New 16" MacBook Pro - Running Slow

The Mac's OS does not need any help in managing RAM. It tried to use it all and when additional needs pop up it releases some from apps that are not working at the moment to allocate to the needy app.

You can check on the memory with Activity Monitor. Check the graph in the RAM section. If it stays in the green all is well. If it goes into the orange or red then there's some process that is using a lot. You can find out which process in the listing pane for Memory and CPU. I've got 16GB RAM in my iMac and have never seen it out of the green.

Little Snitch is a known resource hog and isn't really of much practical use. If your Mac's performance is still lagging consider uninstalling it.

"Click Here to Install" is crashing. What's is it used for? Do you really need it?

The new line of Macbook Pros are slow. My laptop spends a lot of time thermal throttling when I'm using anything GPU related ... usually at 60-75% of full CPU. This was a problem that is marketed as being resolved, but clearly isn't.

It's impossible to use for any length of time before it gets too hot and needs to scale back to keep the system cool which leads to slow window switching and stuttering screen.

https://etrecheck.com/

Run this free app and post your results.

Copy the report

and use the Add Text button to include the report in your reply. How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report

Run Etrecheck (see earlier replies to this topic) and post the results.

On my third hour long phone call with Apple Support, so many tests, so many logs, so many archives to send, so many extra engineers have heard of the issue and have jumped in to work this. Currently they have me creating a new partition for a new second MacOS install that they can sandbox for FCPX library testing of some files, then I have to run the same tests and log on diagnostics mode on my old Mac...shouldn't take more than a couple of hours 😳

New glitch found...my 16 inch Mac cannot transcode 4K to HEVC...it has some sort of memory leak or something that freezes repeatedly saying 135GB of memory used and out of memory. old 2015 breezes through that test with 5GB RAM usage...so yeah...lemonaid. :(

Paul

Just spent $2900 on a 16" i9 16GB 1TB MBP and was very excited to upgrade my computer from a 2013 MBP (which worked superbly but just died). I bought the 16" for the larger screen; not for the speed, since I primarily use Microsoft Office products for work (and don't do any developer stuff or gaming or high-level movie development, etc.). Considering that Microsoft Office is the main thing I use, I figured it would AT LEAST be as quick as my old 2013 computer. Nope. I have NO additional apps on my computer except for Office 365, Zoom, Safari, Firefox, Spotify, and Dropbox. I did NOT transfer anything over from my old computer because it completely died and I had all my files saved on Dropbox. I never downloaded any virus protection to this (or the previous) Mac. This is a factory install computer with NOTHING added to compromise the speed. And yet, when I open up two powerpoint presentations at the same time (one on the left slide of the screen, and one on the right side of the screen), there's a small delay when just moving to the next slide. I've done this for YEARS on my old 2013 computer without any delay. And now with this computer, it's MUCH worse. Very disappointed. After reading through this thread, I'm hesitant to contact Apple Support because I frankly don't want to spend hours trying to figure out how to speed up a brand new computer, especially when other people had the same problem and it wasn't resolved. My advice to Apple: Let us install Mohave. If it's not a hardware issue and it's related to Catalina, either fix the Catalina problem, or let us downgrade. As it is, this is unacceptable.

I tried installing a brand new Catalina install but gave same slugginesh result in Google Chrome Browser....

And now as a developer i use Visual Studio Code all the time and unfortunately scrolling up/down inside the code view often is not responsive and stutters for maybe half or a whole second....

You can replicate this by opening a large javascript code file inside VS Code, maybe scroll down to the middle of the contents, wait for some seconds, then try scrolling up or down using the touchpad.... Maybe repeat this several times

This gives me some nasty delays until the code starts scrolling - like something is holding the cpu...

This is pretty annoying...

BR Flemming Dahlhof Jensen

I've started keeping diary of my issues for when I speak to tech support. They are all small but annoying and not typical of other Macs I've owned. If I didn't have to be on my computer so may hours for work I'm not sure it would be a big deal. Have any of you had these same issues?

