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My MacBook Pro (2007) on Lion has a strange behaviour.

  1. Sometimes Chrome browser stops working. When I then launch Safari, it can not load any web page.

  2. When I try to download a large file, it can be unresponsive.

  3. Sometimes working with PDF files (even small files) has the same result

  4. Sometimes I can not view files in my folders because Finder loads them very slow (it's showing spinner indicator).

I haven't found another way to resolve these situations besides restarting the laptop every time they happen.

What can be the issue? At first I thought about my HDD but my S.M.A.R.T. Status is Verified. Any additional ideas are highly appreciated!

Update : Activity Monitor shows enter image description here

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    Have you tried verifying and then repairing the permission of the disc? Resetting PRAM, etc? It could also be that something got corrupted and you need to reinstall Lion. Or that the disc, even though it appears to be OK, it's not (good time to get an SSD :)
    – Gio
    Nov 4, 2011 at 13:20
  • OSX Lion is a new OS, that uses more processing power and RAM memory. I mean, in 2007, for a laptop to have 2GHZ processor and 2GB memory would be very nice, today most smartphones have that kind of spec. its like using a really big engine in a really old car, it will fall under the stress. At least you are lucky, having such a major OS update on a PC would latterly break it apart...
    – 8-bit mate
    Nov 4, 2011 at 13:59
  • I have 2.4 ghz intel core 2 duo with 3gb of RAM. Some times ago(on Lion too) I could run both OS : Lion and Windows 7 (with Parallels) , both working perfect. Now i have these problems (, anyway still running them but with worse performance
    – nsinvocation
    Nov 4, 2011 at 14:25
  • if you still have the original installation disk (leopard/ snow leopard), I would recommend formatting the hard disk and reinstalling it, the upgrade to OSX Lion. (don't forget to backup your mac before hand). this is a pretty drastic move, so I would only do it if it rally buggers you. It will definitely solve the problem (well not definitely, but I can give you a nice 99.9%) :D
    – 8-bit mate
    Nov 4, 2011 at 14:38
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    There is no phone on the market that has a 2Ghz Processor + 2GB RAM.
    – Jason Salaz
    Nov 4, 2011 at 14:42

2 Answers 2

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Try to retrace your steps. What have you installed on you Mac since the freezes started? Some suspicious software/freeware from the internet, maybe some illegal software... If you can think of something like this, try to uninstall/delete the software.

Try to detect which process is running (Activity monitor) when the freezes happened. If you detect the mall function service or software, try to figure out if the software is installed correctly.

Worst case scenario, you can back up your data (not software!!) via TimeMachine or just an external hard drive, and completely reïnstall you OS. It quite radical (and unnecessary if you ask me if you can figure out the bad software/process described in the above paragraphs). In this way, you have a completely new OS and you can restore your documents and reïnstall your software (be aware on what you install).

My advice, figure out your bad piece of software/process and fix it. So you can keep your documents without reïnstalling the whole Mac...

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  • Just get the same issue when i can not get any files in any folder i want , Finder just shows the indicator . My Activity Monitor shows this
    – nsinvocation
    Nov 4, 2011 at 19:46
  • I figure it out by making a clean install of my system. I made a back-up of my data , erased disk and reinstall OS. That's it , works as new.
    – nsinvocation
    Nov 10, 2011 at 18:50
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@Michiel Got in his words first, albeit less step-by-step. If you find the information helpful, please vote his answer before mine.

If you're experiencing issues across the system, and they don't correlate to one specific application, the first thing to do is replicate the problem, and observe the processes in your Activity Monitor. If you've never viewed this window, the default view by the Filter search will say My Processes. You'll want to set this to All Processes. If you sort by % CPU and don't see anything consuming a large amount of resources in the system, the causes may not pinpoint to one source.

Ultimately an issue that may have been present in the OS before you upgraded to Lion may have been exacerbated by the upgrade. I've seen it with plenty of customers.

Should you fail to find any connection through Activity Monitor, you're best to reinstall Lion. By default it will Archive your data in the process, so you don't lose anything, but it's wise to back up just in case. Holding Command + R when starting up will get you to the Recovery Partition.

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  • Just get the same issue when i can not get any files in any folder i want , Finder just shows the indicator . My Activity Monitor shows this
    – nsinvocation
    Nov 4, 2011 at 19:53

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