When I connect to the internet/wifi my mac gets the spinning beach ball and freezes. I have to shut down via the power button. When I restart my mac and disconnect internet/wifi my mac runs fine. What is causing this to happen?

Question

Jennalee Author

Level 1

19 points

When I connect to the internet/wifi my mac gets the spinning beach ball and freezes. I have to shut down via the power button. When I restart my mac and disconnect internet/wifi my mac runs fine. What is causing this to happen?

I have a macbook 4,1

processor speed: 2.1 GHz

memory: 2 GB

capacity: 119.69GB

Available: 69.4 GB

Used: 50.29 GB

iOS: 10.6.8

Need help!!!

I have just had NBN (National Broadband Network) connected, now when I turn on my macbook and connect to the internet via ethernet cable or wifi through my airport, as soon as I click on anything, I get the spinning beach ball, mac freezes and I have to turn off via the power button. When I restart if I disconnect the internet/wifi my mac run fine. Nothing else in the house has changed, nothing has been added to the mac, everything is exactly the same except for the new faster internet.

I have a pc connected and it works perfectly, I borrowed a Macbook Pro from a friend and it works fine also.

I have contacted my internet provider twice now and no one seems to know what the problem is, and just tell me the issue is with my mac.

Why is this happening????

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Shiny White MacBook + iPhone 3GS

Posted on Sep 5, 2015 6:39 AM

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Answer 1

Jennalee Author

Level 1

19 points

Sep 17, 2015 11:33 PM in response to Jennalee

I have the solution to my problem, so I thought I'd share it with you, please note, anyone Australia thinking of connecting to NBN and running 10.6.8 make sure you update to Lion before you change to NBN. Two iMacs and a macBook, all 3 rendered absolutely useless with the NBN. I had to create a wifi hotspot, purchase Lion and then update. Once updated all work exactly as they did before NBN. Very slow process updating wirelessly.

good luck everyone

Jen

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2015 7:53 PM in response to Jennalee

Had a very similar problem here. New internet service, older mac. The solution, without having to change OS, was to change a setting in network preferences. IVP6 needed to be set to off instead of automatic. After changing the setting, the laptop is useable again.

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Answer 3

Jennalee Author

Level 1

19 points

Sep 20, 2015 5:15 AM in response to Tammy in MO

Oh wow, thanks for that Tammy, I still have an iMac belonging to my mum which is about 4 years old which I was going to purchase Lion again to update her computer, but will they that first. I phoned apple support over my problem and upgrading to Lion was their suggestion but I will try yours first....much cheaper option.

Thanks again Tammy 🙂

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Answer 4

Sep 25, 2015 8:49 AM in response to Jennalee

You're welcome. I hope it worked for you.

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Answer 5

Jennalee Author

Level 1

19 points

Oct 22, 2015 11:43 PM in response to Tammy in MO

Sadly this didn't work for me.

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Answer 6

Oct 25, 2015 6:25 AM in response to Jennalee

Did you click apply? When my son-in-law did it, he forgot to click apply in the preferences. So, while he thought he had turned off IVP6, he actually had not and it was still set to automatic. You must click apply for the preference to be saved.

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Answer 7

Jennalee Author

Level 1

19 points

Oct 25, 2015 11:27 PM in response to Tammy in MO

Yep I did that.

Have now upgraded to Yosemite and works fine.

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Answer 8

Shazumi

Level 1

0 points

Jan 13, 2016 2:38 AM in response to Tammy in MO

Thanks, Jennalee & Tammy! Such a simple fix that worked! Really appreciate your help.

Glad I followed my instincts & sussed out if anyone else had had the same problem - rather than just trusting what the helpful tech support person at Optus told me. What she was saying made a lot of sense: i.e. if one computer (PC) is working with NBN, then the problem is with my Mac not with the network (why would wi-fi be affecting programs that did not rely on internet e.g. Word, Excel????) - except that the correlation between when my old Mac decided to start playing up & when we started with NBN seemed very curious (especially when programs worked fine when I turned off NBN). Hope someone at Optus reads this, as not easy to give feedback securely on Optus website, and not good when their tech support basically tell you that your computer is dying & to get it checked out (when the problem is actually related to NBN connection as suspected & for which there is a very simple, quick solution)...

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Answer 9

Feb 10, 2017 9:57 PM in response to Jennalee

Thank you so much Tammy. This worked. I tried everything else to no avail, then your solution saved the day. You rock. Thanks!

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Answer 10

Plantain

Level 1

8 points

Mar 31, 2017 8:14 PM in response to Jennalee

Beautiful. I had a new hard drive installed (probably needed that anyway) and problem still wasn't solved til I found this thread. Awesome! Thanks again.

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