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Problem description: Please excuse the long post, but this computer has a weird history, and I think some of it might be relevant. I have a MacBook that I now boot and use as a PC. About 2 years ago, the MacBook began running unbelievably slow, and no one could figure out why, whereas when I started up in Windows 7, everything was fine. We even tried re-installing OSX, but to no effect. After talking with 4 people about it and giving it to an Apple repair center for a couple days, I gave up on it, and started using it as Windows 7 machine. Now I am not even prompted to choose my operating system on start up. I get the Mac noise when I turn it on, and then it goes straight into Windows 7. During the issues with OSX, I lost a lot of files when OSX was being reinstalled. I just found out last night, though, that the music I had on there is all still intact. I was using Windows Explorer to look through my "Macintosh HD" drive, and found all 40 gigs of it. I tried playing a few random selections in VLC, and they all worked perfectly. I finally found this out because I want to re-sync my old iPod, so first I was going to copy the music onto my external hard drive, then make the folder on the external hard drive the home folder for iTunes, and re-sync the iPod. I transferred the music about 2 gigs at a time. I don't know if that actually makes a difference, but I've had transcription errors before when transferring music, so I figured it couldn't hurt. Sometimes I'd start the next transfer right away, but other times I'd get distracted by my web browsing and end up waiting a few minutes before starting the next one. I did not hear any unusual sounds coming from the computer during this time, but I was listening to music with headphones on for almost this entire process, so I would not have been able to. When the transfer was complete, I listened to a couple albums on VLC straight from the external hard drive. Everything worked great. About 30 or 45 minutes later, I decided to go to bed. I told my computer to sleep. I became concerned, because it took over 10 seconds for the computer to sleep. I have never seen that before with this computer. I brought it back out of sleep, shut down all my applications, and tried again. Same problem. The computer took over 10 seconds to sleep. I brought up task manager, which also took a very long time, and looked for any unusual applications or processes. I didn't see anything, but I'm not very knowledgeable about Windows systems, and I could have missed something. But I Googled everything that didn't seem self-explanatory, and did not find anything unusual. During this time, Chrome was running at a normal speed. I tried quitting and restarting Skype to see if that would go at a normal speed, and it did. I also downloaded and ran the free version of Bitdefender during this. It did not detect any issues on its initial scan. Finally I decided to restart my computer to see if that would make any difference. When I restarted, I was alarmed almost right away. A clicking sound was coming from computer. It was clicking fairly fast at first, about 2 or 3 times per second, and then it slowed down, and finally stopped. I got a message that the computer failed to start, and a prompt to run system repair to attempt to fix the problem. I did so, and after about 10 minutes, I was able to boot my computer. I heard clicking sounds again, but not for as long this time. Then Windows started up. As usual, it ran slowly for the first couple minutes, but then ran at a normal speed. I was a little confused about the fact that system repair said it would be reverting things on my computer, because Bitdefender was still there. I had expected Windows to be reverted further back than that. In any case, the computer seemed to be working normally now. When I put it to sleep, it slept right away. Chrome and Skype were acting normally. I shut the computer down for the night. Today I started it up again with no issues, including no clicking sounds. Everything seems normal. My question is, should I be concerned? Is my hard drive about to fail? Could there have been some kind of serious malware or virus in my music files that caused issues for OSX and could now cause issues for Windows? What should I keep an eye out for? Should it be OK to go ahead with installing iTunes, setting it up to use the folder on the external hard drive, and then re-syncing my iPod? Or should I hold off on doing that until I know what happened following the file transfer? Attempted fixes: Ran an anti-virus. Ran system repair when prompted to do so by Windows. As far as I can tell, there is not currently a problem. I just want to find out if there might be one under the surface. I tried Googling for similar issues, but t his was a tough one to Google for, and I could not find anyone with a similar story. Recent changes: No recent changes. -- Operating system: Windows 7 Professional. System specs: I was unable to determine the exact generation of this MacBook. I do not see a serial number anywhere. I bought this MacBook in Korea in spring or summer of 2011. When I open up Control Panel -> System, it says the processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40 GHz 2.39 GHz. Location: USA I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes to Googling. I read both stickied threads in this forum and did not see an FAQ. Am I missing it? Thank you for any help or reassurance. I really appreciate it.
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May 30, 2016 16:24
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:12 |
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Running incredibly slowly while in Mac OS could be caused by a faulty sensor on the motherboard, look at the YouTube channel of Louis Rossmann for more information on that kind of issue. It's not going to be cheap to repair though. The ticking noise at startup might be coming from your hard drive or it might be the fan or the optical drive. Download and run CrystalDiskInfo on your hard drive and post a screenshot of its results and that will let us determine if your hard drive is definitely failing.
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May 30, 2016 20:07
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http://imgur.com/SwekOMM Is this what you need?
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May 30, 2016 20:38
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The hard drive is dying (and isn't repairable) and needs replacing
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May 31, 2016 00:53
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Balls. Good to have some warning then. Thanks. And just to confirm, all of the odd behavior of my computer from my story can be explained by hard drive issues? There's no clear indication of any other problems?
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May 31, 2016 05:24
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Base Camp Blanket posted:And just to confirm, all of the odd behavior of my computer from my story can be explained by hard drive issues? There's no clear indication of any other problems? Yea, it's a very good bet. There's no way to be 100% sure on that question because sometimes a computer can have multiple issues but your symptoms in the OP are fully in line with a failing HD.
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May 31, 2016 22:15
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| # ? Apr 29, 2024 13:12 |
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I am reassured. It would be an odd coincidence. Thank you all for your help.
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Jun 1, 2016 01:25
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