Q: Macbook pro runs slow

Thank you for the quick reply. Amazing! Now, here's what I did meanwhile:

-unistalled Perian through the system preferences. However, it's still showing the icon although it says not installed.

-updated istat menus  but it's now erratic and not showing properly. I'll uninstall it

-updated silverlight

-checked for updates in NTFS but there are none at the moment.

Question: how do I uninstall the gmail checker? It used to be a button on safari but it was no longer working. Then safari itself died until I got the Mavericks, and I had to change to firefox, so I guess I can uninstall both

I am thinking about upgrading to 8Gb but it just annoys me because I never experienced slowness before.

Thank you again

PS: I think I managed to uninstall gmail checker.

EtreCheck version: 1.9.12 (48)

Report generated 7 de Julho de 2014 às 16:41:50 WEST

Hardware Information:

  MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2010) (Verified)

  MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,1

  1 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores

  4 GB RAM

Video Information:

  Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB

  Color LCD 1920 x 1200

  NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 512 MB

System Software:

  OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 0 days 0:11:21

Disk Information:

  ST9500325ASG disk0 : (500,11 GB)

  EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

  Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499,25 GB (210,2 GB free)

  Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

  HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

USB Information:

  Genius Optical Mouse

  Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

  Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

  Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

  Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

  Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Configuration files:

  /etc/hosts - Count: 2

Gatekeeper:

  Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions:

  [not loaded] com.roxio.TDIXController (1.7) Support

Problem System Launch Agents:

  [failed] com.apple.SystemUIServer.plist

  [loaded] com.paragon.NTFS.trial.plist Support

  [loaded] com.paragon.NTFS.upd.plist Support

Launch Daemons:

  [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

  [invalid] com.bjango.istatlocaldaemon.plist

  [loaded] com.bombich.ccc.plist Support

  [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support

Launch Agents:

  [running] com.bjango.istatlocal.plist Support

  [loaded] com.hp.messagecenter.launcher.plist Support

User Launch Agents:

  [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist Support

User Login Items:

  Skype

  MagicMenu

  iTunesHelper

Internet Plug-ins:

  Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 Support

  FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.125 - SDK 10.6 Support

  Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

  AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 10.1.10 Support

  AdobePDFViewer: Version: 10.1.10 Support

  Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.125 - SDK 10.6 Support

  QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

  SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.3 - SDK 10.6 Support

  Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30317.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

  iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

Safari Extensions:

  Reload Button: Version: 1.0.4

  Awesome Screenshot: Version: 1.4.3

  Gmail Checker: Version: 0.1

Audio Plug-ins:

  BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

  AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9

  AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9

  iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

iTunes Plug-ins:

  Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9

3rd Party Preference Panes:

  Flash Player  Support

  Flip4Mac WMV  Support

  Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X  Support

  Perian  Support

Time Machine:

  Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

      4% WindowServer

      2% Safari

      1% fontd

      0% iStatLocalDaemon

      0% AppleSpell

Top Processes by Memory:

  90 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

  74 MB Safari

  70 MB WindowServer

  61 MB mds_stores

  53 MB Dock

Virtual Memory Information:

  1.83 GB Free RAM

  1.14 GB Active RAM

  211 MB Inactive RAM

  708 MB Wired RAM

  303 MB Page-ins

  0 B Page-outs

I don't even know what that is. I am the only person using the computer. Could it be when I installed Mavericks? Is that bad? Can I reverse it?

I've been experiencing slowness since yesterday. It started while playing Diablo III. I tried to solve it within the game by changing the resolution, frame rate, and shadows. Nothing seemed to work. I also noticed slowness in two other situations: in VLC, where the movies seem to be a little out of sync, i.e., sound comes first than movement; and lastly in booting and shutting down. Whereas I never timed this operation before, it seems to be taking longer.

I have not installed anything else. In fact, in the last hours I've been uninstalling stuff as suggested.

No errors nor alerts. The only thing I did was to enter in recovery mode and examined the hard drive as I saw suggested in another post.

I have a backup but I don't think it will work. I'll explain: my external hard drive where the back up is, is in NTFS and not the "weird" mac format with journaling or whatever the name.

While the back up is underway, is there anything else I can do?

I can't see any slowness now, but in Diablo III. The game starts normally and after a while it becomes slower. If I change to the desktop and use vlc, safari or others, they too get slow. When I quit the game everything comes back to normal. This is my situation now... sigh...

What strikes me as odd is that this never happened in snow leopard and even in mavericks is only happening since yesterday (i've had it for a little more than a week now).

Thank you for your suggestion, Linc Davis.

After reading the indicators listed on the link you provided about how to reset the SMC, it's clearly not my situation. My MBP is not erratic so I not even sure it's necessary (recommended?) to reset the SMC?

So after a fair amount of time testing different scenarios/situations, I realize that it's only within the game I get this slowness (again this never happened in the time of OS 10.6, nor in the first 5-6 days of mavericks). Would you say that the RAM upgrade could solve the problem?