Macbook Pro sometimes gets slow/laggy. Help

Question

Level 1

8 points

Macbook Pro sometimes gets slow/laggy. Help

Hi,

So I have a MPB 13" Late 2011, upgrade to 6gb ram and 125gb ssd (55gb free space)

I know it's old, but I'm a Student so my budget is tight and as I always wanted to have a Macbook I decided that I'm probably going to get better performance from an old Macbook, then a new cheap windows pc.

My problem is that lately it became slow, when I'm watching a video on Youtube the image gets "stuck" then skips a few seconds and similar, after when I play the next one it loads the video in a decent speed, but the rest of the page doesn't load for 10-20 more seconds. Obviously it's annoying. I'm sure it was faster a few months ago when I got it. Mostly I have safari, word and whatsapp open, I'm not using 20 apps at the same time.

Another thing is that it becomes slower when it's charging, I read online about deleting the plist file, but I can't do it, it says that OS is using it.

My battery status changed from normal to replace soon a few days ago (the problems started before that).

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 3719

Cycle count: 1349 (I know it's a lot)

On Activity Monitor, CPU is low even when its lagging, and mostly there is 2gb of free ram

I did First Aid on Utility Disk, no problem there.

Scanned, no viruses

Safari using only 1 extension (adblock)

Cache and junk files regularly deleted

What is making my MBP slow? Can the battery influence the performance and making it slow even though its not even saying to replace it?

I'm open for any suggestions and thanks for your time!

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.13

Posted on Apr 25, 2019 8:50 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,448 points

Apr 25, 2019 9:42 AM in response to filip198

Just did a quick glance at your EtreCheck report and here are some comments and recommendations:

Completely remove CleanMyMac. Cleaner apps are not required and we get numerous posts here from users having issues using them. That includes CleanMyMac.
Your internal hard drive is running low on space. This will start causing apps to be cached in order to run, slowing them down considerably.
Your Mac has an interesting RAM configuration. Are these the original RAM modules or did you upgrade them from a third-party source?
Your Mac is running multiple ad blockers. I would suggest that you limit them to just one if you really need this.
Remove the BitDefender Virus Scanner app or extension.
Remove Dr. Antivirus.
The PokerStars app has crashed multiple times. I would remove it or check to see if there is an updated version if you desire to keep using it.

Reply

Answer 2

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Apr 25, 2019 9:32 AM in response to filip198

Uninstall CleanMyMac and Dr Antivirus and BitDefender as per the developer's instructions. No Anti-Virus software or so-called “cleaning” apps are needed or recommended for Mac OS. They can conflict with Mac's own built-in security. At best they will slow your Mac by using unnecessary resources and at worst will bork your entire system.

Also, 6GB RAM isn't enough for modern operating systems. Install at least 8 GB. Since RAM works best in pairs so another 4GB module would be best.

Reply

Answer 3

Apr 25, 2019 8:56 AM in response to filip198

You said you scanned and found no virus'. What did you scan with? Third party apps that claim to clean, protect, manage, boiost performance may cause problems. Uninstall third party anti virus apps.

Reply

Answer 4

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Apr 25, 2019 10:40 AM in response to filip198

Your RAM is already using some SWAP which tends to slow the Mac since it needs to work from virtual RAM created on your hard drive. And as I mentioned, pairing RAM is a better memory solution.

You'll probably need a new battery soon but that shouldn't be interfering with the speed of your Mac.

Reply

Answer 5

filip198 Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 25, 2019 9:44 AM in response to macjack

CleanMyMac and bitDefender were uninstalled before, i dont have them under apps, dont know why they are in the report.

But do i actually need 8gb if i have free ram anyways? and why does it get slower when charging? Could a new battery improve performance?

Reply

Answer 6

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Apr 25, 2019 8:54 AM in response to filip198

Please download and run Etrecheck It is a diagnostic tool that's very useful to us in finding problems. Also it will give us further specs on your Mac. After it runs post the log file here. It will contain no personal information.

To post the log file copy & paste it using the Page icon in your reply window:

Reply

Answer 7

Tesserax

Level 10

158,448 points

Apr 25, 2019 10:13 AM in response to filip198

They are still in there because you didn't completely remove all of the associated other files for these apps.

55 out of 124 GBs is starting to near the "getting low" category in my experience. What I would be concerned about here is if you start seeing that some of your RAM is being used for paging apps. None of this is critical, just providing you with an observation.

Reply