OSX is killing my computer!

I recently (Tuesday) updated my OS to the most recent version of Mountain Lion. Now System Preferences is crashing, my computer is running very, very slowly, and Time Machine won't (can't?) perform its back up. What is going on? How can I fix it? Do I need to restore to before I updated the OS?

You probably have a corrupt download. OS X is extremely stable however what cannot be controlled is your download. A download is only as good as the connection you have and the reliablity of your ISP. In your case I would recommend a re-download of ML from the App Store and reinstalling.
Assuming you followed Apple's instructions regarding backing up prior to downloading restoring your data should be simple to do.

Similar Messages

Did the last OSX update kill my computer?

After the last OSX 10.7.5 (11G63) update on my aged iMac, all Google websites, Chrome, Safari, Word, and other programs I use daily keep crashing. Is my computer too old for that update? Have I exceeded its capacity? The processor is 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; the memory is 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Based on the information you have provided your iMac is a Model Identifier iMac 5.2 and the Model Number is A1195. Check in System Profiler>Hardware if this is the case.
If so it can accept Lion OSX. Your crashes then are occurring for other reasons.
Try a safe boot:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1564
Also log the next kernel panic report and post it:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2546
Ciao.

I killed my computer with coffee. It's out of waranty and applecare has run out. It's a 4 year old Macbook Pro. Any idea whether it makes sense to try and fix it?

I killed my computer with coffee. It's out of waranty and applecare has run out. It's a 4 year old Macbook Pro. Any idea whether it makes sense to try and fix it?

Nothing works at all. When I spilled the coffee I shut it down, unplugged everything, turned it over and put paper towels beneath it to drain. Made the mistake of turning it back on after a couple of hours. It worked but emitted strange noises from the internal speakers. Turned it back off, but have not been able to turn it back on since. I disassembled the entire macbook yesterday, found coffee stains on the keyboard components. Tried to turn it on and get nothing. The only sign of life is the battery indicator. When I press the button the series of green lights come on, but that's it. Thanks for your responses. Jaylloyd

10.5.5 killed my computer

After installing 10.5.5 last night everything went fine through this morning. This afternoon the computer froze and refuses to restart. The screen stays blank on restart and nothing boots. You can hear the disc spinning and the fan running but nothing ever appears on the screen, even the power seems to be missing from the screen!

10.5.5 completely killed my computer as well, and just 1 hour ago I figured out how to fix it! I'm happy i fixed it, and ****** at how stupid this update was!
_The bottom line is_: the symbolic link to /private/etc was missing from it's usual /etc, so I recreated it in single user mode.
ie. Boot while holding Apple-S. When it's done, type
+mount -uw /+ (as it tells you to do if you want to be able to edit your drive), then type
+ln -s /private/etc /etc+ (to create the symbolic link), then
exit (to continue booting)
_The whole story is_:
Did the update via automatic Software Update, seems like everything went fine, computer restarted etc. a while later, I went to open Terminal and got the wierdest error: "You are not authorized to run this application: The administrator has set your shell to an illegal value." This error was from Within Terminal, ad the only button is "Quit". Unfortunately I can't go and check my /etc/shells file to make sure my shell is "legal" (w.t.f.?), because I can't open terminal... brilliant.
I sync my Phone (Moto L6) via bluetooth, and restart the computer. I eat dinner while it's booting, and notice it's on the grey Apple screen with a spinny thing going around, the typical first screen after booting.
after dinner, I take a look and it's still doing that, after maybe 1 hour.... bizarre.
Turns out I couldn't boot. Tried my leopard CD, booting while holding "C" (to boot from CD) and it would get past the grey screen, show a blue screen with a mouse, and then the mouse would disappear and the spinny thing would show, then the spinny thing disappears and the mouse shows up.... and this continues for eternity (presumably).
Tried booting from my Tiger CD: same. Panther CD: same. Zapped PRam (nvram) 3 times and re-tried CD and or/ normal booting, all in various orders, and NEVER got any further. I couldn't believe that somehow I couldn't boot from CD!
Looking at Verbose Mode didn't help, the loading just stopped after the ethernet and airport were loaded, (no errors) and didn't go any further, I assumed SystemStarter or WindowServer or something was opening (of course not logging or displaying itself) and dying. I assumed that launchd was trying to restart a crashed WindowServer/SystemStarted, adn that's why I got the mouse/spinner cycle.
I even unplugged all my USB and Firewire devices and retried everything (CD booting, nvram zapping etc. in various orders), to no avail.
In the mean time I notice that my cellphone's iCal syncs are all totally out of whack. Every event is off by 7 hours, almost my time difference to GMT, and it's completely messing with me, with alarms going off 5 hours too late to remind me of anything.
This all occurred over 2 days of kinda trying, but not really wanting to waste time fixing my ******** computer.
3rd day:
Finally I did the painful approach, starting with Apple-S (single-user mode), and within 10 minutes of rooting around, while trying to access /etc/bashrc I noticed that /etc was not a directory. /private/etc still was.
So a quick +ln -s /private/etc /etc+ (while still in single-user mode, after the customary +mount -uw /+) and booted and suddenly the system works.
I also noticed that my ~/.bashrc was missing... did Apple go and mess with all my settings during a routine 0.0x upgrade? ridiculous!
It's a possibility that something else removed my /etc symlink, but nothing else was installed, no wierd scripts ran, no cron jobs or anything, really that update was the only thing done to my computer, and I only noticed because I couldn't open the terminal.
That was a gigantic waste of my time. After seeing all the 10.5.5 complaints and stupid problems on these boards, I remember why I don't install automatic updates until they've been around for at least a month (giving Apple time to release a new live-beta-tested version!).

