Recently Developed Performance Issues

Question

Three days ago, while watching a video on Hulu.com in full screen, my MacBook Pro running OX 10.4.11 locked up. The screen became slightly distorted with purple stripes. The entire OS was unresponsive: I was unable to exit out of full screen on the video, was unable to open the window to Force Quit and was forced to do a hard shut down by holding down the power button.
I was able to reboot the system and things operated normally for roughly a day. The issue occurred again, and I had to force a shut down again by holding down the power button. This time at the grey start up screen, a darker overlay loaded saying the computer had to be restarted and to do so by holding down the power button. Upon doing this, the message appeared again. This processes repeated several times - sometimes including the purple streaks across the screen - until I was able to load the operating system normally. It was then that I attempted to open Safari, and the streaks returned, the OS locked up and the only way out was a hard reboot again. Finally I was able to access the OS successfully and things continued to work normally until I was watching another video, when the same OS crashing occurred.
The next time I successfully loaded the OS, I attempted to run Disk Utility, but this immediately led to the same locking up as before and included at least once the same purple streaks on the monitor.
Per suggestion of another topic, I booted up from the install disk and ran a Hardware Test. But the initial and extended tests revealed the following error code:
4YDC/1/40000003:Video Controller
I then did a Safe Boot, which after some time loaded the OS. There I attempted to run Disk Utility. I was able to repair the drive permissions, but when I attempted to verify the disk I received the following error message after the status bar filled up:
"First Aid Failed.
Disk Utility stopped verifying volume because the following error was encountered:
The underlying tasks reported failure on exit."
As a result of the failure of verification, I am unable to repair the disk using disk utility. The verification did report one error:
"Invalid directory item count
(It should be 39 instead of 38)"
Upon attempting a normal restart out of the safe boot, the circle at the gray loading screen stopped spinning and locked up. After a hard reboot from that point, the OS loaded normally. I then attempted to load up Safari (I was successful) and visited several webpages. Upon loading up iChat, the system locked up again (without any discoloration on the monitor) and I was forced to perform a hard reboot. However, the system loaded up normally again, and I was able to load Firefox and get to this page to write up this post.
Some information on my machine
17 inch MacBook Pro purchased in June 2007
Running OSX 10.4.11
188 GB HD, 74.86 GB free
Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Boot ROM version: MBP31.0070B07
SMC Version: 1.16f11
I performed the most recent system update earlier this week and have had no other issues with the machine up to this point. When I had the initial problems, it seemed like my system was especially warm, but it's difficult for me to verify that at all. Any thoughts on what my problem might be would be greatly appreciated. I'd like to try and figure out what the issue is before trying an Archive & Install (and would like to know if my available HD space is sufficient to take that step)
Thank you all for any help.

Answer 1

Hello capbarclay, and a warm welcome to the forums!
4YDC/1/40000003:Video Controller
If AHT finds an error then it's likely believable, seems you have a Hardware problem. I'd run the extended test again.
As a result of the failure of verification, I am unable to repair the disk using disk utility. The verification did report one error
Run it from the Install Disc again until you have no errors. Do not attempt to use it in any other way until you get no errors.
I'd like to try and figure out what the issue is before trying an Archive & Install (and would like to know if my available HD space is sufficient to take that step)
You do have enough Free Space to A&I, but I would not attempt it until the Disk is known to not have any errors.