It sounds to me like you might have a lack of free physical memory and are either paging heavily or outright swapping/thrashing. Thrashing could also account for hard drive noise. The next time your system gets like that, open a terminal:
Code:
Finder->Applications->Utilities->Terminal
then enter the following commands:
Code:
$ export PS1="$ "
$ sar -g -p 2 10
04:53:12 pgout/s
04:53:12 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:14 pgout/s
04:53:14 0.0
04:53:14 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:14 0.0 4.5 488.5
04:53:16 pgout/s
04:53:16 0.0
04:53:16 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:16 0.0 0.0 444.0
04:53:18 pgout/s
04:53:18 0.0
04:53:18 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:18 0.0 0.0 441.5
04:53:20 pgout/s
04:53:20 0.0
04:53:20 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:20 0.0 0.0 448.0
04:53:22 pgout/s
04:53:22 0.0
04:53:22 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:22 0.0 196.0 1425.5
04:53:24 pgout/s
04:53:24 0.0
04:53:24 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:24 0.0 0.0 442.0
04:53:26 pgout/s
04:53:26 0.0
04:53:26 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:26 0.0 1.5 455.5
04:53:28 pgout/s
04:53:28 0.0
04:53:28 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:28 0.0 0.0 444.0
04:53:30 pgout/s
04:53:30 0.0
04:53:30 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:30 0.0 0.5 446.0
04:53:32 pgout/s
04:53:32 0.0
04:53:32 pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
04:53:32 0.0 194.5 1408.5
Average: pgout/s
Average: 0.0
Average: pgin/s pflt/s vflt/s
Average: 0.0 39.7 644.3
$ vm_stat 2
Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes, cache hits 0%)
free active spec inactive wire faults copy 0fill reactive pageins pageout
9420 153613 1409 72669 221214 2637706K 141590K 640327K 4852558 29648491 1308193
9516 153919 1409 72669 220896 2921 394 738 0 0 0
9290 153400 1409 72430 221770 1783 1 957 0 0 0
3119 159123 1878 72407 221815 15342 1856 4746 0 825 0
2844 159826 1878 72404 221733 2752 9 1191 0 3 0
2256 156623 1028 77000 221503 19212 1877 9165 0 846 13
2135 157187 199 78120 220961 5473 417 2605 291 17 67
2209 156644 199 78120 221503 1083 0 408 0 0 0
2411 156500 199 77838 221506 971 0 408 0 0 0
2561 157411 200 77838 220627 917 0 435 0 0 0
2394 156550 244 77826 221507 1357 0 469 0 1 0
2232 156414 136 78206 221494 3331 393 967 0 4 5
1774 156987 168 78119 221494 1709 0 986 0 45 0
1717 157533 170 78116 220949 901 0 414 0 0 0
2032 157436 175 77949 220927 1169 3 489 0 2 0
2109 156619 166 78112 221453 4448 13 3405 1761 69 516
2125 157184 187 78112 220896 2982 390 718 0 4 0
2015 157507 187 78112 220576 877 0 402 0 0 0
3437 157268 187 77317 220362 888 0 405 0 0 0
3059 157271 198 77314 220588 863 0 387 0 0 0
2767 156921 215 77176 221453 2250 0 432 0 612 0
^C
Control+C will exit vm_stat. Paste the results here.