Can i have two versions of OSX running on one computer

can i have two versions of OSX running on one computer?

Yes. The second one can be installed on an internal or external drive, but can't be one that the computer wouldn't be able to run if installed on the internal drive.
(63298)

OSX has killed my harddrive THREE times in the last 3 months

That nasty upgrade 10.4.3 killed it the first time in early November. After the upgrade, the computer would get really slow doing basic tasks like pulling up the contents of a folder. Eventually, trying to fix it with Disk Utility and Disk Warrior (to no avail)... indicating "speed inhibited by disk malfunction"... verbose booting indicates DISK I/O ERRORs.... ok, so I decide to scrap this HD - well, I couldn't boot any more anyway.
SO, I buy a new HD... Maxtor 300GB.. reinstall EVERYTHING... upgraded to 10.4.3 ... running fine until Jan 22.. then, slowness again... same seeming inability to read the disk... cannot repair using the utilities.. FINE...
SO, I wipe out the **** thing... AGAIN.. reinstall - CLEAN - and use combo update for 10.4.4. Two weeks later... Feb 1... SAME thing... slowness, can't pull up basic directory contents...
I give up... new drive, two loss of disk access in one month. Additional loss of disk access 1.5 months prior. WHAT IS UP with OSX Tiger 10.4.3+?
Is anyone else pulling their hairs out over this? I have finally taken it to the local Mac Doctor to try to determine if this is a hardware problem or a software (OSX) prob. I'm wondering if OSX is not liking on of the programs it runs along with... ???? HELP.

While your problems are frustrating I can top them. I had 4 hard drives fail in a 10 week period. They would last anywhere from 6 weeks down to 2 days. Forget about how many times I had to reinstall to the replacement drives. Some could take an erase and reinstall, some were just dead and would not even mount.
That was two years ago. Not Tiger related. I think it was a bad batch of hard drives. Western Digital was very good about replacing them and the 5th hard drive has worked fine for the last 2 years.
Tiger does work hard drives but I'm not convinced your problem is an Apple issue (software or hardware). It could be but without more investigation it just as well may not be Apple related.

Mac OSX sofware update problems-computer will not start-up any more

Hello
I am having problems & I cannot get back into my computer. It won't complete the start up & just has the grey apple in the middle of the white screen and nothing else.
I have an iBook G4 with Tiger on it - I am not sure which version of Mac OS X I was on when I did the software update but the one I was on last year when I came to this forum was 10.4.8 & I think I have updated it a few times since then so it was probably as I was attempting to install 10.4.11 as I do not have Leopard yet.
The problem began when I did the Mac OSX update that it told me about in software update & when it had completed the update it said I needed to restart my computer which I did & ever since then it will not completely re-boot. (Like I said it just has the white screen/grey apple before it gives the option of who you want to login as).
It seems as though other people have been having similar problems after installing Mac OSX software updates but I cannot find anything here in the forum that solves my problems (or at least not that I can understand at th moment...!)
I need to access things off my computer & can't. Not everything on there was backed up as I had been working on things that day/week. I also don't know how to access my files from another computer (the ones I am trying to connect from does not have tiger it is a PowerBook G4 & it has Mac OSX 10.3.9 on it).
Does anyone know the reason for this problem & how to access files from another computer via an etheret cable in OSX. I know someone who says it was a lot easier to connect computers before Mac OSX days but now it seems really difficult. The only way to start up my iBook G4 is using the Mac OSX install disk & I have tried to verify & repair hard disk permissions using disk utility that comes on the disk as well as verifying & repairing the actual disk but this has not fixed the problem.
I am hoping that I will be able to at least access my files & copy them over to be backed up before I do an erase & install of Mac OSX from the disks. But I am unsure of how to connect my iBook the PowerBook G4 I am on right now. Please help if you know how!
Thanks,
Jazamin

