CPU issues and temporary freezing with WoW

[mangorio]

Hi all,
Im running a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook, approx 4yrs old.
When ever I run World of Warcraft my computer periodically freezes up for 2-3 seconds at a time. This can repeat every couple of seconds for many minutes before fixing itself. While this was happening I took a look at iStat Pro and it was saying that WoW was using approx 140% cpu and WindowServer was using approx 60-70% cpu. I realize that the computer i am using is far from recommended for playing WoW on but I have used it fine for WoW since i bought it 4 years ago with no issues. The freezing up has only started happening in the last 6months or so. Has anyone else had a freezing up issue or does anyone have any ideas on how i can fix this problem?
Cheers

 

[chas_m]

Sounds to me like your hard drive has found a bad sector.

Normally this would be a sign of an HD that is starting to fail, but it can also be a sign of abnormal disk fragmentation.

If you have the time and inclination, try this:

1. Make a clone backup of your drive to an external HD. This will save you time later. If you're using Time Machine, let it make an up-to-the-minute backup as well.

2. Boot from the clone. Make sure everything seems to work properly.

3. Use Disk Utility to erase the boot drive. Choose the zero-out (ONCE!) option. The other ones take DAYS. Once is enough for what we're doing.

4. Either clone back from your clone backup, or do a restore from your TM backup.

That will effectively defragment the drive. If you're still getting the hangup after that, I'd say the drive is in trouble.