Mountain Lion on Macbook Pro ('08) - OS freezing - Should I revert to Lion?

Question

Hello - I have an '08 Macbook Pro (the first one that used swipe gestures) that I recently updated to Mountain Lion from Lion. My computer worked fine for about a week but recently developed a concerning issue - the screen freezes and does the windows thing where if you are able to move your mouse, it covers the screen with the window you hover over. It's a giant distorted mess (see screenshot). My fix, thus far, has been to reboot, but when I do that it will sometimes get stuck in a reboot cycle (it shows the gray screen that there was an issue and says press a key to continue or wait a few seconds). It thinks, then reboots itself again.
On the off chances I actually am able to login, it is a matter of a few minutes before it starts acting up again.
Does anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions? The new macbook pro retina displays are beautiful but I was hoping to not have to buy one for awhile...
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Try repairing your permissions.  Go to applications then to the "other" folder then go to disk utility, on the left hand side you will see a white box.  Select the second option, usually called "mac HD" with that selected click on "repair permissions" in the center towards the bottom of the screen.  Wait for it to complete, then see if this fixes the issue.
How much HD space do you have left? How much RAM do you have?  You may also want to try this:
PRAM:
i. Ensure the machine is powered off.
ii. Locate the following keys on your keyboard in preparation for Step 4:
‘command’ – ‘option’ – ‘P’ – ‘R’
iii. Press the ‘power on’ button.
iv. Immediately – and before the grey screen appears – hold down ‘command-option-P-R’ all together.
v. Keep them held down until you’ve heard the start-up chime twice. After you release them you should hear it again, and hopefully your Mac will boot up normally.