This just worked for my by connecting my other PPC computer to my G5.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1247044&tstart=0
Go down to the other link and follow the same instructions.
You must start up the good computer and shut down the frozen one. Connect via firewire and then hold down the T key while you start the frozen one.
It will show up on your good one, and then install the combo on the frozen one.
Hold down the power key on that computer to shut it down, disconnect and then start up again.
Good luck
MM

Have i killed my computer?

I have a computer which is about two years old. It has a MB So. 775 MSI P4M900M 2-L board and a PCI-e NVidea GeForce 7300GT 512MB TV out & DVI graphics card. Everything was fine until i decided to upgrade one of my DVD writers to blueray. It turned out that my graphics card wasn't man enough, so i have to upgrade. As the new card hadn't arrived i thought i'd increase my ram too. I had to remove the graphics card to remove a stick to see what i had. Upon replacing the ram stick and graphics card and then switching the computer back on i now just get a message on the monitor that it receives no signal. Assuming i hadn't put the card back in correctly, i took it out again and replaced it even though it looked to be fine. Still the same, no signal. I have tried plugging the monitor into the board with the graphics card removed but i get the same...No signal. So, have i killed the card and or the board as well? The new graphics card has arrived but it needs a posh monitor, which i knew about, so i can't plug my monitor into it to see if my old card has gone to the great component heaven in the sky. I could plug my tv into the new card but i haven't got a clue if i would get a display on it without selecting to use the tv first. Problem is, i can't see what is on the screen to select watching on the tv too. I have noticed that on the old card, two of the gold contact 'pins?' are a couple of mm shorter then the rest. With the card placed flat in front of you with the monitor sockets on the left, the 'pins' facing away from you with the big heatsink underneath, it is the extreme left hand 'pin' on top. It is 1mm shorter than the rest. If you turn the card over with the monitor sockets still on the left but now with the heatsink on top and the 'pins' facing towards you, the other short 'pin' is second in from the right.Again 1mm shorter than the rest. Is this as it should be or have i damaged it? If i have, have i also killed the mother board? Before touching the components, i held on the the unpainted copper water pipe below the radiator and had my hands touching the inside of the case when removing and replacing the card and ram, so i don't think i've staticked it to death, or have i? The new blueray burner was in the case but not connected up at the time. It has a CPU 775 P4-D 2x3.0GHz PC800 4MB Mod. 925
If it is dead, can someone suggest a slightly better board i can replace it with on which i can use my 2x3.0GHz processors?
Thanks for any advice.
Power Supply 600Watt ARX
CPU 775 P4-D 2x3,0GHz PC800 4MB Mod. 925
Cooler Arctic Alpine 7
MB So. 775 MSI P4M900M 2-L
PCI-e NVidea GeForce 7300GT 512MB TV out & DVI
SATA2 160GB Excelstore ESJ8160S 8MB
DDR2 2x1GB EMPAQ 667
Stk. DVD-RW LG-GSA-H50LBL
Stk. CR Apacer 15-in-1 CardReader

Ok, here's an update...
I have bought my MSI G31 TM-P35 motherboard. Fitted in my old case, connected up all the wires, fitted my old cpu, used fresh thermal paste and fitted a CNPS9700 'ultra quiet cpu cooler' from Zalman. aFTER DECIDEING THAT MY EXTERNAL 1tB HARD DRIVE WAS GETTING A BIT FULL, I THOUGHT I'D GO FOR A BIGGER hdd INSIDE TOO. sO I HAVE FITTED A , sorry, forgot to cancel caps... I've fitted a Seagate Sata 2 750Gb 16Mb. So now, i have new board, new cpu cooler, new hard drive, new blue ray dvd burner. So all is well? i hear you ask. Well no. I plug in the monitor and guess what? No signal
I only have old case, cpu, power unit and ram left to change. Could it be the power unit at fault? It doesn't smell burnt out. It doesn't smell at all. Could it be the cpu or ram? Usually when my car breaks down i can fix it by throwing money at it. When really desperate i throw my cousin at it. He is a mechanic and is used to it. What should i replace next? I could do with some good advice as i am starting to run out of money and my cousin would probably hit it with something heavy if he got it on his ramp

I killed my computer: HELP!

