Help me decide if I have a hardware issue.

[windsbud]

This is my first post. I am not techie by any stretch of the imagination so I may not use the correct terms when trying to explain myself. But I will try.

My issue is with that dreaded spinning ball. It only happens with photos. Let me start by telling what has happened and what I have done about it.

I have a 15" late 2008 MBP that I purchased used from a friend 3 years ago. He had it restored and upgraded to Lion. I have 4GB memory. When I check "about this Mac" it says I have 333.69 GB free of 499.25GB. storage. My photos are 95GB of that.

I had occassional freeze ups on Iphoto for quite some time but recently more than just Iphoto would freeze. I finally decided to take it to the Genius bar .

The first thing he did was to advise me that my Mac is basically obsolete because of its age. If there were any hardware issues they really couldn't help me. Really? Ok. Move on.

He was unable to do a hardware test, again because of its age he said. He held the D on start up and nothing. So he said he would check a few things and one was to remove things from startup. There were only a few but after he did that and restarted everything it seemed to have done the trick. He also advised that I should upgrade Yosemite. I decided to leave it as is for now.

Within a day or so I had the same problem so back I went and asked them to do what ever it is they had to do for me to do a clean install of Yosemite. I had already backed up everything. So they did and I came home and installed it and restored all my files from back up. Everything was great. Had no issues when I moved pictures from Iphoto to photos with the exception of missing thumbnails and some duplicates. I started having the freeze up again! I repaired the library and that addressed the thumbnails and duplicates.

I can not use photos at all now. As soon as I open it my entire computer freezes and I have to use the power button to shut it down. I started reading a few things here and looked to the activity monitor. There was a plugin in Firefox that was at 83% on CPU so I got rid of that hoping it was the problem. No, it wasn't. Other than Photos, Yosemite has been issue free.

So, have I done the right things? Does it seem like a hardware issue? Before I take it elsewhere for diagnosis and repair, I was just looking for a collective head nod I guess.I hope I provided enough info to get some feed back. Thanks in advance for any advise.

 

[lclev]

Are you getting any crash reports in console? I am wondering if the indexing is hanging up. I have read where a lot of people are having trouble with the new photos app.

Do you by chance still have iPhotos on your MBP? Some are reverting back to it until the bugs in Photos get worked out.

I would not rule out a hard drive issues either. Unless you have replaced it, that drive is 7 years old.

If it were me, I would down load Onyx and after it did it's check of the disk, run the automation mode. Then I would reset the SMC and PRAM.

Lisa

 

[harryb2448]

G'day and welcome to the forums.

Your friend told you the truth it is obsolete at seven years. I am surprised the Genius Bar looked at it as they usually have a five year old max rule. Doing anything with photography is pretty intensive and 4GB of memory is not much by today's standards. A the time of its release in 2008 Apple advised 4GB was the maximum memory, but you can put 2x4GB modules in if you think it is worth it.

Many experienced users think five years is the workable life for a computer, and you can see why your friend sold it it you. Running Lion, or later, I would go into Recovery Mode, and run Repair Disk from Utilities to ensure the hard drive is okay.

If you have to replace the drive, consider investing in an SSD and new SATA cable if you intend to keep the MBP.

 

[windsbud]

Lisa, I'm not sure what I would be looking for in console. I do still have Iphoto but was having the issue in Lion so I assumed it would be the same in Yosemite but will check it out.
I will give Onyx a try. Thanks.

Harry, I agree it's old and the plan is to eventually replace it, sooner rather than later. I am kind of spoiled by the MBP and to replace this one would be a bit of an expense right now! Exploring other Macbooks as well. Other than the photos, I have had minimal issues and those were easily corrected. I will keep your suggestions in mind. Thank you.