Snow Leopard Hanging-Running VERY SLOW
I am having a problem with running Snow Leopard on my MBP. It's running extremely slow and beachballing a lot. Here is the issue.
The computer is almost 3 years old to the day and is a Core 2 Duo MBP and has 4GB of memory. I upgraded to Snow Leopard a few months ago and am running the newest update.
About 6 months ago I experienced a video problem and the Apple Store replaced it with a new logic board. A few days later I experienced networking issues. it would connect to Wi-Fi but would not get any internet. The Apple store tried a few things to fix corrupt files and was unable to fix it. They suggested a reinstall of Leopard which is what I was running at that time but instead I did an upgrade to Snow Leopard. It immediately fixed the problem and my computer was running fast. I left this out but as part of the Snow Leopard upgrade I upgraded the hard drive to a 640GB drive.
Then a few days ago it began running slow. It seems to start slow so I thought it was just too many programs running and my computer was showing it's age. Yet it has gotten far worse and I know it may be a deeper issue.
I have questioned if it could be an issue with memory. Would this slow it down?
I tend to think its' software related, not hardware.
The question: How do I troubleshoot something like this? It happens as soon as I boot it up, I don't even have to start any programs. I have looked at my login items in accounts and see a few things like growl and a scanner application. The only other thing I see is I noticed there is 4 items relating to SOHO Organizer. I don't believe these should be slowing it down.
As an example when I boot it and log on at that point, it can beachball for 10 minutes before I get into the screen with the dock, etc. Dashboard won't even work. When I click on dashboard it brings up the calculator, weather, etc. but nothing opens up. i simply see the blank calculator but nothing is lighting up to type on it, no weather details, etc. and this is after bootup or using it.
When I try to close an application it can take a minute, it can take a minute to switch, it. My computer is nearly unusable.
If necessary I'll go to the Apple store but it just left the warranty period and I'm convinced its' simply something software related, maybe something that's hanging it. Any ideas of what could be wrong or how to troubleshoot to find out?
Thank you in advance for your help.
The computer is almost 3 years old to the day and is a Core 2 Duo MBP and has 4GB of memory. I upgraded to Snow Leopard a few months ago and am running the newest update.
About 6 months ago I experienced a video problem and the Apple Store replaced it with a new logic board. A few days later I experienced networking issues. it would connect to Wi-Fi but would not get any internet. The Apple store tried a few things to fix corrupt files and was unable to fix it. They suggested a reinstall of Leopard which is what I was running at that time but instead I did an upgrade to Snow Leopard. It immediately fixed the problem and my computer was running fast. I left this out but as part of the Snow Leopard upgrade I upgraded the hard drive to a 640GB drive.
Then a few days ago it began running slow. It seems to start slow so I thought it was just too many programs running and my computer was showing it's age. Yet it has gotten far worse and I know it may be a deeper issue.
I have questioned if it could be an issue with memory. Would this slow it down?
I tend to think its' software related, not hardware.
The question: How do I troubleshoot something like this? It happens as soon as I boot it up, I don't even have to start any programs. I have looked at my login items in accounts and see a few things like growl and a scanner application. The only other thing I see is I noticed there is 4 items relating to SOHO Organizer. I don't believe these should be slowing it down.
As an example when I boot it and log on at that point, it can beachball for 10 minutes before I get into the screen with the dock, etc. Dashboard won't even work. When I click on dashboard it brings up the calculator, weather, etc. but nothing opens up. i simply see the blank calculator but nothing is lighting up to type on it, no weather details, etc. and this is after bootup or using it.
When I try to close an application it can take a minute, it can take a minute to switch, it. My computer is nearly unusable.
If necessary I'll go to the Apple store but it just left the warranty period and I'm convinced its' simply something software related, maybe something that's hanging it. Any ideas of what could be wrong or how to troubleshoot to find out?
Thank you in advance for your help.
Comments
From the menu select Disk Utility and Erase with Zero a new external drive to map off bad sectors (only needed once per drive, will wipe all data off the drive)
Install Leopard on the external.
Hold Option and reboot, choose the external drive and set up. Update. Grab your files off the internal and save somewhere else. Grab the whole iTunes folder to save playlists etc. Grab license codes and also bookmarks in User/Library/Safari folder. etc.
Now you can do what you want.
You can upgrade the external to Snow Leopard, even use Disk Utility to Zero the internal to likely catch a problem sector and map it off. (erases all data on the drive)
Then you can use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the whole external back onto the internal drive.
Should clean up any mess you got, have to reinstall apps from fresh sources.
Clone the boot drive occasionally for safekeeping if the drive is really defective and you´ll need it to boot from. Note: Time Machine drives are not bootable.
Likely your problem occurred with a software that wasn´t compatible with Snow Leopard?
Could be a glitchy drive too.
Anyway take your time installing programs on the new drive, see where the problem begins.
Good luck.
After that I tried the option of a hardware test by inserting the #1 CD that came with the MBP and booting up using D. I ran the extensive hardware test and it found no errors.
Yet I have even pulled the power cord and battery and did a restart and am having the same problem. I even had a few times it would not even boot. It would get to the grey apple with the progress indicator below and would be like that for 15-20 mins, never going further so I may have even deeper issues.
Fortunately I had been doing hard drive backups using Super Duper so I connected that drive and did a boot from it. I was excited since it seemed to boot at first and then was very slow and appeared to freeze as the icons were appearing on the desktop. I have only tried this once but since that's the case I didn't think it was the internal hard drive that was the issue.
Then I decided to hook the external back up drive to the other MBP our family has. I then booted up and was shocked how well it ran. It was running on USB but I got straight into the OS and opened a few documents, programs, etc. and had absolutely no problems.
What would this mean?
I originally though after it didn't work on the MBP that maybe it was indeed a problem with the internal hard drive and there were likely corrupted files or so that then got backed up onto this backup drive when I did the last backup a couple weeks ago. Yet it works fine on the other MBP.
I actually did the hardware test after I attempted the boot from the hard drive on the MBP so can try another boot later in case something just went wrong that time but since it boots fine on another MBP I tend to think the hard drive is not the issue. The good news is maybe I won't have to do a complete clean install of Snow Leopard and then all data, etc.
Could it be some type of hardware problem with the MBP? The hardware test found nothing but could it be a memory problem or would it have caught a memory problem or a hard drive problem? I had to have the Apple Store put a new logic board in this computer about 6 months ago. It was a video problem and the computer had no video at all. Would a more serious problem relating to the logic board or something on it cause a problem like this?
Once the hardware test is done I will try to boot again from this hard drive. I was ready to check into replacing through warranty the new hard drive I put in but I'm not sure if that is the problem now.
In a case like this is there any chance Apple would cover it? I know I'm out of warranty so they don't have to but yet since this may be related to a logic board that was just put in 6 months ago, is there any type of coverage on it?
That would at least be easier than doing a clean install. The problem is I had AppleCare on this MBP which just expired around a month ago, maybe even half a month. The logic board was replaced probably barely 6 months ago if not less.
In a case like this is there any chance Apple would cover it? I know I'm out of warranty so they don't have to but yet since this may be related to a logic board that was just put in 6 months ago, is there any type of coverage on it?
I think it will depend on what the problem turns out to be. If it's the logic board again, I think they'd cover it. Never been down this road myself, though, so I can't really say.