I have a dual 1ghtz powermac G4 with a 160GigaByte Array (two 80 Gigs), the 80 gig boot drive and another 120 Gig drive next to the boot drive. I removed the 120 to see if I could put it into my new G5 (which I could not). I did everything by the book. After removing the 120Gig drive, my computer (the G4, not the G5) would no longer turn on. The start button lights when I press it, but NOTHING happens. The hard drive doesn't budge. I tried putting the 120 gig back into the G4, but still, nothing. What did I do? Did I kill it? What can I do? Help!!!

Make sure that the jumpers on your 80 GB are set to
master only or cable select when the 120 is removed.
With the 120 in the system, set the boot drive to
master with slave (cable select never works for me
with a slave drive). Also, make sure the power cable
to the hard drives are completely inserted
I hope that helps and is not too confusing!
Thanks and good luck
I don't know what jumpers are. Are those things I can set inside the computer? Because, as I said, I can't turn my computer on right now. Thanks for the help though.

Maverick OSX update crashed my computer and OS. My harddrive and OSX and WIN have been lost and are irreparable. What are the next steps?

Mavericks has crashed my MacBook Pro.
I was offered the upgrade as a free and reccomended Apple Software Update that arrived on my computer.
I installed Maverick received an error during installation saying the HD was bad. I ran utility disk and internet recovery and attempted to boot in safe mode to no avail. My computer no longer had an OS. (I ran both OSX and WIN on my new HD). I took it to the Apple store and it was determined it was a software failure (Maverick) and not my harddrive. The tech at Apple told me I could take it to a data recovery place on MY dime to attempt to recover anything from the HD. I ran several expensive architectural programs which are now lost. Any advice as which aveneue to take next is much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Ashley

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689
Note, backing up is not a choice in computing. You either value your data or you don't. And when you install new software the drive is that much more at risk, if it is marginal. This is true of any operating system update because of the number of changes that happen at once.

Re installing osx lion when restoring computer

I just went through and restored my computer, firstly by deleting the data off the disk utility window by holding 'option' key on startup, then I went to reinstall osx lion. it said to enter an apple ID that had purchased osx lion previously, and as i didnt previously purchase it, i went to that apple store online and purchased it. I have gone back to my laptop and am entering my apple ID and it still continue to say I have to enter an apple ID that has purchased the osx, and i just did so what am i meant to do now?

I have been faced with the same issue, I am acutly still waiting for apple to eMail me with my code.
What must be done is log into a different MacBook, iMac or Mac Pro and hop into the "Mac Store" or "App Store" and enter in the code apple sent you. This mac must be OS X Snow Leapord (OS X 10.6.8) or higher as it must have the "Mac Store" or "App Store". I would also say you may want to consider upgrading to OS X Mavericks (If you can) to flash the "recovery" and set it to Mavericks version and you will naver face theses issues again!
Note: You will not get the code untill Apple eMail's you the "Seccond" time! You may not get a email for 1 -3 business day, like I said I am still waiting.
Hope I helped!
- Justice MacDonnell

Everytime I open FFox I find over 400 cookies on my machine despite clearing history, deleting them etc - please help me eliminate them I think they are killing my computer!

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this query and hurray for the volunteers who will tackle it! Thank you!
on opening FFox, I routinely run Tools/View Cookies and clear my Error Console. I INVARIABLY find over 400 cookie directories arranged in two "lists". I clear them with Delete All Cookies and carry on.
I have tried limiting cookie access (ie: no 3rd party), and I have cleared my History including Cookies, BUT everytime I open FFox, they are all back!
I have even installed a Mozilla Cookie Killer plug-in, but though it may work, the little buggers are back the very next time I open FFox.
I believe their presence is seriously degrading my old but much loved Dell Inspiron 6400's performance and I would dearly love to be able to remove them permanently.
If you could help I would be very grateful.
Cheers and best wishes,
Patrick
Launceston Tasmania Australia

