Since this is turning into MacChat, I might aswell post..

Hmmm - Never heard of your finder/menu bar problem but the behavior described suggests something is seriously amiss.

I was going to suggest trying the often recommended "permission repair" - It won't do any harm (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk utility -> Select your drive and "repair".) However, it sounds like you've got a "bad Apple" (pun intended) and I'd try and get it exchanged ASAP.

For sure, the battery should not be "wonky", even if it is "refurbished". Get it swapped out. Dead pixels are another reason you should get it swapped - There shouldn't be *any* dead pixels, even on a refurbed machine.

The heat and lack of speed suggest something is very wrong..... Get it exchanged!

I would *strongly* recommend getting a backup HD - That heat could very well destroy the internal drive and then you'll be pi$$ed that you don't have a backup..... It sounds like its just a matter of time before it dies completely. GET YOUR DATA OFF! [As has been said many times, "Time Machine" is a great backup program.]

One final thought - Have you loaded any S/W onto it that starts automatically at boot time? - Why are you seeing "lots of used RAM"? - What's using it? For sure, heavy memory usage (swapping stuff in and out) will cause slowness and heat.....


Cheers,
Ian

 

I bought my iMac refurbished and it never was quite right when I first got it, I just wiped the hard drive and reinstalled and it was fine. You might even want to just do an archive and install which saves everything you have but it reinstalls only the actuall OS, it has saved me a couple times.

 

+1 Not a bad idea. BUT, I'd still get "your stuff" backed-up beforehand - Just in case.....

As to external drives - Just make sure it's got "Mac support" on the box, and plug it in [Be prepared to re-format it to Mac OSX, journaled] - I'm not sure which MB you've got - If it's got Firewire 400 get a Firewire 400 drive. If not, a good ol' USB drive will work. 500GB is cheap - Dedicate, say, 300GB to Time Machine and the remainder for your video files [ie, two partitions.]

Good luck,
Cheers,
Ian

 

Backing up everything is always good, problem or not, but if you don't want to have to go put everything back in place afterward archive and install works great, though nothing dealing with computers is ever guaranteed.

 

My G5 did this exact same thing. We did manage to clean it up for a short time by taking it up to the Apple Store and had the genius bar guys work on it for me... I should have then backed it up fully. It got worse and worse and finally I had to replace the hard drive...DANG IT! Yea, that was not cool! I had migrated all my important stuff over to my iMac, but lost a few things I would have rather not lost.

I would say your drive is dying and if you can get a good disk doctor program to run you might clean things up long enough to save some stuff before it dies completely on you.

Good luck and sorry to hear of another person having the same issues that I had...

James

 

Do you mean this "exact thing"?

V-e-r-y interesting!... The above is a "symptom" of a dying hard drive.... Learn something everyday.

Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Ian

 

The menu bar thing happened to me once. What happens is for some reason your computer decided to force quit finder. The menu bar and the icons are all technically part of running finder, that's why they come back when you click on the finder icon on your dock. To fix this i would suggest googling and downloading a program called "Onyx." its free and legit. it will basically just restore your cashes and reset your permissions and clean up the crap you dont need. after it goes through all the things that it pops up at you when you first open it just hit "automate" and then run. it will take a while and does not allow you to have anything else open while you are doing it and will require a restart but you will notice a speed boost when you do restart. That should take care of your finder issue.
I usually run it about once a week.
As far as the not shutting down, many times its because you either did not remember to click "shut down" on the popup menu when after you hit "shut down..." on the dropdown from the menu bar, or it simply doesnt register that you clicked it before you close the lid. Sometimes simply opening it back up will give it enough time to let it process and shut down, sometimes it takes clicking shut down again. or if it freezes, i have never had any problems result from a hard shut down on a mac, though it should not have to come to that.

if it comes down to it i would say skip the apple stores and just give them a call, usually you have to wait in a huge line even after you reserve a spot on the web and when you finally get to them they are a bit less than courteous. just my opinion.
good luck with your macbook! they really are great machines when they work properly!

-Thomas

 

Your description of "shutting down" sounds wonky. If you shut the computer down, there should be no sleep light on at all- everything should be off. Are you possibly referring to putting the computer to sleep?

If you are shutting down the computer and closing it BEFORE the shutdown process is completed it will go to sleep mid-shutdown and cause all kinds of trouble when you open it up again.

I might be too simplistic here, but just in case, let's be super clear:
1) Sleep mode can be accesed via Apple menu, power switch (and then clicking on the sleep button in the dialog box), or simply by closing the computer. You will know computer has gone to sleep because screen will shut off and little blinky light will start pulsing on macbooks exterior.
2) Shut down can only be done via Apple Menu or power switch (then clicking shut down in the dialog box that opens). Monitor will shut off and blinky light will remain off on the exterior.
3) As I said before, NEVER close the machine after shutdown until the monitor has gone off. Shutdown can take a loooong time.
4) When shutting down, always close all open apps manually before shutting down. While the MB will shut apps on it's own when shutdown is chosen, you will have a better idea which application is conflicting with shutdown if you close them manually.
5) If you hold down the power button for more than a few seconds, you will be doing a hard shutdown (forcing the shutdown). That may make your startup process longer and could cause problems, so it is always better to do a normal shutdown and be patient. If however, you have shut down the normal way and it is simply not shutting down after a long wait, it may be necessary to force it to shut down in this way.

On my MB, I find that the MS Office apps cause wonkyness on shut down at times so I open these apps and close them after use, never leaving them open when not in use and never shutting down without closing the apps manually first. Also, some of the videoconferencing apps cause weirdness and extra heat when running, so I don't leave them running unless in use. In fact, I try not to have stuff open that I'm not using because it takes up overhead I may need on the app that I'm currently using.

Note that shutting down an app means closing it down with command-Q or under the app's name and the quit command. Just closing the window leaves the app open (unlike in many Windows apps where closing the window shuts the app down).

Other things that may be causing your missing menu bar are issues with connecting and disconnecting external monitors and things like that.

 

Thomas,

I have had VERY good luck at the Apple stores and have rarely waited more than 15 min. beyond my scheduled time. Sorry your luck has not been so good.

Onyx sounds like a good idea for sure! I'll have to try that as well.

Not sure that my symptoms (which mimic yours closely) are caused by the same thing or the first signs of a dying hard drive, but that was the progression that mine took none the less...

Hope you get the problems worked out sooner rather than later!

James