My sweet stable Imac7,1 + new Macbook Air > Beachballs, needs SMC Resets, Browser >100 CPU...ideas?

Question

My sweet stable Imac7,1 + new Macbook Air > Beachballs, needs SMC Resets, Browser >100 CPU...ideas?

Hi Everyone,

Imac7,1 10.5 patched fully (OS / Security / Java /Flash ) has been working like a system should for the past few years. No reboots needed. Always on. I basically use it to watch video, play audio, nothing CPU intensive. I was Internet Connection Sharing to one netbook, but as of last week added a new Macbook Air OS X 10.7.

If not that night after buying the Air, or the day after... The Imac beachballs permanently if I'm playing video files or using the internet, and the only way to get it back is an SMC reset. Anything other than an SMC reset just gets me to the prelogin wheel spin.

I've turned off Internet Connection Sharing, switched users, ran Disk Repair (only permissions on some java folders needed fixing), tried Safe Mode, looked in the logs for obvious things, but no luck yet.

Finally got around to watching the Activity Monitor when Firefox was playing back some Flash video and I actually saw the CPU above 100. Killing the process saved me from doing another reset

Any ideas what I should try? OS upgrade? Flash downgrade?

Is there anyway to prevent applications from using that much CPU and automatically shutting it down when it does?

Also curious if verbose logins, without the SMC reset, would give me any information...

Appreciate any suggestions. Thanks Appleworld.

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Aug 9, 2012 6:17 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

BDAqua

Level 10

239,375 points

Aug 9, 2012 6:25 PM in response to llllllxllllll

Hello,

See if the Disk is issuing any S.M.A.R.T errors in Disk Utility...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1896.html

Open Activity Monitor in Applications>Utilities, select All Processes & sort on CPU%, any indications there?

How much RAM & free space do you have also, click on the Memory & Disk Usage Tabs.

Open Console in Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this happens.

In the Memory tab, are there a lot of Pageouts?

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Answer 2

Aug 9, 2012 7:46 PM in response to BDAqua

SMART is verified.

I'm pretty sure if I let Firefox / Safari go it would be the culprit. Like I mentioned above, CPU was above 100, and if I dont kill it then I end up having to reboot.

I'll verify and get more data. There isnt a way to get Activity Monitor to write to a file?

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,375 points

Aug 9, 2012 11:34 PM in response to llllllxllllll

No, but Console is imprtant in this respect, & you can Copy & Paste any messages here. 🙂

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Answer 4

Oct 28, 2012 8:45 PM in response to llllllxllllll

I let this thread die because I was a bit busy, and ultimately paid the only reputable third part repair place in NYC to take a look.

1) HW tests on IO on the hard drive came back horrible. I asked the techs to replace the drive.

2) During the repair, senior level techs told me that there was a "known issue" with the SATA cables in these models...Sound familiar to anyone?

Was fine for two months, and now the problem is happening again. Good times.

Haven't changed software. Only difference is a newer version of VLC.

Ugh.

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Answer 5

Oct 29, 2012 2:49 AM in response to llllllxllllll

You appear to be using Leopard on an Intel iMac.

I advise upgrading to Snow Leopard after maximising RAM.

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