Hi Rob, Sorry to hear you are still having problems with your MBP. You are not going to particularly like what I have to say … sorry :-(
OSX requires plenty of Free Unused Hard Drive space to run well. Also you only have 2GB RAM, Snow Leopard really needs 4GB (I know if only requires 1GB to install, but to run well it needs 4GB). A hard drive that fills up and turns flaky is nearly impossible to get back to normal without Erasing reformatting. If you run Photoshop it is best to have 100GB of free space. If all you were doing is Microsoft Word and email, I would keep a minimum of 50 GB free unused space available, this allows the operating system vital unused space to write its swap files, virtual memory scratch disk. Full hard drives also tend to fragment system and data files and greatly slow disk access down, too. Left unchecked, the problem will likely spread and corrupt the entire install until the hard drive literally won't mount or the computer won't boot or run without constant crashing. This is where you are at …. (I did warn you that you wouldn't like what I have to say). > What might cause the Finder corruptions? Finder application may get damaged due to, improper system shutdown, file system corruption, operating system malfunction, upgrading operating system, virus infection, and more. How to Fix Finder Corruption: In order to sort out this behaviour, you need to perform Erase and Install installation of Mac OS X. It resolves all the hard drive errors. After formatting (Erasing) and re-installation, restore data from the most recent backup. I had similar problems as you are experiencing, on my previous MBP after having two Logic Boards replaced. Finally, the only solution was a total wipe of the system and a fresh install … Erase & Install of Snow Leopard. 1. Booted from SL install disc, used Disk Utility (on the disc) and ERASED the system on MBP 2. Then Installed Snow Leopard 3. Then did a RESTORE from Time Machine backup (wirelessly from my Time Capsule). Cheers, Ronni 17" MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 2.66GHz / 4GB / 1067 MHz DDR3 / 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200rpm OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard Windows 7 Ultimate (under sufferance) On 05/09/2010, at 2:55 PM, Rob Phillips wrote: > Hi all > > I've been having strange performance issues with my MacBook Pro over the last > 4 months. 2.5 GHz core 2 duo, 2Gb RAM. OS 10.6.4. There were and are, > multiple symptoms and causes. I'm writing this to assist other people who > might experience similar problems, and seek advice about my ongoing issues. > > I wrote the start of this email in July: > "Ever since I had Snow Leopard and Office 2008 installed in May the machine > has been having periods of CPU thrashing. This lasts for about 5 mins and > then settles down. During the CPU thrashing response times are obviously > VERY slow. I can see that both CPUs are working at near 100% each thru iStat > menus. It's a bit confusing. A couple of weeks ago the logic board died, and > I got a replacement, and nothing has changed. > > I've repaired permissions and repaired the System disk with Disk Utility. By > using Console, I was able to locate and remove a rogue Lexmark printing > process from a printer I used when visiting someone." > > Sometimes after periods of thrashing, the machine becomes unresponsive, and I > need to restart it. Sometimes the machine restarts, but the finder doesn't > function. Ronda Brown suggested that I reboot off another drive, trash the > Finder Prefs ~user/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist and reboot. > This worked. She also advised that I install the 10.6.4 Combo OS update. > > The machine was still thrashing, and I was suspecting that it was a virtual > memory thing. However, my system disk had 40GB free (about 20%). There > should have been plenty of room for virtual memory swap files. > > I did some searching on the web and found Mac OSX Routine Maintenance by > Randy B. Singer http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html. One part of that article > was about disk defragmentation. The standard OSX 'wisdom' is that OSX > automatically defragments disks. It is true that OSX handles file > fragmentation, where parts of files are on different parts of the disk. It > doesn't handle drive fragmentation, where files are spread all over the disk, > and there isn't enough contiguous space left for swap files, etc. This was > the cause of my CPU thrashing. When I installed Snow Leopard and Office 2008 > they filled up the free contiguous space, and the removed old Leopard files > left various gaps. > > I used iDefrag (http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php - GBP 20) and > this fixed up my CPU thrashing problems. In the meantime, I have had another > logic board die, but this has been fixed. > > However, the system keeps slowing down and becoming unresponsive, and the > Finder Prefs keep becoming corrupt, often after unresponsive periods. The > CPU's don't thrash any more, but it can take 5-20 seconds to swap between > apps. I regularly check for disk and permissions errors, and it all seems OK. > > One scenario which can start the unresponsiveness is when I'm doing backups. > I use a program called Synchronize to backup to an external disk, and Time > Machine over wireless. When one of both of these are running, the machine > runs like treacle. Is there any way I can allocate fewer system resources to > these backup tasks? > > What might cause the Finder corruptions? > > I am still trying to work out a foolproof way to recover from the finder > corruptions. Booting off another disk, trashing the Finder Prefs and > rebooting isn't enough to fix it anymore. I installed the unix utility > Applejack. > http://sourceforge.net/projects/applejack/files/AppleJack/AppleJack-1.6/AppleJack-1.6.dmg/download. > This fixes system software problems from single user mode. Hold down > Apple(Command)-S when the system boots. Last week when the Finder was > corrupted and it wouldn't reboot after trashing the finder prefs, I ran > Applejack AUTO to do a deep cache clean. It then started up OK. > > Today, when the Finder was corrupted and it wouldn't reboot after trashing > the finder prefs, applejack didn't work, but a Shutdown rather than a Reboot > did. > > I hope these troubleshooting processes might be helpful to those with > mid-level technical skills, and I'd really appreciate any suggestions about > how to get around the finder corruptions. It takes me an hour or 2 to fix > these each time. > > Cheers > Rob > > -- > Associate Professor Rob Phillips > Educational Development Unit > Room 4.42 Level 4 Library North Wing, Murdoch University > [email protected] Phone: +61 8 9360 6054 Mobile: 0416 065 054 > Fellow, Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:[email protected]>
