Beach Ball

I have a MacBook Air with 4 GB running Mavericks and I see a beach ball flash on and off briefly every now and then when that did not happen on Mountain Lion. For me it is not a big deal because it is so brief. If your occurrences are more often and of longer duration you can try the suggestions int the thread below.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5632943?tstart=300

My 2010 had the same issue. I replaced the rotation drive with an SSD and it was a night and day difference. No more beach ball, from boot to login in 15 seconds, from login to screen ready to go in 5 seconds.

If you are still under warranty and/or have AppleCare, call them. Let them deal w/it.

You shoud not install any 3rd-party hardware while the system is under warranty or AppleCare. That would void the warranty.

At this point the first thing I woud do is boot in Safe Mode (Boot then hold dow the Shift key until you see it startup.) If the problem does not happen in Safe Mode then you do not need to reiinstall the OS. Instead you would need to remove some 3rd-party software that is causing the problem.

Before trying a clean install look as the instructions in this thread:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5603578?answerId=24057011022#24057011022

If those suggestaions to not to the job, a clean install can help. When you do the clean install write zeros to the entire disk. This will find and map-out any bad blocks.

First backup the sytem twice (onto two different external disk drives). You are about to erase all the data on your computer and you want to ge darn sure you can reload it. Consider creating a clone onto the second backup drive.

For more about backups (including cloning):

Time Machine Basics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

Most commonly used backup methods:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045

Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031

Boot the Recovery partition (Boot - Command -R)

Disk Utility > Select the system disk > Erase tab > Mac OS Extended (journaleld) > Name: Macintosh HD > Security Options... > Move the bar one position to the right (write a single pass of zeros) > OK > Erase...

The erase will take a long time as it writes to every block on your disk.

Then resinall the OS and reload your data.

If this does not help take it back to Apple and ask again that they find what is causing the problem. Be sure to maintain a current Time Machine backup in case your disk drive fails. (Do this at all times, even once your system is healthy again.)

NJ29 wrote:

i already took an appointment before. they reinstalled the whole 'os' but it seems it has not gone yet.

Did you tell them that the problem still remains? IF not why not? If under warranty or not, call Apple tech support to advise them the "repair" did not work. More than likely, ATS will tell you to take the MBP right back to the repair shop.

When it’s time to pick up your computer from the repair shop:

*** Before you leave the repair shop, make sure you have the repair tech(s) power the comp up and demonstrate that it is indeed working & repaired properly to your satisfaction.***

No. It does not touch the recovery partition.

Your choice on whether to do a clean install, writing zeros to the disk, or go to Apple and let them deal with it. Given it is under warranty the latter sounds easier.