Post mavericks update freezing problem

Question

I am apparently another who has had their awesome Macbook pro 5.5 mid 2009 corrupted by an update to Mavericks, or something. It is beyond my skill set to figure it out. Can anyone help? Please!
Specifics found below in the Etrecheck output.
History:
Running OSX 10.5 happily.
Decided to upgrade to be more secure so upgraded memory (which passed memtest 5 times through) from 2 - 8 gigs.
Purchased the 10.6 upgrade Disc and then did online update to Mavericks.
Problem after upgrade...Especially but not entirely when under battery power (Battery at less than 500 cycles and working well) I get complete freezing aside from blue vertical lines on part of the screen. Must do a hard shutdown after this.
Attempted solutions:
Using Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC)- reinstalled older backup of drive after an erase. I was shocked that the problem was still there as this sent me back to OSX 10.6.
Tested memory with memtest and all was good for more than 5 cycles.
Set uo an external drive with 10.6 and then mavericks and ran this for about a week with no problems. I then transfered this back to the onboard drive after erasing it with CCC and the problems returned.
I thought it was only with battery power but this proved not to be the case, although it does freeze much less often when plugged in.
I have tried the PRAM resets etc to no avail.
Any help would be much aporeciated as would some assurance that perhaps a newer version of OSX might work in the future.
Please note. This is my partnes's computer and she is less than impressed with my "upgrade".
Cheers and have a great day.
EtreCheck version: 1.9.11 (43) - report generated June 7, 2014 at 1:05:13 AM PDT
Hardware Information:
    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5
    1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
    8 GB RAM
Video Information:
    NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB
System Software:
    OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 0:26:1
Disk Information:
    Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02 disk0 : (160.04 GB)
        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 159.05 GB (23.4 GB free)
        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 784.2 MB
    HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 
USB Information:
    Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
    Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
    Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Gatekeeper:
    Mac App Store and identified developers
Launch Daemons:
    [loaded]    com.bombich.ccc.plist Support
User Login Items:
    iTunesHelper
Internet Plug-ins:
    Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
    Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30317.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
Audio Plug-ins:
    BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
    AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
    AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
    iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
    Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
3rd Party Preference Panes:
    None
Time Machine:
    Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU:
         3%    WindowServer
         1%    fontd
         1%    firefox
         0%    Dock
         0%    imagent
Top Processes by Memory:
    221 MB    firefox
    98 MB    com.apple.IconServicesAgent
    82 MB    mds_stores
    57 MB    ocspd
    57 MB    Finder
Virtual Memory Information:
    5.69 GB    Free RAM
    1.09 GB    Active RAM
    343 MB    Inactive RAM
    650 MB    Wired RAM
    314 MB    Page-ins
    0 B    Page-outs
Power:
Battery Information:
Model Information:
Serial Number: W092619XZ77ZA Manufacturer: SMP
Device Name: bq20z451
Pack Lot Code: 0
PCB Lot Code: 0
Firmware Version: 3
Hardware Revision: 2
Cell Revision: 100
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 4452 Fully Charged: Yes Charging: No Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4667
Health Information: Cycle Count: 467 Condition: Normal
Battery Installed: Yes Amperage (mA): 0 Voltage (mV): 12355
System Power Settings:
AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0 Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10 Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10 Wake on AC Change: No Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes Wake on LAN: No Current Power Source: Yes Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0
Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0 Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10 Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5 Wake on AC Change: No Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes Reduce Brightness: No
Hardware Configuration:
UPS Installed: No
AC Charger Information:
Connected: Yes Charging: No
Memory Slots:
  ECC:    Disabled
BANK 0/DIMM0:
  Size:    4 GB
  Type:    DDR3
  Speed:    1067 MHz
  Status:    OK
  Manufacturer:    0x85F7
  Part Number:    0x483634353155363446373036364700000000
  Serial Number:    -
BANK 1/DIMM0:
  Size:    4 GB
  Type:    DDR3
  Speed:    1067 MHz
  Status:    OK
  Manufacturer:    0x85F7
  Part Number:    0x483634353155363446373036364700000000
  Serial Number:    -

Answer 1

Your report looks clean to me, sorry it doesn't indicate any obvious signs of old software that could be breaking the OS.
The only thing that would concern me is the lack of free space on the boot disk 23GB is close to the minimum. Ideally I'd like a little more maybe 30-40GB. Spinning disks perform slower as they become more full so that may not help performance, however it doesn't explain the freezing/ lines on screen.
Your tests seem to indicate something wrong with the internal disk (it worked OK for a week on external, but the same OS dies on the internal?). Was the restored OS 10.6 or 10.9?
Are any of these systems 'clean installs'? If not I'd consider using the Mavericks installer to 'reinstall' 10.9.3 over the top of the current OS. By default it only overwrites the OS files so the use data & apps should remain in place (a backup is still needed before you do this). Another option is to reinstall just a clean OS to see if the internal disk can work at all.
You can also start combing the logs for info (or hope Linc Davis appears here with some commands to parse the logs).
Start testing the disk (check the SMART status in Disk Utility).
Apple Hardware Test https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509 (it may not tell you much)
Repair the disk via Recovery mode.
Since you suspect it is related to the battery…
Reset the SMC - https://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964