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    Ocassional freezes.....Snow Leopard

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by blackmamba, Sep 16, 2009.

  1. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    Anyone else here experience an occasional freeze where you get the colorful spinning wheel when trying to open up an application such as Mail or Microsoft Word?

    The freeze would last for about, say 45 seconds or so then everything will be normal.

    I'd probably say I experience this a couple of times throughout the week. Not often.

    Is this normal?
     
    blackmamba, Sep 16, 2009
    #1
  2. Amnesiac

    Amnesiac 404

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    No it's not normal. Macs are just supposed to work.
     
    Amnesiac, Sep 16, 2009
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  3. jjahshik32

    jjahshik32 Notebook Deity

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    No freezes here on my 2.26ghz mac pro or the 17" 2.8ghz mbp under snow leopard. ROCK SOLID!!
     
    jjahshik32, Sep 16, 2009
    #3
  4. D3X

    D3X the robo know it all

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    Could be due to several reasons.

    1. Memory allocation: Mac OS X although great with memory management, it still needs to clear up some especially if you have a couple applications running at the same time or had some running prior to running a new one. This also depends on how much memory you have on your MacBook and what applications you run on a daily basis of course.

    2. Indexing: Mac OS X does index files for spotlight, and seldomly it may be doing this in the background and utilizing the hard drive. Running a program during indexing will be considerably slower and may cause the beachball spin. This depends on the speed of your hard drive, with a 7200 RPM this may be reduced, and with an SSD, you proabably won't notice anything while indexing.

    3. Snow Leopard upgrade + 3rd party apps: If you did an upgrade from Leopard, all the previous applications may not be fully compatible with Snow Leopard. They may be the issue and could cause instability or slowness on the new operating system. So please check what processes are running and double check if these are 3rd party apps and if there are new versions for you to update to.
     
    D3X, Sep 16, 2009
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  5. D3X

    D3X the robo know it all

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    No, it's normal. Although Macs are supposed to work and that depends on the user that's using it.
     
    D3X, Sep 16, 2009
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  6. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    I've seen this a few times, very rare, but its usually when I have A LOT of things going. I just chalk it up to maxing out the machine... it used to happen on Leopard more often than it does on Snow Leopard.
     
    doh123, Sep 16, 2009
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  7. HoosierMac

    HoosierMac Notebook Enthusiast

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    HoosierMac, Sep 16, 2009
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  8. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for the input you guys. Will probably look forward to doing a clean re-install soon.
     
    blackmamba, Sep 16, 2009
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  9. Amnesiac

    Amnesiac 404

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    I'd expect this sort of stuff from Windows, but surely not Mac!?
     
    Amnesiac, Sep 16, 2009
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  10. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    Is this the correct way to do a clean install of SL?

    <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NhLUcng-kog&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NhLUcng-kog&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='560' height='340'></embed></object>
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 6, 2015
    blackmamba, Sep 16, 2009
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  11. kftrainer

    kftrainer Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yes I do and it usually happens after I wake the computer up from sleep overnight even though most of the time I close all applications. I did do a clean up of my caches and it seem to help after I did that and rebooted the machine . But I think it is a result of the many applications being opened and maxing out my 3gb memory. It is frustrating and I know Snow Leopard has to fix some obvious bugs maybe that will happen in later iterations on the OS
     
    kftrainer, Sep 17, 2009
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  12. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    blackmamba, Sep 19, 2009
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  13. haquocdung

    haquocdung Notebook Virtuoso

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    same problem here, mate. I got quite a few screen of death already.
    Win 7 RC or RTM is even more stable.
     
    haquocdung, Sep 19, 2009
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  14. k9hydr4

    k9hydr4 Notebook Deity

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    I have zero issue with SL. Everything is smooth and have yet to crash, freeze, lag, etc. XP runs smooth, too, although SP3 refuses to install.

    Clean Install with MBA-
     
    k9hydr4, Sep 19, 2009
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  15. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    Apparently, booting into 64-bit mode fixes the beachball problem.


    Nvm. Just got my first hang while in 64 bit mode. =(
     
    blackmamba, Sep 20, 2009
    #15
  16. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    i wasn't getting it before but i have had it twice as of now.

    most likely 10.6.2 will come out in a few days to address it...
     
    masterchef341, Sep 21, 2009
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  17. HoosierMac

    HoosierMac Notebook Enthusiast

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    I did a clean install over the weekend and ran all OS patches before installing any apps. To avoid the possibility of transferring the problem to the newly installed OS, I decided not to use Migration Assistant and do a clean install of all my apps as well. I used my Time Machine backup to restore photos, iTunes music, and documents folder, but nothing else. Yes it was a pain and took a while, but so far SL is working as advertised, very fast and flawlessly. The only thing that I can think of that is now different (besides newer versions of some apps) would be that I have not installed Rosetta. Hopefully this fixes my issues!

    -HM
     
    HoosierMac, Sep 22, 2009
    #17
  18. Luke1708

    Luke1708 Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    wow, im getting my copy this week. i'm now thinking it was a bad investment.
     
    Luke1708, Sep 23, 2009
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  19. HoosierMac

    HoosierMac Notebook Enthusiast

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    Over 48 hrs without a lockup and the only beachball I've seen is opening a podcast in iTunes. The one issue that I am seeing is increased temps. Before SL I would typically run between 115 - 125 deg Fahrenheit and now I am up closer to 140 doing the very same activities. I saw a fix for this somewhere, but need to look it up again.

    -HM

    Update....
    Found this post on MacNN forums that talks about the heat issue and how to reset the SMC, PRAM, and VRAM. I just reset my SMC..hopefully it works.
     
    HoosierMac, Sep 23, 2009
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  20. blackmamba

    blackmamba Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for the link. Will take a look at it.
     
    blackmamba, Sep 23, 2009
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  21. HoosierMac

    HoosierMac Notebook Enthusiast

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    Resetting the SMC dropped my temps back to what I was seeing before installing SL. The only exception I've seen so far is Quicktime X. As soon as I start a movie my temps jump to the 150 degree Fahrenheit range. I expected the fans didn't kick in at that point, but they didn't. Does anyone know at what temp the fans will start to speed up on their own?

    Thanks,

    -HM
     
    HoosierMac, Sep 24, 2009
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  22. doh123

    doh123 Without ME its just AWESO

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    150º F isn't that hot... about 66º C ... wouldn't expect them to spin up at all unless it gets to the mid and upper 70ºs C, about 167º-170ºish F.... but usually all the Unibody models seem to wait until over around 180º F
     
    doh123, Sep 24, 2009
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  23. HoosierMac

    HoosierMac Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks for the info. I wasn't sure where those temps fell on the Macbook "hot" scale. I guess we are more sensitive to the heat of our Macbooks than our Macbooks are. I also discovered that other movie playing software (Divx, VLC) also caused the temps to rise like Quicktime X did.
     
    HoosierMac, Sep 25, 2009
    #23