Mac will freeze every few seconds

Similar problem, freezes and beach ball for up to five minutes at a time, not able to open more than one app at a time. (i have grown to hate and dread seeing that beachball) tried a complete reinstall from Leopard,Snow Leopard and Lion, still the same. Then UNPLUGGED the second monitor. mac is now super fast !! opens and closes apps with no delay at all

Hey Thierry de Villeneuve

Sorry but your problem have obviously been a hardware failure.. I am actually surprised that you find it to be a software failure.

Hardware can brake at any point, you dont have to install new software or throw the macbook to the ground. No this can happen at any time my friend.

Anyways i just wanted to point out, that your problem is a hardware one as swapping in a new hdd solved it, its that simple.

As you wish it to be Zipain. However, AppleCare refused to consider it a hardware problem and made me pay for the HD replacement.

WOW! Wait, WHAT!?

That is seriously bad service! what the beep. It is obviously a Hardware fault as changeing hdd removes the problem! oh man how in gods name could they put the blame on software/you, man you should really go in there and complain, i would had popped a vein and flip out if they told me its a software issue when changeing hardware fixes the problem!

6 months later, I can say that my problem is fixed. It was a software issue and the patch fixed it.

Hmm, i still got the problem atm. And i dont recall doing a software update before the problem start.

I can now, though, say that the problem is on apples side, as ive changed harddrive twice, reinstalled lion 4times on 2diffrent drives, changed ram twice.

Basicly no other solution for me. and i ONLY install stuff i know ive been running with without problems the last 8months, and its apps i need, if i have to give em up, then i cant use my mac for what its bought to do.

Do you know what?
Mine only EVER happens if I clear browsing history on Chrome. That's the only ever time I get the pauses every few seconds and have to restart my computer. Isn't that strange?!

I stopped using chrome aswel, but still kinda had the problem.

Then i didnt install norton internet security.

poof seems problem is gone....

Tempted to install the norton just to see if its the problem. scared of having to reformat to get back into safety again though ^^

oh well, need to get my ssd back into my machine as the main OSx deliver!

Thierry, did u use a Anti-Virus program ?

I had a similar problem with MacBook Pro Autumn 2009, 10.6.8. It just started one day after I brought the system back from sleep, with no upgrades or program installations in the past week or so.

I tried repair disk and trashing the Finder preferences file but that didn't work. Somebody here mentioned unplugging the second monitor but I haven't used a second monitor in a few months. But I tried to put "0" in the option "Number of Recent Items" in the display icon in the upper-right corner and it seems to be no more freezes. Maybe this is related to the second monitor problems?

I maxed out the RAM on my "problem" machine and the freezes are very much reduced in frequency and length. The increase of RAM was twice the ram.

Well, my similar problem was on page 2, if you'd like to read carefully. The problem was solved when the harddisk was replaced. So that was the faulty piece of hardware. I recommend anyone who his having this problem to immediately take a full backup of their data then have the harddisk replaced with a new one.

I have this problem with my second Macbook! I have nothing hooked up and I am going crazy. Every minute or so, the screen will shift to the right and then freeze for 10-15 seconds. It a 3 week old computer......the SAME thing was happening with the old one! Can anone help me???????

Have the same problem on a Mac Pro. The computer will completely freeze for 5 - 10 seconds at a time, during which audio immediately cuts out and then comes back in, starting from where it stopped. This is particularly bad for me because I am doing music composition using a digital audio workstation and obviously when you're doing real-time work these freezes are absolutely unacceptable. I have been using this Mac for a couple of years now and this is a new problem, starting maybe a month or two ago.

Uusually I notice it when I am using Ableton Live 9 and associated plug ins. I cannot be sure, but it may be related to the use of certain plug ins that use a significant amount of memory (like samplers). Plugs I typically use include Native Instruments Kontakt 5, Toontracks Superior Drummer and MusicLab RealGuitar, RealLPS and the like. All use sampled instruments. I have a memory monitoring utility that shows me how much memory my samples are using, but as I have 24 GB of physical memory, I am usually not anywhere close to using that much memory. Activity Monitor is not helpful.

OSX 10.7.5. 2 x 2.4 GHz quadcore xeon. Running Time Machine to an external 6TB G-RAID. (I am going to turn time machine off and see if this persists). Also running Google Drive but I turn this off when I'm working.

Thank you!!!! I followed the instructions for the article link that nvadave provided. It fixed my computer! I had been working on the issue for almost 2 days solid. Thank you so much! 🙂

what worked for me was first doing a software update download and then following these steps:

1. attempt a Restart (for me it failed due to Finder running some process)

2. go to Activity Moniter (under applications -> utility) and force quit Finder by first double-clicking the Finder process to open a window

3. on that window, click "Quit", which should give an option of "Force Quit", so click on that

then a lot of stuff starting freezing and going blank, and the screen was all grey except for a little loading icon on the bottom, but eventually my MBA restarted and I was able to log in back into my account. I've been freeze-free so far...

my problem possibly lied in some error in the Finder function. my desktop was frozen for months but i never really paid attention to it until i started having these super frequent freeze problems. so the Finder reboot and system update/restart probably set everything back to its usual function