I have lived with this late 2006 Black MacBook since new. Always been responsive , now just tapping a pull down menu it stalls and beach ball, then after 2-3 seconds it releases and the menu pulls down. By that time my mouse cursor is somewhere else. Has 4 gigs memory, but I hear that 3 is all that is used. Lion with all updates, and didn't start this until recently. Not sure if it was the last lion update or something else.

Anything to make it work without beach balls? Go back to something previous?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2012 09:25PM by Microman.

How much free space do you have on your HD?

Do a safe-boot.

Then restart normally.

...And you should never have put Lion on that computer. It's too slow and the hard drive is too slow. I might consider Lion on a MB that old if it booted from an SSD.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/2012 09:42PM by Chakravartin.

you want to have 10-20% free space on hard drive.

there are reports that a drive with bad sectors could cause beach balls. If you nuke, before you pave make sure you write ZEROS to the drive to map out bad sectors.

Have you confirmed that only 3 gigs of memory is being used? Does this always happen? Only after several hours of work? Lots of other applications open? Lot's of Safari windows/tabs open?

Take a look at activity monitor and see what is using up so much processor.

frequently a little bit of hunting will save you the hassle of a reinstall.

nor does it hurt to fix permissions and verify the directory structure.

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I think 10% to 20% is very, very skimpy. Depends on what apps you use and how much HD space they need for caching, but I've found with the apps I use that keeping 30% or more free is preferable.

Flash in Safari is a resource hog.

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Drew
Have you confirmed that only 3 gigs of memory is being used? Does this always happen? Only after several hours of work? Lots of other applications open? Lot's of Safari windows/tabs open?

That particular generation can physically accept 4 but only addresses 3.3 GB.

The spinning beachballs are most likely caused by RAM being maxed out, virtual memory (i.e. hard drive) being substituted, and hard drive access being slowed either just by the nature of the drive or by one of the problems noted above (drive too full/fragmented, bad blocks.)

Agree with Chaka that nothing newer than Leopard should have been put on that machine-- starting with Snow the mac is into at least 4 GB of RAM through most of daily use.

The only real solution at this point might be an SSD.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

500 gig HD, with 189 Gig Free

I've got the BMB.

It needs more than 4G RAM, but it's stuck at 3.3G. I put a 60G SSD in it, and it's much faster. There are some beach balls still, but they're few and far between.

A fresh install might help some, but an SSD is really what you need at this point, for any real improvement.

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You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

-An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

There is no safety for honest men
except by believing all possible evil
of evil men.

Pixels were born to be punished. -Frederick Van Johnson

Mister, that's a ten-gallon hat on a twenty-gallon head.

I *love* Sigs. It's Glocks I hate.

Just restart.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

you can also try logging in through a new user account and see if that account has the same problem.

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Quote
Speedy
Just restart.

Seriously, that fixes the problem for me more often that I'd like to admit. My 2009 MacMini slows down considerably if I have several apps running at once.

Now also seeing 6 fonts coming up on boot up , that say CONFLICT

LastResort.ttfg
Geneva.dfont
HelveticaNeue.dfont
LucidaGrande.ttc
Keyboard.ttf
Helvetkca.dfont

So where is the best price on an SSD that would hold enough to make BMB usable?, But since the next upgrade will not be good for this unit, that may be a waste of time

What Macbook Air in the refurb store is the one I should be looking to get?, Maybe I will jump on a new computer. Who Knows. Apple is driving me to make their billions

Quote
the_poochies

Quote
Speedy
Just restart.

Seriously, that fixes the problem for me more often that I'd like to admit. My 2009 MacMini slows down considerably if I have several apps running at once.

Of course. Works fine until RAM gets maxed again.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

Quote
Microman
Now also seeing 6 fonts coming up on boot up , that say CONFLICT

LastResort.ttfg
Geneva.dfont
HelveticaNeue.dfont
LucidaGrande.ttc
Keyboard.ttf
Helvetkca.dfont

So where is the best price on an SSD that would hold enough to make BMB usable?, But since the next upgrade will not be good for this unit, that may be a waste of time

What Macbook Air in the refurb store is the one I should be looking to get?, Maybe I will jump on a new computer. Who Knows. Apple is driving me to make their billions

SSD-- see if you can get by on one of the smaller ones first. I had a 320 GB drive in my BMB (late zoo7) and managed to keep it full, but since I've had MBAs with 64 GB SSDs I've found it easy to keep them at least 40% free with minimal effort.

I think you may find Lion does fine in your late 2006 with an SSD and available RAM and that the SSD is a worthwhile upgrade price-wise. I have never bought one so I'll leave the recs to those who have.

If you do OK without keyboard backlighting, the 2010 base model MBA at $700 in the refurb store is a great value.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

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RAMd®d
I've got the BMB.

It needs more than 4G RAM, but it's stuck at 3.3G. I put a 60G SSD in it, and it's much faster. There are some beach balls still, but they're few and far between.

A fresh install might help some, but an SSD is really what you need at this point, for any real improvement.

I could swear you had the same BMB as mine, the late 2007 (Santa Rosa), which could address all 4 GB?

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

I could swear you had the same BMB as mine, the late 2007 (Santa Rosa), which could address all 4 GB?

Geeze, that's correct!

It's my first mini that only sees 3.3G.

So it's the same BMB as yours, with an SSD.

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You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

-An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

There is no safety for honest men
except by believing all possible evil
of evil men.

Pixels were born to be punished. -Frederick Van Johnson

Mister, that's a ten-gallon hat on a twenty-gallon head.

I *love* Sigs. It's Glocks I hate.

Quote
RAMd®d
I could swear you had the same BMB as mine, the late 2007 (Santa Rosa), which could address all 4 GB?

Geeze, that's correct!

It's my first mini that only sees 3.3G.

So it's the same BMB as yours, with an SSD.

If I still had it I'd definitely have SSD'd by now I think. The WD Scorpio Black320 I had in it is still kicking in my 2009 mini. The mini does what I need it to on 2 GB RAM and rarely bogs, so no clear benefit to SSD for now.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]