I believe something is wrong with my MacBook Pro

[iTunesFreak5454]

Hello. I just recently received a MBP last week. 2.2 GHz, 160 GB 7200 rpm HDD, 15.4" inch, 2 GB RAM. I've come across a problem and I'll explain it very quickly.

Basically I was in Photo Booth, I went to take a picture and the screen turned white for the flash. Then my screen went black. I could barely see anything. I decided to do a forced shutdown by holding the power button down. When I got back up, all my settings on my computer erased. (iChat, Address Book, Display settings, screensaver, iPhoto, iWorks, iTunes). Most files were still there (like my iTunes music), but they were no longer "associated" with their programs. I tried to re-import my iTunes library but that seems to have gotten corrupted during that "Photo Booth crash" thing that happened. Everything was a mess. After fiddling with it, I felt an erase and reinstall of everything was probably better with all my major files already backed up anyway. I erased and reinstalled and I haven't had a chance to set everything back up again but the computer is still crazy. If I have a saved setting like dock preferences or desktop background, it doesn't save when I restart. Sounds like I have a corrupted file in the Finder. But I erased and reinstalled everything. I do have Applecare and I did run TechTool Deluxe and no problems. It did find a problem with the Video RAM one time but I rescanned and it was fine, so I don't know.

I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to set everything back up again and have this happen continually. Is something wrong with my computer? The Finder seems to be acting weird. It doesn't even show icons anymore for the "Movies" and "Pictures" section. Just pictures of folders. Something just feels wrong. Can I ask for a replacement? I'm not even sure what the problem is so I don't know what to say to Apple.

Please help. I appreciate your time.

 

[L3X]

I don't know this first hand, but I've read about this from another user. Someone mentioned that when the screen flashed, the ambient light sensors recognized this and dimmed the screen all the way down. So, everything is there, the screen is just super dim. When you did the force shut down, that may have messed things up.

This isn't conclusive, just a thought.

 

[iTunesFreak5454]

I actually am starting to believe that the forced shutdown is what screwed me up as well.

This is my first Mac, so as a Windows users I didn't think a forced shutdown was going to created such a huge problem. I wonder why the Finder and the settings are not acting normally.

P.S. - For the future, I've checked off the setting that says "Adjust brightness to surrounding light" or something like that so this doesn't happen again with Photo Booth.

 

[66217]

This seems like a software related problem. Not hardware.

I really don't see how forcing the computer to turn off can cause this but...
But before you go an make a fresh install there are some things you can try.

- Repair permission. Open Disk Utility an repair permissions.
- Try creating a new user account a see if things work correctly there.
- And before you go and make a fresh install, make an Archive & Install.

 

[iTunesFreak5454]

So you're thinking another reinstall (this time Archive) will probably correct the Finder and settings mishap?

 

[66217]

So you're thinking another reinstall (this time Archive) will probably correct the Finder and settings mishap?

Ooops. I didn't read you had already made an erase & install.

That changes things. It wouldn't hurt calling Applecare, and explain the problem telling them you already made an erase & install and things didn't improved.

I don't see how, but maybe something damaged when you forced shutdown your MBP. I have forced to shutdown my MB at least 10 times, and nothing have ver happened.

I wish you luck with Applecare. They normally give you a new Mac.