help! the round rainbow coloured ball thing...

[nellee]

keeps appearing and i have to turn my mac off to make it work again

can anyone help or explain why this might be happening?

i'm not the brightest spark when it comes to things technology-related so please talk to me like i'm an idiot
;D

 

[Chilbear]

Welcome to the Forum. Tell us about the machine - what kind is it, how old is it, what operating system does it have and how much RAM is installed?

 

[toMACsh]

...and how many programs can you have open at the same time when this happens?

 

[Mac SK]

You dont have AV software on there. Also HP and Lexmark printer extensions can cause Spinning cursor. Try to repair permissions in the disk utility. Sluggishness can also be lack of Ram. The more ram the better.

 

[nellee]

thanks for your reply guys, i'll try to give as much info as possible...


Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac8,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.29f1
Serial Number (system): YM83201RZE6
Hardware UUID: 6C16E532-44BF-5B99-A135-0AE349115144


I have a 750 GB mac and i think i've used maybe 250 GB.
I generally only use Safari, itunes and iphoto

Thanks!

 

[Raz0rEdge]

This is a good start..does the beach ball'ing happen at any specific time with any specific application or just randomly? Has it ever happened when you weren't actually doing anything on the Mac? Safari, iTunes and iPhoto aren't the most intensive applications that run on a Mac, and you have a fast enough system with enough memory to run these 3 applications like a champ..

Regards

 

[nellee]

that's what i thought - i felt like my mac should be able to deal with basic use of these functions without freaking out on me - i might have safari, iphoto, itunes all open at the same time and maybe 2 or 3 podcasts are downloading and a couple of safari tabs are open and it will just freeze on me - i try to force quit but it won't work - don't think it's very healthy

 

[moose1973]

How long has this been acting this way?
I recently had the same situation, it ended up being a failing hard drive.
After a week of running this way it was toast! Installed a new hd all is good now. Just a thought.

Moose

 

[nellee]

hey moose - i guess about 9 months

 

[nellee]

i just wondered if there was any kind of "clean-up" operation i could do that might fix the problem?

 

[Chris H.]

i just wondered if there was any kind of "clean-up" operation i could do that might fix the problem?

There's the Repair Disk Permission function in Disk Utility

Mac OS X also does a cron job, but that won't help in the very least. Well, it might. There are several ways to implement a cron job. Mac OS X automatically does it late at night. Refer to these articles on how to DIY. Warning: you'll need to open Terminal:

Using the 'cron' scheduler - Mac OS X Hints

Running Mac OS X Maintenance Scripts