Spinning Pinwheel of Death

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So I just got a brand new 15 inch Macbook Pro about two weeks ago. All has been going well until a few days ago. I could be doing anything...checking e-mail in "Mail," surfing the web in "safari," typing in "Word," in "iTunes", whatever.

Anyway, I don't think that I'm really pushing this computer to the max. But inevitably, I'll be doing something and all of a sudden, the dreaded pinwheel of death pops up and I can't do anything for a solid 30 seconds. For a brand new computer, I think this is pretty uncalled for, and since this is my first Mac, I was hoping that someone here could maybe help me out.

At any given time, I usually have the following applications open:

-Mail
-Safari
-AIM
-iTunes

And that's it. I have iTunes open but not usually playing music. And when I've tried quitting the application, I can still get the stupid pinwheel. The comp has 4GB of memory and I have about 160 GB of free hard drive space.

Any insight as to why my new Macbook is behaving so sluggishly would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Unibody Macbook Pro 13'' 2.26GHz 4GB RAM 320GB 7200RPM HDD
dont worry. mine does too. 4gb ram too. sometimes i only have safari open. sometimes the spinning wheel comes out when loading .gifs. and it freezes for a couple of secs. no idea why too
 
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27 iMac+Thunderbolt, iMac 21,
More than likely it is showing the 'Pinwheel' while it is attempting to do as instructed. How are you connected? wireless or ethernet and are all your settings correct - helped one guy this morning who had incorrect Primary and Secondary DNS numbers entered and his computer did work but very slowly while the computer resolved the incorrect info. Usually frequent pinwheel is a sign that things are not set up well and that includes modems routers sys prefs etc.
 
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R
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More than likely it is showing the 'Pinwheel' while it is attempting to do as instructed. How are you connected? wireless or ethernet and are all your settings correct - helped one guy this morning who had incorrect Primary and Secondary DNS numbers entered and his computer did work but very slowly while the computer resolved the incorrect info. Usually frequent pinwheel is a sign that things are not set up well and that includes modems routers sys prefs etc.

Yeah, I'm connected through airport wireless. When I first set up the computer, it automatically detected the network, so I just selected it, entered the password and boom, connection.

I don't really know the ins-and-outs of wireless junk so I haven't messed around with it at all. It had been working fine until a few days ago.

Any suggestion(s) on things to check to make sure everything is set up correctly?
 
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Some things here.
The Spinning Beach Ball of Death

Try another browser. When using Safari try not having any programs open, see if you get the spinning beach ball, if not open another program, keep doing that until you get the beach ball, then try going into Library/preferences/com. apple. plist for the program and delete it or move it to the desk top and see if the beach ball continues. I did this for a program I was having a problem with, it fixed it.
 
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13" Macbook Pro 2.26Ghz Unibody 4G RAM 160G HDD Superdrive
I've noted that every now and then safari will pinwheel on me. It also uses major CPU and appears to be in a state of confusedness. Only way to get out is to quit safari and restart it. Pain in the hiney, but works, and only happens occasionally.

This on a 4gig 13" MBP, so it's not a system resource issue.
 
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There is a thread about this on the Apple support forums, I have this issue as well
 
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I have noted the Spinning Beach-ball is more prevalent in Safari when it is loading Java based applications or Web sites.
 
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I think it has to do with the SATA firmware update
 
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I've noticed this too! Super annoying! I had a black macbook before and hardly ever had the pinwheel show up ever (and when I did it was bc I had final cut and safari and itunes and photoshop etc open or something. understandable.)

now im hardly doing anything and it pinwheels on me!

my black macbook i had put 2 2gb ram in it. Im super confused as to why my macbook with 4gb works better under general circumstances than my new macbook pro 13inch does when they both have 4gb ram.

has anyone put 8gb ram in their new macbook pro? I'm mostly annoyed bc doing safari/word/itunes works shittier and I don't notice much of a difference while editing in final cut pro. why did i upgrade if the new macbook pros perform overall worse than my black macbook. ***
 
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Mine does this when there is a glitch or a hang in my wireless router. Some programs look for updates automatically, and this can cause the delay if your connection has any gaps. When the wireless is working properly, apps open immediately. Hope this helps.
 
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Do you have any USB devices attached?

I see it fairly often when Time Machine needs to do a backup to my USB external HDD. It gets frustrating because it seems to bring everything to a halt. But I think if I had a wireless HDD backup it would solve the problem.

(13"MBP, 2 GB)
 

cwa107


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Did the spinning wheels coincide with any new application installs?

I just recently got over this issue and found it to be related to Paragon NTFS for Mac. Once it was removed, the pinwheels went away.
 
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When I buy a new Mac, I always reinstall the OS from fresh. I have had a number (and seen a number) of Mac's not work well with the factory install. I don't know why but it's a fact in my experience.

Worth a go. A new Mac will beach ball sometimes but not for that long unless you've demanded a load from it, have a small amount of ram or hardly any HD space left..

Regards. Rimmer

p.s. There is a chance your Mac is trying to index the HD's for searching (spotlight). There is something to be said about leaving it on whilst you do something else for a while. This give the chance for the 'puter to get on with some house keeping and regimented tasks. If you haven't stuffed too much stuff on it, i'd go with a back up and a reinstall.
 
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Do you have any USB devices attached?

I see it fairly often when Time Machine needs to do a backup to my USB external HDD. It gets frustrating because it seems to bring everything to a halt. But I think if I had a wireless HDD backup it would solve the problem.

(13"MBP, 2 GB)

I should have said that almost anytime there is a need for disk access the USB drive gets involved and that really gums up the works.
 

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