but the app didnt launch.. i have cee pee you (from unsanity) installed to show me my cpu load in the menu bar and it was showing 100% usage.. this was odd.. but my buddy was wanting to hit the bars so i jetted and left the computer at the 'crib'.. got home and tried to launch safari.. same problem. i also tried to launch iChat and the same problem. when i launched explorer, itunes, or excel it worked fine.. tried safari again and then decided to crash out on the couch and get some z's (i didnt check anything else really.. refer to: beer).
the next day i called applecare and told the guy (michael) that the third party app (cee pee you) was showing 100% so he asked what else i had that was in my 'startup files' and i told him i had himmelbar, prefs menu, and konfabulator assigned to startup. he suggested we go into system prefs and disable all that stuff so we opened system prefs but when i clicked on 'accounts' but it shot up to 100% and i couldnt open it. he walked me through doing a system scan (holding down the option key on bootup with the resources disk that came with the comp and everything checked out). then we started up in safe mode (holding down the shift key) and was able to go into the system preferences and account and access the startup menu disable the items. this seemed to fix the problem. things were fine until the next morn when the same thing happened. now nothing is in my startup.. i repeated the steps that were given to me the day before EXACTLY but it didnt help.. i couldnt launch anything to help even in safe mode. i called applecare and told the guy (andrew) the situation.. this time he asked how much space i had on my hard drive and i said 1.66GB.. he said that was the problem and i need to either delete stuff or get an external drive.. so yeah.. i've decided on an external drive to house some music files and final cut stuff i've done.
the problem persisted until this morning when i woke up and tried the comp and it was fine.. i went the whole day working fine.. came home.. surfed the net a bit and BAM! happened again.. only explorer, excel, itunes, aol instant messenger and a few other apps work but when i launch iChat, Safari, System Monitor, Sticky Notes etc. it doesnt.. and no access to the user accounts in the system prefs.. i should add that i can access ANY one of the other system prefs such as desktops, screensavers etc. but not Accounts.
so yeah.. my girlfriends a b*tch.. i've developed a drinking problem.. and my computer is screwing up. i just wanted to know if the problems with my mac are normal when you approach getting a full hard drive.. it just happens so randomly.. one sec it's fine.. some apps are fine.. and then all of a sudden.. did i mention my girlfriend is a b*tch? will getting an external hard drive help? i'm starting to think that the first time i fixed it (with good ole' michael from applecare) was just a coincidence and he didnt really do much at all considering when it happened the second time i was unable to solve the problem the same way.
so yeah.. help? please?!
the past few days things have been strange (aside from my girlfriend and i splittiing up and me couch surfing at my buddies house).. friday night i was on my powerbook screwing around in garageband and surfing the net. just before we headed out to the bar i relaunched safari and it bounced in the dock for a second.. the little arrow came up next to the icon to indicate it was open.. but the app didnt launch.. i have cee pee you (from unsanity) installed to show me my cpu load in the menu bar and it was showing 100% usage.. this was odd.. but my buddy was wanting to hit the bars so i jetted and left the computer at the 'crib'.. got home and tried to launch safari.. same problem. i also tried to launch iChat and the same problem. when i launched explorer, itunes, or excel it worked fine.. tried safari again and then decided to crash out on the couch and get some z's (i didnt check anything else really.. refer to: beer).
the next day i called applecare and told the guy (michael) that the third party app (cee pee you) was showing 100% so he asked what else i had that was in my 'startup files' and i told him i had himmelbar, prefs menu, and konfabulator assigned to startup. he suggested we go into system prefs and disable all that stuff so we opened system prefs but when i clicked on 'accounts' but it shot up to 100% and i couldnt open it. he walked me through doing a system scan (holding down the option key on bootup with the resources disk that came with the comp and everything checked out). then we started up in safe mode (holding down the shift key) and was able to go into the system preferences and account and access the startup menu disable the items. this seemed to fix the problem. things were fine until the next morn when the same thing happened. now nothing is in my startup.. i repeated the steps that were given to me the day before EXACTLY but it didnt help.. i couldnt launch anything to help even in safe mode. i called applecare and told the guy (andrew) the situation.. this time he asked how much space i had on my hard drive and i said 1.66GB.. he said that was the problem and i need to either delete stuff or get an external drive.. so yeah.. i've decided on an external drive to house some music files and final cut stuff i've done.
the problem persisted until this morning when i woke up and tried the comp and it was fine.. i went the whole day working fine.. came home.. surfed the net a bit and BAM! happened again.. only explorer, excel, itunes, aol instant messenger and a few other apps work but when i launch iChat, Safari, System Monitor, Sticky Notes etc. it doesnt.. and no access to the user accounts in the system prefs.. i should add that i can access ANY one of the other system prefs such as desktops, screensavers etc. but not Accounts.
so yeah.. my girlfriends a b*tch.. i've developed a drinking problem.. and my computer is screwing up. i just wanted to know if the problems with my mac are normal when you approach getting a full hard drive.. it just happens so randomly.. one sec it's fine.. some apps are fine.. and then all of a sudden.. did i mention my girlfriend is a b*tch? will getting an external hard drive help? i'm starting to think that the first time i fixed it (with good ole' michael from applecare) was just a coincidence and he didnt really do much at all considering when it happened the second time i was unable to solve the problem the same way.
so yeah.. help? please?!
