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Spinning Beach Ball on New 24" Alum iMac

post #1 of 10
5/8/09 at 6:28am
Thread Starter 
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?
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post #2 of 10
5/8/09 at 6:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevowski View Post

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.
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post #3 of 10
5/8/09 at 6:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tauron View Post

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
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post #4 of 10
5/8/09 at 9:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevowski View Post

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.
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post #5 of 10
5/8/09 at 1:16pm
First bit of advice: back up everything if you haven't. Sometimes, a random beachball can herald the onset of a hard drive crash, and while it's by no means certain, I could pave a road with sob stories of lost data.

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.
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post #6 of 10
5/20/09 at 6:30pm
New computer >take it in for free service.



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.
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post #7 of 10
5/31/09 at 7:51am
I don't know what's causing your problem, but--if it is MS Word--why not replace it with a free option like OpenOffice.org?

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.
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post #8 of 10
5/31/09 at 9:31am
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.
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post #9 of 10
6/2/09 at 6:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post

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.
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post #10 of 10
6/2/09 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tauron View Post

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.
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