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Macbook Aluminium 13" Randomly Freezes

Hello, people!


I have a Macbook Aluminium 13" (Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD) that randomly freezes in several different stuations.


Abou two months ago, it was being used by my mother and it suddenly stopped working. She was using Safari and the coloured-spinning circle went up and didn't stopped for a long time. Meanwhile, I tried to open/close windows, open "About this Mac" window and several other things. No success.


After a while, I forced it to turn of by holding down the power button and tried to reboot it to see if it was a isolated event or if it would happen again. Turns out that the it was not a isolated event and the Mac stopped working again, but right off the start, it would't even launch Safari or any other program...


As I had Bootcamp on that laptop, we started using it on our Windows partition and everything was running really smooth (on Windows). No freezes, crashes or even BSOD (which i tought was really inpressive).


One or two weeks later, when I had time, I formatted the Macintosh partition and tried to install Mac OSX Snow Leopard (the laptop default OS is Leopard, but I had bought a copy of Snow Leopard) to see if it would be different.


The system installed, normally, rebooted, played the Apple "welcome" video and led me to the first configs (those where you choose an Wi-Fi connection, Apple ID, username and profile picture) but it turned out that the system would't even be able to end these configuration steps.

Sometimes it froze at the Wi-Fi config, but mostly it froze at the image changing option with the same symptons: coloured spinning-circle and no response of any other command. If tryed to foce-reboot, the "welcome" video would be played once more and I had to go through everything again.


I left the laptop aside for about two months after this, and today I decided to make it work, but not. Formatted the whole HDD (excluded the Bootcamp partition including) and chose the Zero Config option at the formatting options. Installed the system and made through the config steps to end up with the system freezing at the image change. Everything same as before, but now, after force-rebooting the system booted, launched normally (almost) and left me on my desktop ( ! ). After trying to launch System Preferences the laptop froze and I could do nothing again.


Force-rebooted again and me it to "About this Mac" window AND was able to click "More Info...". The new window poped out and I could read my laptop specs.


As I'm wrinting down this post, I tryed to see some other options of that laptop, just to see it freezing again but this time, things got harder.

No coloured spinning-cicle and mouse won't move (every other time it moved). Anyway, I'm able to press the dashboard key (on the keyboard), power key and a few other , and they work (every other time they worked too).


So now I'm with this Mac that can't see to be able to work without freezing.


I've already tryed to reset PRAM, SafeBoot, Disk Repair, System Repair, Repair Repair and any other things that I could imagine to do... The only thing that I haven't tryed yet was changing the hardware. maybe the RAM is gone. IDK.


Any ideas?


Cheers!

MacBook

Posted on Jun 8, 2014 8:09 PM

Reply
27 replies

Jul 30, 2014 6:00 PM in response to dwbrecovery

Hey, dude! Hi!!!


Sorry for the long time to answer... I had my giraffe shipped back to Africa so I could bring some lions from there...

Anyway, I've just tried changing the HDD, formatting it and installing the shipped version of OS X, and I got no success. The system still got stuck...

So, now, I'm thinking about a logic boar issue...

Should I just take it to a Apple Support center?


Thanks again!! Cheers! =D

Aug 5, 2014 11:13 AM in response to dwbrecovery

Hey, man!!


So, I've downloaded the right version for my Mac (MacBook5,1 Mac-F42D89C). It's a .dmg Image file that has a folder set inside.

The instructions is to use those folders on the .dmg to restore the same folders on my Mac.

The problem: I cannot copy the folders from the .dmg to my System folder in order to replace/restore it. How can I do it so I can run the AHT?

Also, I found out that if I turnoff Airport, the Mac won't stuck! I have to make some more tests to make sure this is real, but it seems like it is!



Thanks!! =D

Aug 6, 2014 2:06 AM in response to Human_AfterAll

Hey,

- Turn off Airport! interesting. Check with Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> Network ( I think ) whether the Airport card is detected. What Card Type / Firmware Version is reported?

- Use Disk Urility to burn the dmg to a CD. Then boot from the CD , hold down the "D" key during the boot. Does the Airport Card fail the tests?


Cheers

Aug 6, 2014 5:35 PM in response to Human_AfterAll

Hi again!


So, I've burned the disc on my working Mac. Am I burning it right?

I just right-clicked the 022-4037-A.dmg file and selected "Burn "022-4037-A.dmg" do Disc..."


Then I inserted it in the bugged Mac and held down the D key... And nothing happened...

The Apple logo went up and the loading circle started rolling... Nothing else happened for about 5 minutes... I then turned it off.


Ideas?


Cheers!! =D

Feb 12, 2015 10:15 AM in response to Human_AfterAll

Hi there. If you can boot to ether the original install disc or a Snow Leopard disc, you can use disk utilities to both check and run a repair of both permissions and disk repair. If your operating system is now Snow Leopard. Do a reinstall of Snow Leopard. You do not have to erase the drive to do this and it will not delete your personal files. Also the original install disk that came with your computer should already have the AHT on it.Also do a pram reset. Command/Option/P/R hold down these keys while starting up till three chimes.Then you could also try a SMC reset. http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295 This does not sound like a direct hardware issue. Bad permissions/ Directory errors/Hard drive to full/Hard drive failing. In rare instances failing memory.

Feb 12, 2015 11:02 AM in response to Human_AfterAll

Hi. After more thought . When in disk utilities off your install disk, check to see if after clicking the first disk in the left pannel, down at bottom right it shows S.M.A.R.T. status verified. Also it should say GUID partition. If no GUID partition you will need to erase the entire disk then go to partitions and set one partition (mac os extended journaled> then chose options and check GUID. then erase and reinstall. I had a imac that did what yours is doing. I could install the operating system but could not get past the setup screen Turns out the hard drive was failing.

Macbook Aluminium 13" Randomly Freezes

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