i had a similar problem before... faulty GPU. hence, new laptop ;p

i think if lcd got problem, still got startup sound

im very upset with my macbook pro right now . need help from u guys... ive talked about this in some posts but so far i havent got a solution yet. i think its best 4 me to tell the whole story.

1. i had a 160gb HDD in my MBP, with leopard 10.5.8 installed.
2. i used Disk Utility to Restore the contents to a new 500gb HDD i bought and then swapped the 500gb into my MBP.
3. from the cloned 10.5.8 copy...i upgraded to snow leopard 10.6, then installed the 10.6.1 update
4. everything was fine, but after a few days, i started to experience hard drive lag. seems like im getting horrible disk read. e.g. when copying files to an external, the transfer freezes a lot, but still continues. but then the freeze would cause the whole system to lag as well.
5. Performance Update 1.0 was released, but after installing it, it doesnt seem to fix anything.
6. i figured that the problem is snow leopard, so i copy my new files (those after the cloning), and erased the 500gb hdd.
7. now this is quite weird but im not sure if its relevant. my plan was to do a fresh install of SL on the 500gb hdd and then transfer my files from the original 160gb hdd (which still contains everything). i inserted the SL DVD (the UTD disk) but i got an error that said Mac OSX cannot be installed on this volume. the 500gb is indeed journaled HFS and GUID partition scheme. this also prevented me from using disk utility to Restore from the old 160gb hdd.
8. so i swapped the 160gb hdd back in and i booted into 10.5.8 with no problems. i launched disk utility (the one in OSX, not on the DVD) and tried to Restore its contents onto the 500gb. It didnt work..i forgot whats the error. So i used SuperDuper! to clone instead and it worked.
9. swapped back, and booted into 10.5.8 on the 500gb. basically im back at #2. however this time i decided to not install SL and the performance update.
10. things were fine, but after a few days, its like in #4 all over again.

***

11. so my first attempt was to boot into the SL DVD and did a Repair Disk. no improvement.
12. booted back into leopard and did a Repair Disk Permission. for some reason this did the trick. the hard drive lag issue was gone, but only for a few hours. when it started to lag again, i did a Repair Disk Permission again, but this time it didnt solve anything.
13. i tried to use time machine to backup my stuff to another 500gb hdd i had. the transfer was very slow as well, and lagging like hell. the thing is, my whole system would lag during the transfer. cancelled it.
14. i used TechTool Deluxe included in my ACPP and did a scan. everything passed, but i skipped the "surface scan". it took too long...after 1 hour it was just around 4%, so i estimate that it would take 25 hours to complete. is this normal?

***

is it possible that i got a faulty 500gb hdd?

what does the Surface Scan do actually? in the 4% there were no errors..its just very slow.

hmm if i were to get a replacement HDD...meaning i need to ask the shop to transfer my stuff from this one to the new one rite? i imagine it'd take forever to do that due to the lag. even transferring to my external was damn slow.

i left my mac on for the transfer for like 5 hours (i went to sleep), woke up to find it only managed to copy 18gb. out of the total 150gb of files i have. before, the cloning took only about 3+ hours for 130gb.

i think what i'd do now is copy my 250gb external (2.5") to the other 500gb external (3.5")... then clone my current system on the 250gb (which is my stock hdd...dont ask why i downgraded to 160gb ;p) n just use that for the time being :S. will try to get a replacement 2moro... thanks!

transferring from the 250gb to the external 500gb is fast. both are connected thru USB.