3/20/20 - computer sluggish, spinning beach ball, shut it down. Started up, got this message "BAD MAGIC! (flag set in iBoot panic header), no macOS panic log available". This also happened about a month ago.

3/21/20 - touchbar completely disappeared. shut down computer, did option/command/p/r on start up. appeared again.

3/21/20 - external monitor brightness does minor shifting

3/22/20 - external encrypted hard drive. spinning 'loading...' message in finder window never goes away. this happens all the time.

3/23/20 - closed finder window and the outline of finder window is stuck in display.

3/24/20 - could not select one of the files on the desktop. can't click on it.

3/30/20 - Working in photoshop, spinning beachballs every 30 seconds on simple editing. Activity monitor showed tons of CPU avail. Restarted computer.

3/31/20 - External monitor brightened and dimmed. Restarted computer.

4/1/20 - Couldn't rename a directory. Had to force quit the finder to do it. Fans started spinning, nothing was being done on the computer.

All of this is happening about a month after a 'fresh install' of Catalina.

Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities.

I want to make sure you reach the right team for help with your MacBook Pro. I recommend that you contact Apple Support directly. Depending on your region, you may be able to reach them here: Contact Apple Support

Sorry for my english ,

i had exactly the same problem, so slow or FPS drop, little freeze etccc

i really hate my First MacBook Pro 16” since November 2019

i call apple support 3 times with a lot of video for explain my problem .

i had a support tech level 2 3 times it’s the level before enginner, so they said it’s impossible to replace your product because it’snt hardware, wait an update.

here it’s my video capture than I upload to apple tech support

https://youtu.be/8QpfW0yXzRc

https://youtu.be/aB0opA8mMio

https://youtu.be/NzyyuUKwGvk

Now my only solution it’s to sell it

Thank you anyway for your trying, I really appreciate,

i think that is something related to OS that we cannot manage to fix by our effort.

I have two ways in front of me...

waiting for the next OS generation release that will put Catalina on our back, or jump into Mojave while waiting.

I will keep you updated when one of the two solutions above will be tested, in order to understand if the new MacBook Pro 16 problems are gone with the OS, or remain on like hardware youngness defect.

with my best regards

Marco Perino

Same here - 16" - i9 2,4Ghz / 64GB RAM / 1TB SSD / 8GB AMD Radeon Pro !!!

Laggy and sluggish resizing windows, scrolling through Music/iTunes or Photos or even Safari.

Booting and App startup times take longer than my MBP 13" 2013. The Fans are spinning crazy with any Application running and the heat issue is very present. Ableton and Lightroom perform almost the same like my Dual Core MBP 2013 :/

I am going nuts because i really want to have a better performance since my 2013 is on it's limit but the latest 16" - a 7 year newer and 6 generations fresher laptop feels just like 5% faster !!! WTF Apple - there is no way of downgrading to Mojave btw.

One issue is that you've installed some very unnecessary software, BitDefender. There is no reason to ever run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or anti-virus apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.   '

Do a Google search for the developer's instructions for uninstalling it. You can check to see if you've removed all of the files by downloading and running Find Any File to search for any files with the application's name  and the developer's name in the file name.  For example for BitDefender software you'd do the following search: 

1 - Name contains bitdefenderYou can check to see if you've removed all of the files by downloading and running Find Any File to search for any files with the application's name  and the developer's name in the file name.  For example for Bitdefender software you'd do the following search: 

1 - Name contains epsecurity

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.

Also Google Chrome is a known resource hog. If you don't like Safari give Firefrox a try. It's faster and more secure than Chrome.

Believe me... the problem is CATALINA.

I’m using Mac professional since years and I’ve never Used such a disastered OS.

lets wait the next one in autumn and all the problema will disappear... ... ... hopefully !