Computer slowing down, freezing, and rebooting itself

Question

I have a macbook pro, 2.6 Ghz and its running so incredibly slow you would of thought it was from 1990. If I click to fast it dies, spotlight causes it to freeze, apps boot really slow or auto quit, it has occasionally just restarted by itself. I have done the disk utility check and it says it's just peachy. I have also tried to install cocktail but it won't even load onto my computer. Most of the time now the only way to shut down is to hold power button because apps wont quit or even force quit. What is wrong and if I have to reinstall all software how do I transfer all my stuff. I also have 90GB of the 150GB so it's not memory either.
Chris Cross

Answer 1

HI,
*"I have done the disk utility check and it says it's just peachy"*
Define peachy. Does it actually say the, "hard drive appears to be ok"?
*"I also have 90GB of the 150GB so it's not memory either."*
I think you are confusing available disk space with RAM. But as long as your available disk never falls below 15% of the total capacity of the drive, you're ok.
*"it has occasionally just restarted by itself."*
How long have you had this MacBook Pro? Do you have AppleCare?
If your MBPro is restarting on it's own then try resetting the SMC, instructions here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411
Do you shut your Mac down at night or let it sleep? If you shut it down every night then it cannot run cron tasks. (Maintenance) Here is how to find out when those tasks were last performed by your Mac.
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/maintscripts.html#Anchor-Determining-47857
Try using a different user account and see if these problems persist. If they do, then the problems are system wide, not isolated to your admin account.
Try running the Apple Hardware Test, instructions here.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2684
If you can, back up important data just in case the drive fails completely.
Last recourse is to do an Erase and Install.
Carolyn