Got a new hard drive, system now has very short freezes when being used

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Got a new hard drive, system now has very short freezes when being used

Hello there!

I recently got a new hard drive, 1 TB from 320, and i have been having an issue where the computer seems to freeze for about half a second and then go back to normal. This happens on multiple apps and accounts. i have had it happen in safari, firefox, Minecraft and warcraft 3. It seems to happen more when the system is under heavy use like if i am playing DvZ. Basically its like the display freezes and everything else keeps going. after about half a second or so the screen will jump to where it should be. This happens both in Minecraft and Warcraft 3. in safari it happens sometimes when i go back a page, it just kind of sits with the back button highlighted for a second then it goes to the previous page. Also sometimes when i scroll it takes a second or two to start scrolling.

The system itself is not freezing totally because stuff still happens when the screen is frozen, in Warcraft 3 units will jump to where they would be is the screen hadn't frozen.

I have tested it on multiple accounts so its not isolated to one account.

Thanks for any help you can give,

ZapplePi

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 29, 2014 8:20 PM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Jul 30, 2014 8:27 AM in response to ZapplePi

Try booting into the Safe Mode using your normal account. Disconnect all peripherals except those needed for the test. Shut down the computer and then power it back up after waiting 10 seconds. Immediately after hearing the startup chime, hold down the shift key and continue to hold it until the gray Apple icon and a progress bar appear. The boot up is significantly slower than normal. This will reset some caches, forces a directory check, and disables all startup and login items, among other things. When you reboot normally, the initial reboot may be slower than normal. If the system operates normally, there may be 3rd party applications which are causing a problem. Try deleting/disabling the third party applications after a restart by using the application un-installer. For each disable/delete, you will need to restart if you don't do them all at once.

Safe Mode

Safe Mode - About

General information.

Isolating issues in Mac OS X

Step by Step to Fix Your Mac

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Answer 2

ZapplePi Author

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Aug 11, 2014 7:26 PM in response to Eric Root

Hey!

I just finished going through the tests and here are the results. When i was in safe mode the freeze didn't appear to happen, though the freeze can have long times between instances. I was only able to test using safari and just browsing the web normally. I tried warcraft 3 and Minecraft and neither of them would launch in safe mode so i couldn't test them. after i left safe mode and went back to normal the freezes returned (Though it took a little while). I don't really have and third party software that runs on the accounts i tested this on (Besides Minecraft and W3) so there isn't much i can uninstall. If you have any more ideas i'd love to hear them.

Thanks a ton for the help by the way!

ZapplePi

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Aug 12, 2014 8:21 AM in response to ZapplePi

How much RAM do you ave installed -  menu/About This Mac?

Does Activity Monitor show anything using all the CPU or memory?

Activity Monitor – Monitor Performance Problems

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Answer 4

ZapplePi Author

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Aug 12, 2014 11:05 AM in response to Eric Root

Yo!

I have 4 GBs of ram and there isnt anything taking up high CPU/Memory. ( I will upgrade it to 8 soon though).

I tested having both Minecraft and activity monitor open at once to check and during each freeze the CPU usage goes from about 80% to about 10%. and it seems to write stuff to the disk at the same time.

I also searched the web for my HDD (WD10JPVX) and it came up with a couple of threads (Same firmware/revision as mine) talking about an issue where the hard drive would spin down early and the system would freeze until it came back up. This is very much like the issue I am having, right to the fact that i can hear the hard drive spinning up right before the system unfreezes.

And the freeze just happened twice in a relatively short period of time.

Thanks

ZapplePi

P.S. the links might take a long while to load because WD's site is SLOW.

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

684,039 points

Aug 13, 2014 10:38 AM in response to ZapplePi

You are welcome.

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