unstable MacBook Pro (OSX problem?)

[Knavish]

I've got a 2010 Macbook Pro with an i5-2.5Ghz, 8GB ram, and Apple SSD running OSX 10.7.2 (Lion). Over the past couple months I've had relatively frequent trouble with it freezing as it comes back from screensaver or sleep-mode with the lid closed. For example, I'll open up the laptop after it has been closed / sleeping all night. The applications (Matlab, Firefox, MS Office) will be very slow, the spinning beachball appears, after 30-60 seconds everything is completely unresponsive *except* the mouse cursor. Eventually the mouse even freezes. The only recovery is a power button reboot.

I am using lots of memory (and swap) in Matlab, likely more than 8GB. Would you expect heavy memory usage to cause OSX to become unstable?

This is driving me a bit crazy since it is making this laptop the most unstable machine I've used since the Win 95/98 days. Any ideas for troubleshooting procedures or forums?

thanks

 

[postaled]

Open up 'Disk Utility' and verify the permissions on your hard drive.

I've seen some really odd issues including lock ups fixed by the permissions repair.

 

[Slamrish]

Also check if your HD is failing.

http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php

If it's not permissions and your HD is not failing then you need to perform an Erase and Install.

 

[Knavish]

postaled & Slamrish: i will follow your suggestions once I get past my mid week pile-o-work. Thanks!

 

[bigrash]

Can you force close any of those programs to see if the slugginess stops?

 

[KeithP]

You might also try creating a new user account and see if the problem occurs with it if permissions repair doesn't solve the problem and the HD checks out okay.

-Keith

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I would also consider updating to 10.7.5.

My housemate's 10.7 laptop had a few sleep issues, mostly resolved by 10.7.5. I have no similar issues with 10.8.