Dock, Expose, Dashboard and spotlight freeze up on my Macbook and it won't shut down

HQvhs

Hi

I purchased a macbook 1 month ago with 1gb of RAM and 2ghz Core 2 Duo. It's my first Mac but recently it's started acting funny al of a sudden for no apparent reason.

I'm usually running something no more strenous than firefox, msn and itunes and I go to press f9 to open expose and get no response.
I then go down to open the Dock (it's set to hide) and it doesn't show up.
I try to use spotlight and nothing happens. When I press f12 dashboard doesn't open.
It's weird because all the function buttons work except f9, f10, f11 & f12.
I then try to shut it down and press the power button and select shut down and it closes all the windows and then I get to the stage where all that appears is the desktop background and then nothing happens.
It doesn't shut down. I can move the cursor around but nothing happens so I have to take the battery out and turn it back on.
Then it seems to be fine once i turn it back on.
This has happened 4 times all in the past week and a half.
I've tried repairing disk utilities and verifying disk image after it happened the third time two days ago but it happened again today.

I'm at a loss as to what has caused it. I'm not the most experienced with macs as it is my first one so if anyone has any advice no matter how basic it would be a great help.

Thanks!

Oriel

Since you've only had it a month, personally, I'd just reformat and reinstall Tiger.

uncle_sam_ie

Back up all your important stuff before you do anything. Then go to the Apple website or Macfixit http://www.macfixit.com/ to see if anyone else is having the same issues. If you don't get any help there then call Apple support!

HQvhs

If i reinstall tiger do i lose all my files? Do i have to uninstall Tiger first and how do I do that?

uncle_sam_ie

YES.
See if you can fix this before you go reinstalling the OS. Go to websites I suggested and see if there is an issue. If there is, find out what other Macbook users did to fix it. At least call Apple support. You get 90 days of free phone support after purchase.

scsa

Are you connecting to any shared folders over a home network, or mounting any removable disk drives?

I've noticed on my Mac if a drive or share isn't ejected from the Finder before it's switched off or whatever, it can lock up the Mac for a few minutes. Mostly happens after connecting to Windows systems over the network.

Sad Professor

There's no need to go reformatting and reinstalling the OS just yet. Try setting up and logging in with a new user account and see if the problem stops.

Have you ruled out any application or add-on you might have installed recently? A new menu, widget, etc? Anything that might be running in the background?

HQvhs

I'm not using any shared folders over the network. I haven't installed any widgets or new programs since this problem started or around when it started that I can think of. I think the Apple security was around that time but I'm not too sure.

Do you think I should run the hardware diagnostics test off the install disk?
If so, how long does this usually take?

I will call Apple support in the morning. What's the number I call from Ireland?