NStocks wrote:
I'm looking into Activity monitor now, but I'm not sure what would differentiate between normal mode and safe mode to causes such issues.
Safe Mode disables many non-essential system/kernel extensions. You can see a more complete description
here. I'm inclined to think that something you installed after purchasing the machine is causing the problem. The question is, which one is the culprit?
The font issue raised by ejrolon is also worth investigation because Safe Mode also disables all non-essential fonts. You can check them with Font Book by selecting "All Fonts", and then the menu item "File > Validate Fonts".
You could narrow this down by disabling items. The easiest target is startup/login items. Go into System Preferences and click on Accounts. Select your account and click the 'Login Items' tab to the right. Can you send a screen-grab of the list you see there?
Also, did you try disabling Bluetooth and networking as I suggested earlier?
Ralph Wessel BArch
Active Thread Ltd