Spinning Beach Ball on New 24" Alum iMac
I have a new 24" Alum. iMac.
Here lately I keep getting the spinning beachball, usually when i have either itunes or MS Word Open. It requires me to force quit, and sometimes a hard reboot.
Here is the list of apps i have open when it happens.
Finder
Mail
Firefox
iTunes
MS Word
Any ideas?
Here lately I keep getting the spinning beachball, usually when i have either itunes or MS Word Open. It requires me to force quit, and sometimes a hard reboot.
Here is the list of apps i have open when it happens.
Finder
Firefox
iTunes
MS Word
Any ideas?
Comments
I have a new 24" Alum. iMac.
Here lately I keep getting the spinning beachball, usually when i have either itunes or MS Word Open. It requires me to force quit, and sometimes a hard reboot.
Here is the list of apps i have open when it happens.
Finder
Mail
Firefox
iTunes
MS Word
Any ideas?
Yes, uninstall MS Word and any other MS product. Then restart.
Yes, uninstall MS Word and any other MS product. Then restart.
Well, I need MS Word for school. And iTunes causes the same problem, just as much as Word does
Well, I need MS Word for school. And iTunes causes the same problem, just as much as Word does
You don't know that. I would replace work with iworks, which is 1000-times better and faster anyways. It costs $80 but you can get it for free. It may be that MS Word is affecting itunes and causing the whole system to crash.
Second, I'd agree that uninstalling MS Office is not a bad idea, at least temporarily. Office '04 is known to have some issues on Macs running Leopard, and considering Office '04 is five years old, it's not surprising. Upgrading to iWork '09, or at least Office '08, would be highly recommended if you've got Office '04.
Thirdly, try methodically testing each suspect application alone, and see if you can narrow down any specific software. If you can, remove and reinstall the software in question. If it's happening completely at random, even to Finder alone, or if many applications show the symptom, it would be worth reinstalling Mac OS X. Pull out the restore discs and run the installer app on the "Install Mac OS X" disc.
If none of these things can resolve the issue, see if you can get your hands on some new memory. If you have the "Early '09" model of the iMac, it requires DDR3 1066MHz SO-DIMMs. If this doesn't help, you can't afford/acquire test memory, or you aren't confident you can remove/replace the memory, take the unit in to the closest Apple Authorized Service Provider.
out of warranty,
back up files to disk, emails, itunes everything
clone the boot drive preferably, see Genius forum here for my cloning method.
then c boot from your install disk and disk utility erase w/zero your boot drive. WARNING all data will be gone!
now after a few hours or so, come back and reinstall the OS from the same disk.
check it out and see if there are the same problems, if so, it's a hardware issue most likely
OS update, see if issue occurs, if so it's a hardware issue for sure
if not install your apps one at a time and if the issue comes up again, it's the latest app you installed.
if not, install your files from backup or clone, if the problem appears it's a corrupted file (most likely M$ word)
use ClamXav to clean up your infected Windows trash files of malware.
I've never used iWork outside of an Apple store, though it did impress me. I can say that I enjoy using OpenOffice more than MS Word, however. And it's free.
Good luck.
Second, the description of the problem is too vague to recommend any specific solution, and especially a reinstall of OSX, which is the ultimate drastic solution -- and almost never necessary or appropriate. I would like to know when the problem occurs. Does it happen immediately after rebooting the Mac? Or does it take awhile to manifest? When you get the beach ball, does it lock up the Mac entirely or just one application? If the latter, which one?
Finally, backing up is always wise. But please do NOT reinstall OSX. This is almost certainly NOT your problem, and almost certainly will NOT fix it, and comes with all sorts of other potential headaches that the knee-jerk reinstall people will never tell you about.
Take this one step at a time. First rule of thumb: don't do anything drastic.
EDIT: Just noticed that this is an old revived thread. But the advice still holds.
First, if Office is causing the problem, then quitting Office applications should fix it. So the suggestions of uninstalling Office seem drastic and very unlikely to fix the problem.
Second, the description of the problem is too vague to recommend any specific solution, and especially a reinstall of OSX, which is the ultimate drastic solution -- and almost never necessary or appropriate. I would like to know when the problem occurs. Does it happen immediately after rebooting the Mac? Or does it take awhile to manifest? When you get the beach ball, does it lock up the Mac entirely or just one application? If the latter, which one?
Finally, backing up is always wise. But please do NOT reinstall OSX. This is almost certainly NOT your problem, and almost certainly will NOT fix it, and comes with all sorts of other potential headaches that the knee-jerk reinstall people will never tell you about.
Take this one step at a time. First rule of thumb: don't do anything drastic.
EDIT: Just noticed that this is an old revived thread. But the advice still holds.
Office launches hidden processes so uninstalling it should help.
Office launches hidden processes so uninstalling it should help.
Then don't launch Office. These applications are pre-installed on virtually every Mac Apple sells. This argues strongly against their very presence on the hard drive being an issue.