Macbook shows up spinning wheel or freezes frequently

Using Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, select the disk and click on "Repair Disk Permissions". Wait for it to complete and see if that helps things. Another thing to try is to boot from the OS DVD and under Utilities > Disk Utility select the disk and click on Repair Disk. This should also help improve performance. There are other things to try, but this is a good starting place.

[quote|Sarabian]Using Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility, select the disk and click on "Repair Disk Permissions". Wait for it to complete and see if that helps things. Another thing to try is to boot from the OS DVD and under Utilities > Disk Utility select the disk and click on Repair Disk. This should also help improve performance. There are other things to try, but this is a good starting place.[/quote]

Download and run this..

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

frequent beach balls and lock ups are 99% of the time I/o issues.. bad sectors.

[quote|matthewfrey]Download and run this.. http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php frequent beach balls and lock ups are 99% of the time I/o issues.. bad sectors.[/quote]

Sarabian,

I repaired disk permissions as you suggested. Although it corrected several permissions, it still showed up the spinning wheel and froze intermittently. After waiting a couple of days, I tried the next solution. I successfully repaired the disk (Disk Utility did find a minor volume block error and corrected it successfully). Unfortunately, within 10-15 minutes after I did this, it started to show up the wheel again. Do you have other things that I can try?

Sunrisetech, I tried the smart ultility (free trial), and my disk came clean. This was before I used the Disk Utility on the Mac OS disk.

[quote|cherrypick]Sarabian, I repaired disk permissions as you suggested. Although it corrected several permissions, it still showed up the spinning wheel and froze intermittently. After waiting a couple of days, I tried the next solution. I successfully repaired the disk (Disk Utility did find a minor volume block error and corrected it successfully). Unfortunately, within 10-15 minutes after I did this, it started to show up the wheel again. Do you have other things that I can try? Sunrisetech, I tried the smart ultility (free trial), and my disk came clean. This was before I used the Disk Utility on the Mac OS disk.[/quote]

All,

Just thought I'd update you on this thread. I tried several other suggestions from various other discussion forums. Nothing seemed to work. I almost had reached the point of trashing my laptop when I decided to change my hard drive. Lo an behold...I have been "spinning wheel" free ever since (knock on wood). It appears that there was some problem with the hard disk that Disk Utility could not catch.

[quote|cherrypick]All, Just thought I'd update you on this thread. I tried several other suggestions from various other discussion forums. Nothing seemed to work. I almost had reached the point of trashing my laptop when I decided to change my hard drive. Lo an behold...I have been "spinning wheel" free ever since (knock on wood). It appears that there was some problem with the hard disk that Disk Utility could not catch.[/quote]

Glad you got everything fixed easily then. : )

[quote|Sarabian]Glad you got everything fixed easily then. : )[/quote]

Hello,

I have exactly the problem you described, but I changed my newer Samsung HM320JI 320GB against the old 60 GB Hitachi (?) means the HD it was shipped with. No effect. The wheel is still occuring. Seems like its connected to the fact, that I am running two or three apps at the same time. Like Safari and preview. BUT I know the normal behaviour of my MB after 3 years. Apple doesn't find any problem and Apple care is know finished.

I tried several "fresh" system installations. No effect. Fixed the disk permission with Installation DVD, run the hardware tests, the apple care util and went to apple several times. No effect.

The old HD even has 10.4.11 running.The new Samsung HD runs the latest MacOSX (10.5.8) on my MacBook Intel Core Duo with 2GHz (vers. 1.1) and 2 GB Ram.

I am going to change the newer RAM against the old one and the HDs again monday.

Repair history: Logic board was changed by apple in June 2009. Inverter was changed in May 2009. Matashita optical drive was changed in 2007. Samsung HM320JI 320GB has been running since January 2009. RAM was changed August 2008.

Any ideas?

[quote|kallemagne]Hello, I have exactly the problem you described, but I changed my newer Samsung HM320JI 320GB against the old 60 GB Hitachi (?) means the HD it was shipped with. No effect. The wheel is still occuring. Seems like its connected to the fact, that I am running two or three apps at the same time. Like Safari and preview. BUT I know the normal behaviour of my MB after 3 years. Apple doesn't find any problem and Apple care is know finished. I tried several "fresh" system installations. No effect. Fixed the disk permission with Installation DVD, run the hardware tests, the apple care util and went to apple several times. No effect. The old HD even has 10.4.11 running.The new Samsung HD runs the latest MacOSX (10.5.8) on my MacBook Intel Core Duo with 2GHz (vers. 1.1) and 2 GB Ram. I am going to change the newer RAM against the old one and the HDs again monday. Repair history: Logic board was changed by apple in June 2009. Inverter was changed in May 2009. Matashita optical drive was changed in 2007. Samsung HM320JI 320GB has been running since January 2009. RAM was changed August 2008. Any ideas?[/quote]