This post has been edited by dvlzplayground: Oct 28 2009, 08:45 PM

what is RMA? haha.

but is there such a thing as a faulty hard drive that works, but slow?

the HDD is SATA. the optical drive is IDE. it doesnt have to be the same

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Added on November 25, 2009, 10:15 pmand the 1st-gen MBP with ATI x1600 is also the same thing. SATA HDD but IDE optical drive

This post has been edited by dvlzplayground: Nov 25 2009, 10:15 PM

couldn't be software problem right...?

are the stripes permanent? probably the display cable

launch iphoto. it should try to import ur photos i think. why dont u juz take out the memory card?

you're welcome. in iPhoto u can go to Preferences, n in "Connecting camera opens:" set as iPhoto. IINM Image Capture it auto imports everything. can some1 confirm? my sis borrowed my camera so i cant try

oic. probably best u bring in for service. still got warranty?

no need to wait until more critical...but if u need it for ur work then no choice lah..hv to wait n pray it doesnt get more severe


there's an app called Onyx that kinda cleans up ur Mac...but i dont use it anymore..doesnt seem to give me any benefits . there's no such thing as registry in OSX so u dun have 2 worry about that. actually u dont have to worry abt anything... OSX is pretty smart in keeping itself in good condition (e.g. auto defrag).

yes disk utility is only for disks. the one in OSX is normally to fix external drives though. u'll need the one on the OSX DVD to fix internal drive (or another mac)

seems like it

i guess u're just a lucky person

eh i thought only the aluminium models got this problem. try using the three-pronged extension cable plug thing (sorry i dont know what's the name haha) instead of plugging the power brick to the outlet. the longer one got proper grounding

im assuming u're using the new macbook with no firewire, so yeah u need to take out the harddisk. put it in a sata-to-usb casing, n copy ur files to another computer 1st.

"achieve & install" wont delete ur files, but ur problem might wont go away too. i guess it's worth a try, but do what i said in the above paragraph first to be safe.

n this time remember to keep the power plug on. there's a battery charge indicator up there, pay attention to it.

about backup, even if u dont have another hard disk to backup to, juz copying over important files on a thumbdrive would suffice. as long as u have a copy of ur data. for data that u wont need to change/edit, burn them on DVDs. those are cheap

1) if i remember correctly, yes
2) yeap format to fat32 1st. i dont think got capacity limit. the limit of fat32 format is u cant store a single file that's bigger than 4gb
3) haa good question, im not sure myself. last time i accidentally format as MBR, it wont show up on my frens PC. it did when i changed to GUID. but then when i plug the same drive on my sis PC, it wont show up until i format to MBR. im confused too
4) can

guys i got serious question. my friend's MBP got something stuck in her DVD drive, n since im not around i told her to just send to machines (not sure where,forgot to ask). the MBP is running fine la, no software problems or whatsoever, juz the dvd drive got something stuck inside. not a big problem.

but after they 'repaired' it, turns out that they formatted the hdd. i have no idea why. all her data is gone now. her works, photos (she juz came back from a UK trip..now all photos gone) all gone. this is very stupid of them. is there any way to ask for compensation? i think they absolutely have no right to format it...especially when the problem was strictly hardware. i've worked at an apple reseller before and we always create a backup for customer if we had to reformat the hdd. but this they didnt even bother to, didnt even tell my friend they're gonna format it. and the worse thing is, they dont even have to but they did anyway. this is insane.

hope u guys can help me out here

This post has been edited by dvlzplayground: Feb 3 2010, 11:38 PM

that's the point... "should it be necessary"

something stuck in dvd drive need to reformat?

car headlight broken, need to change engine?

i know, i asked here wondering if anyone experienced the same thing n managed to get some sort of compensation. i nvr said 'please find the files for me' or anything cuz that'd be stupid dont u think?

if someone answers yes to my ques, automatically its a yes to ur ques

i think "yes there is a way" = "yes i managed to get compensation on similar case"

anyway, point taken. thx

This post has been edited by dvlzplayground: Feb 5 2010, 11:52 PM

i had the same problem with my previous MBP...GPU problem. only way is to replace the GPU...which in notebook terms it's replacing the logic board...together with CPU n everything.

the cost for a new logic board, with the same already-outdated specs was around rm3000..not including shipping n labour. 3k for old spec stuff...u can get a new laptop with better specs for 3k after 3 years

so it's time to get a new machine bro...