Frequent crashes, fails to shut down

Hey guys. I've had this macbook since June 2006, and its performance has gone steadily downhill. It runs unusually slowly, compared to all the other (many) Macbooks on my college campus, and various programs cause different problems. Photobooth would never quit fully, nor would iPhoto (they would stay in the dock). Finder crashes several times a week, and when I go to restart it in the force quit menu, it never comes back. Often, the computer would not shut down. I had to hold down the button constantly to force it to power off.
I erased everything and reinstalled to eliminate these problems, and for a few days everything was great. Now, if I wake from sleep and try to click a new tab in Firefox, the whole system goes into beach-ball shock. Even if that hasn't happened, It absolutely will not shut down at all, simply stalling for hours on my desktop pattern and never powering off.
I'm in college, and this laptop is my lifeline. We don't have a proper mac store in this town (Eugene, Oregon) so I'd have to send it in, which I don't have time to do (finals are soon). I've concluded since everything was erased and reainstalled that I must be experiencing some sort of hardware issue. Direct me. I'm tired of calling this the worst computer I've ever owned.
Macbook 1.83 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 512, 60gb

I erased everything and reinstalled to eliminate
these problems, and for a few days everything was
great.
That seems to indicate it is a software problem. You could try doing some maintenance using OnyX:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11582
and/or AppleJack:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/15667

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12/24/07 9:34:24 AM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.dyld) Throttling respawn: Will start in 51 seconds
12/24/07 9:35:02 AM loginwindow[39] ERROR | WSActivateApp | SetFrontProcess({0, 352342}) returned error -600. Unable to activate process.
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12/24/07 9:35:09 AM bootpd[171] server name Macbook.local
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12/24/07 9:35:09 AM bootpd[171] interface fw0: ip 192.168.3.1 mask 255.255.255.0
12/24/07 9:35:09 AM bootpd[171] interface en1: ip 192.168.0.104 mask 255.255.255.0
12/24/07 9:35:09 AM bootpd[171] interface en2: ip 192.168.4.1 mask 255.255.255.0
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12/24/07 9:35:09 AM bootpd[171] interface en3: ip 10.211.55.2 mask 255.255.255.0
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Message was edited by: pup975

It is likely that you are experiencing some conflicts.
The main conflicts are cache, permissions, fonts and login items.
If you did an upgrade of Leopard over Tiger you could have all 3.
The log seems to point to some cache problems.
So let's start with user cache.
In Finder click on Go>Home>Library and pull the Caches folder to the Trash.
Then click on the hard drive icon in the sidebar and double click on this Library and remove Caches here too.
Click on the apple>System Preferences>Accounts and unlock the lock.
Click on login items and remove all items from the window.
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Click on Go>Applications>Font Book.
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Hello,
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However, since day one, when I go to shut down the application, the JNI isn't winding down properly. As it happens, since the JRE is running a Tomcat, driven by a wrapper service, the wrapper eventually gives up waiting and shoots the JRE in the head, but the user experience of stopping the wrapper service is ugly and we'd like to clean that up. The JNI code, of course, runs as shared code in the Tomcat.
It is possible that the third-party library, which does network communications, is keeping a thread pool for use with any of the COM objects even after all COM objects are released. This would be experienced as a one-time hit when the first object is allocated and not as a continual leak, so we'd be unlikely to notice it otherwise.
Will native non-Java threads running in the JRE but not allocated by the JRE itself cause the JRE to hang on until they've spontaneously decided to clean themselves up? Threads that have never been attached to the JVM? How about threads that were briefly attached to the JVM but then detached? Any worse?
Ralph

Hi Ralph,
I will need some more information regarding this issue.
1. What platform are you on?
2. Which JRockit version are you running?
3. If you remove the wrapper service, does JRockit freeze without exiting properly?
As a general recommendation I would try to upgrade to the latest JRockit version. It can be downloaded from the OTN http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/jrockit/index.html
You may also try some verbose printouts to debug the issue a little further. Try
-Xverbose:thread=debug,jni=debug
This might give us some more insight in what is going on.
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jrcmd <some_id_here> print_threads
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Cheers,
/Henrik

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I have only installed a few programmes on the MBA since receiving it, (Lightroom and 1Password), everything else is as it was when it was delivered, brand new. I purchased it via the online store and requested that it was upgraded with 8GB RAM and a 1.7GHz processor, so it came from China with these upgrades carried out.
Could this be a memory problem? I understand that MBs can be fussy about what type of memory is installed. It seems odd as the memory was installed in the factory.
Should I do a VRAM and/ or PROM reset? Are either of these responsible for controlling shut down procedures?
It is very disappointing as I had been really looking forward to getting the MBA and I am concerned that this might be an inherent fault with this particular machine. Any help would be appreciated. I will contact Apple Support as I have 90 days phone support, but I thought I should try you all first.
Chris

RAM should not be a factor for a brand new Mac. Third party software is often the culprit.
Make sure to log out of 1Password before shutting down > https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/5265/1password-cancels-logout
Tip ... there's no need for a third party password manager. The pre installed Keychain Access app can do that for you.
HD > Applications > Utilities
How to manage passwords with Keychain Access | Macworld

Mac braggs no crash, but random Shut Down

I enjoy my wk 22 BMB it was working great until yest. now random shut downs. I did full reinstall seemed to work ok, but it happened again. It seemed to happen soon after I installed the coredue temp software. Don't know if this is coincidental, or just circumstantial. Will Apple please fix all our macbooks. These random shut downs are becoming a huge plague. PC might not be as nice, but they don't shut down every other hour.

I just wanted to add my voice to this problem too. I have a new black MacBook and I have had it since they were first introduced. Everything was fine until last week. All of a sudden I have these random shut downs. I have called AppleCare tech support and gone to this genius bar twice. No one there had even acknowledged this problem. When it is a huge problem. Yesterday, finally, they told me they know. They have not come up with an answer yet. I have read that people have had their logic boards replaced 3 times and nothing had changed.
I am very upset but I know Apple will make good on this, once they figure out why this is happening. Just a major inconvenience of modern times and technology.
One other thing, this is not just happening to a few people, like someone suggested. It is a very real problem with a lot of MacBooks. I think the newer ones are okay from what I have been told. It's the early ones....like mine...that have this issue.
The MacBook, by the way, is an awesome computer. I love it. Apple will find a fix. It just might take a little while.

Frequent crashes, fails to shut down

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