Frequent spinning beach ball

Question

Hello community,
I've had my iBook for almost two years now. Some months into owning it, a couple of days after update 10.4.3 came out, I started to see the spinning beach ball. Usually it would happen at random times, but certain activities guaranteed it (going over an icon in the dock w/ magnifying effect on, opening system preferences, and when checking for available software updates).
Well, I got sick of it after about a year, so I did a clean reformat a few weeks ago. At first, wow! super fast, just like the first months of ownership. Well, the spinning ball has returned now, about 2-3 weeks after the reformat. It's kind of annoying how Apple is running those ads on TV where the Mac is confused that the PC keeps on getting stuck, because I have 2 PC's and the 1 Mac, and the PC's never get stuck, as opposed to the Mac.
As before, it sometimes happens at random times when I'm just surfing the internet, always happens when I open system preferences, and usually when I open a .pdf file. This time, however, the dock's magnifying effect doesn't bother it. Sometimes I can use the computer for an hour or so before it happens, but sometimes it occurs very quickly. On average, it happens about once every 30 minutes and lasts for about a minute or two. Also, while it is happening, I can hear the HD making a very quiet repetitive click-click-click-clack sound until the ball disappears. All of my software is updated.
I'm inclined to think that it's a software issue since it runs fine after a reformat.
Despite this issue, I still like the computer, but would love to get this solved. Thanks in advance for the help.
HD: 60 GB total, about 45 free.
iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

Answer 1

Hi,
Welcome to Apple discussions,
Along with the other good help you received
Did you run disk permissions before & after the attempt to reapply the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo PPC
** See this Updating Faq Mac OS X updating FAQ which should come
in handy for the newly released 10.4.9 just out today.
See this concise article on running disk permissions repair &more.Travis A.'s Regular Maintenance/General Troubleshooting
Do you run any maintenance to clean the Internet clutter you collect whilst
browsing? If not see this freeware tool OnyX and this article, Clearing caches with OnyX
Did you check your HD for the S.M.A.R.T status as Allan recommended?
In System preferences->Energy Saver do you have "put the hard disk to sleep when possible" selected if yes deselect that.
There are many aspects that will make for the spinning curser, look at the Macmaps & subsequent links it provides for more info.
Good luck & keep us posted.
Eme'~[)