I have just bought my first Mac computer and i purchased the 27' i7 Quad core 2.93 Ghz with 4 GB of ram. It arrived friday and since i completely froze the computer (Got the beach ball thing and nothing would respond) and iPhoto has frozen twice requiring a restart for it to work.At the time of the problems i was downloading apps, listening to music and importing photos to the computer and had adium, skype and maybe some other programs running. Am i trying to do much stuff or could i have a defected Mac?
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New Mac owner, Programs freezing Normal?
- Thread starter DBlain2009
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Sounds like you have a lot going on at once. Open Activity Monitor and see what's taking up a good amount of CPU and memory.
How do i open up Activity Monitor?
When iPhoto froze, all other programs worked fine but i had to force quit iPhoto.
When iPhoto froze, all other programs worked fine but i had to force quit iPhoto.
That sounds defective, possibly a bad hard drive. Your computer should have absolutely no problems with anything you throw at it.
thats what i thought! but i give it a week and see what all happens bec the closes mac store is an hour and a half away and i dont want to ship my computer back and lose it for awhile
Go to Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor
The chances of it being a failed hard drive are very slim...most likely something taking up the CPU/memory.
I'll keep an eye on my cpu and memory over they next couple days and see if it happens again
I agree, the OS is not flawless; otherwise, there would never be software updates.
Sites that use flash can lock up safari, not so bad with Firefox but can still happen. Clicking too fast on nef images in aperture can lock it up... Many, many things done in different ways and at different speeds can lock it up. It is the same with any OS.
We all love macs, but its nice to see mac users admitting that OSX is not perfect.
hats off to your honesty.
You know it's funny because it is nevertheless a more attractive OS than Windows. They both have their plusses and minuses, and I still go into OSX more often on the MacBook Air. One big difference is, it seems like Windows has a greater willingness to kill hanging programs. So they both have programs that freeze, Windows is a more "hostile" environment however.
I often have Safari crashes and stalls, often attributed to Flash. But Safari seems to stall and crash even without Flash. Sometimes it just starts hogging CPU and memory for about 3-4 minutes like crazy, then its ok again. No idea. System is much more stable with Firefox or Chrome...
I have to agree...I have pretty good systems and there are no reasons that I get a spinning wheel when using safari normally.
one of your applications is choking...
could be the downloading & importing at the same time, or it could be one of your applications is unstable. Check to make sure they are up to date, and also head somewhere like VersionTracker to see if there are any issues with them (mostly the non apple ones). It could be just a hang, and might resolve itself with a little patience. Run Activity Monitor to see what apps are actually running, ones that are hanging are usually in red. You can also sample an apps processes to see what is going on, and also read the logs. If it is happening consistently it is likely choking on the same thing, so try to reduce the variables to identify the culprit. By the way, Activity Monitor is in your Applications folder inside the Utilities Folder...
my bet is it isn't hardware...
michael
PS: If you forced quit a iPhoto a few times you might have gotten a slightly corrupted database. Search "Old Toad" on the Apple support forums. No really... that is his name, lol. Or "old toad iPhoto" on the Google. Since it is new machine, my bet is not on this though.
HOW MANY PICS WERE YOU IMPORTING?? It wasn't like 15,000 or something like that was it? It takes awhile for iPhoto/Aperture to generate the previews. Importing goes quick... but there is a lot of stuff that goes on afterwards behind the scenes...
could be the downloading & importing at the same time, or it could be one of your applications is unstable. Check to make sure they are up to date, and also head somewhere like VersionTracker to see if there are any issues with them (mostly the non apple ones). It could be just a hang, and might resolve itself with a little patience. Run Activity Monitor to see what apps are actually running, ones that are hanging are usually in red. You can also sample an apps processes to see what is going on, and also read the logs. If it is happening consistently it is likely choking on the same thing, so try to reduce the variables to identify the culprit. By the way, Activity Monitor is in your Applications folder inside the Utilities Folder...
my bet is it isn't hardware...
michael
PS: If you forced quit a iPhoto a few times you might have gotten a slightly corrupted database. Search "Old Toad" on the Apple support forums. No really... that is his name, lol. Or "old toad iPhoto" on the Google. Since it is new machine, my bet is not on this though.
HOW MANY PICS WERE YOU IMPORTING?? It wasn't like 15,000 or something like that was it? It takes awhile for iPhoto/Aperture to generate the previews. Importing goes quick... but there is a lot of stuff that goes on afterwards behind the scenes...
I have the same experience with my MacBook Pro. Safari beach balls and freezes up all the time. But since Chrome is so awesome now I don't care to use Safari on any machine.
That thing should NOT bog down for what your doing. I'd take it back and try a new one. It should be idling while you do all that.
What about reinstalling the OS. A new mac shouldn't do that stuff. I just got my refurb i7 and have had no problems, running Parallels, iTunes, initial time machine backup, word, and firefox all at once. I've heard of others having to do a fresh install, and these problems going away. Just a thought.
May not be hardware, but run the system diagnostics to be sure. Insert the 2nd DVD that came with the system (the Applications DVD), restart the computer, and hold down the D key during boot until the diagnostics start up - you'll know it when you see it, as it looks like something from the 1990s. Let it run the detailed diagnostics, just to be safe.
I have a 2009 i7 iMac that developed a bad DIMM shortly after I got it - it drove me crazy for a couple weeks, with random freezes, until I finally did what I should have done at the first sign of problems, and ran the diagnostics. BAM, immediate bad RAM message. Had to swap the Apple and third-party RAM around to track down the culprit - it was one of the Apple DIMMs, surprisingly. Replaced easily under warranty, and it's been rock-solid ever since.
I have a 2009 i7 iMac that developed a bad DIMM shortly after I got it - it drove me crazy for a couple weeks, with random freezes, until I finally did what I should have done at the first sign of problems, and ran the diagnostics. BAM, immediate bad RAM message. Had to swap the Apple and third-party RAM around to track down the culprit - it was one of the Apple DIMMs, surprisingly. Replaced easily under warranty, and it's been rock-solid ever since.