That's going to be a ridiculous waste of money and energy.
First of all, the current ATI drivers don't support multiple GPUs, so at the moment even a single 4870X2 would be only a 'normal' 4870 (which is quite a speed beast already). GFX drivers evolve rapidly, so things might look different next month, but when it comes to Linux and hardware there's one Golden Rule: stay away from the newest stuff and wait for proper support to get coded.
I also wonder what power supply could possibly cope with the differences between idle and full load; that's way beyond 400W. But then, I'm one of those "quiet&green" types where >100W idle is already a bit much.
I kind of understand that you want to get it done and not worry about hardware for the next 10 years or so, but that's simply not how the hardware world works and never did. At least not for the average consumer.

Can I install my old OSX on a different computer after upgrading?

I have a couple questions:
1) I currently have Snow Leopard on my one computer and on another computer I just have Leopard. I am purchasing Mountain Lion from the App Store today and am going to install it onto my computer with Snow Leopard. Can I then take my old Snow Leopard disk and instal it onto my other computer?
2) When installing Mountain Lion onto my computer, will everything (Files, applications, games, etc) remain? Or does it wipe everything out?
3) I ultimately want Mountain Lion on both of my computers, does that mean I need to buy two copy's? Or can I down the same copy of Mountain Lion from the App Store on both computer and install?
Thank you in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated!

1) If SL was the original OS installed on that computer, you can't install it on a different computer. The DVDs are tied to the original computer.
Technically, if they are tied to anything it would be the computer model, not the physical computer itself. That means you could use it to install OS X on any computer with which those discs are compatible as long as you did not install on more than one computer at a time. I know this is a tad nit-picky, but that's the way it happens to be. No intended offense. Just hoping to be helpful.

Safari 4.1 Update seems to have killed my computer

Hey! I really hope someone can help.
I got the update notice for Safari 4.1 on my OS X 10.4.11 and updated. Now, Safari works really well, it's the rest of my computer that won't function. I've repaired disk permissions, and verified disk, both worked (no problems), but I cannot, cannot, cannot get into Finder, or most other programs. I can access System Preferences which, along with Disk Utility, I have in my Dock. One more symptom: when I do restart my computer, the top task bar does not appear until I open a program (Safari, Disk Utility, or System Preferences) and even after the program is closed, the task bar shows the last program, instead of the Finder bar.
Any suggestions shy of re-installing would be lovely. But, I'm suspecting a full re-install is necessary at this point...

HI,
Shy of reinstalling..
Try booting in Safe Mode
What is Safe Mode
It takes a little longer to boot into Safe Mode just so you know. Once you are in Safe Mode go to the Apple Menu/Restart.
Safe Mode can fix some glitches if Disk Utility couldn't find any errors on the startup disk.
While you are in Safe Mode, check for available disk space.
Right or control click the MacintoshHD icon. Click Get Info. In the Get Info window you will see Capacity and Available. Make sure you always have a minimum of 10% to 15% free disk space at all times.
*Another thing to check in Safe Mode is startup items*. Open System Preferences/Accounts - Login Items. If you have any apps listed, there delete them, then restart from the Apple Menu.
Carolyn

Many, many times in a session, I get this: Mozilla Firefox (Not Responding). Frustration is setting in when I have to kill the computer, and start all over again. Anger is beginning a slow burn, too.

Since the latest version (don't even ask me) was downloaded and installed, many times in a session when I am browsing the net, or opening a text document or a spreadsheet, flipping back and forth, I'll have to stop and sit for an indeterminate amount of time because up on the header, I'll get the message Mozilla Firefox (Not Responding). When looking down toward the front of the laptop, I note the hard drive is going full bore, whole hog, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes after repeated hitting the "enter" key, the program will catch up, and begin functioning again. Other times, because the program is stuck, the laptop will overheat, causing me to manually shut down, wait a while while the hard drive cools, then restarting. When I have to manually kill the session, I cannot, repeat CANNOT get the machine shutdown programs to work.
What the hell is wrong with Firefox with this crap?

Hello jesterabk, '''Try Firefox Safe Mode''' to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
''(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)''
* You can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the '''Shift''' key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
* Or open the Help menu and click on the '''Restart with Add-ons Disabled...''' menu item while Firefox is running.
''Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"''
'''''If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode''''', your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] article for that.
''To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.''
''When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.''
Thank you.

OSX is killing my computer!

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