MacBook Pro 2012 8GB RAM Catalina runs slow for months now

Bob75mac wrote:

MacBook Pro mid 2012 15" with 8 GB memory. Running very slow for months now. Should I swap out the memory DIMM's and add (2) 8GB DIMM's to increase memory? How do I remove the Mcafee Internet Security app that is installed? Can't figure that out right now. I can't tell from the etrecheck report (attached)

<etrecheck report for MacBook Pro.log>

if my hard drive is healthy. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Bob

The etrecheck looks incomplete. Maybe it is an old version, in that case update the software or post the entire report.

I can add right now— < Avira, McAfee> third party anti-virus does nothing but add issue to your macOS competing with Apples own security, compounded by multiple AV added—more is not better.

Look for the official in-app uninstaller <Avira, McAfee> Refer to the developers website if in doubt

ref: macOS - Security - Apple https://www.apple.com/macos/security/

Hi Bob,

Adding RAM will not change your situation. You can cram all the RAM you can afford into that computer and still see no noticeable speed boost.

If it is booting and app launches that are most noticeably slow, it's that old-school hard drive. Your mechanical hard drive is slow to start with and, at the time of the test, running well below nominal write/read speeds for that drive:

Performance:

System Load: 2.30 (1 min ago) 1.80 (5 min ago) 1.18 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 4.52 MB/s

File system: 42.52 seconds

Write speed: 41 MB/s

Read speed: 27 MB/s

Typical scores for that drive, even after eight years, are 60-80 MB/sec. Yours is hurting. Bad.

As some useless anti-virus dreck runs the hard dive more, it is possible that Avira and McAfee are chewing on it. Run the test again after ejecting that dungware from the premises, and we will see if drive scores improve.

I have a 2012 MBP with 8GB RAM. It was also slow, so I installed an inexpensive solid state drive (SSD) kit. The same drive speed test from EtreCheck that your used shows this after my upgrade:

Performance:

    System Load: 1.61 (1 min ago) 1.60 (5 min ago) 2.94 (15 min ago)

    Nominal I/O speed: 0.15 MB/s

    File system: 28.20 seconds

    Write speed: 487 MB/s

    Read speed: 482 MB/s

That's a 10X improvement and is shows in use. To see if RAM or the SSD made the most difference, I timed launches of the two apps slowest on my MBP, MS Word and PhotoShop Elements:

Base system as shipped:

4GB RAM and slow SATA 3GBps 5400rpm hard drive: Office and Photoshop Elements took 15-18 seconds to be ready to use.

First upgrade, doubling the RAM:

8GB RAM and slow SATA 3GBps 5400rpm hard drive: Office and Photoshop Elements took 15-18 seconds to be ready to use.

Second upgrade, inexpensive solid-state drive

8GB RAM and fast SATA 6GBps SSD: Office and Photoshop Elements take under 4 seconds to be ready to use.

If your are interested in investing about US$120 to keep this older MBP in service longer, I can post links to the parts I used. It is an at-home job for the average user. It took me maybe 40 minutes but I took time to evict some dust bunnies from the insides and muck out the heat sink.