Macbook Pro periodically slow/beachball

Question

Level 1

4 points

Macbook Pro periodically slow/beachball

This is a 2011 highend 15" MBP that should run quite nicely. But it doesn't. Tried everything I can find, no answer so far. Looking for ideas before it gets tossed. Thanks in advance.

Model: Macbook Pro 15", late 2011, 2.2G i7, 8G ram

(MacbookPro8,2, Boot ROM ver: 87.0.0.0, SMC ver: 1.69f3)

Its like new, so it would be nice to get it working properly. My daughter was using it till she got a new Macbook recently. Its been slow for a few years. She thinks it happened after an update awhile back.

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Symptoms

Login screen takes almost 1m to come up. Once password is entered it takes another minute of beachball to be logged in.

Once logged in, periodically the beachball comes up or is otherwise unresponsive for 10s of seconds then its fine for a bit. Always low CPU usage in the activity monitor (unless running something known to be CPU intensive)

Tried turning on Guest on a whim. This is where its gets interesting. Click the Guest checkbox and it takes at least 1-2m before the box is checked. Same unclicking. CPU usage remains low BUT the preferences process turns red during the wait.

All the symptoms seem to indicate processes are waiting for "something" (that is not CPU dependent).

For comparison my wife's Base 2012 13" MacbookPro turns the Guest flag on/off immediately. It also runs an external screen while using zoom etc for online classes and it has NO performance issues. And I also have an old 2008 base Samsung laptop than runs Windows _with_ Virtualbox with little performance lag. So this topline 2011 MBP _should_ have no performance issues relatively speaking.

Other than the periodic severe slowness, it runs fine ... plays videos, runs apps, boots, etc all good.

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Tried:

Complete re-install of Mac OS on new SSD. No data/apps were carried over, just a clean install. No change. (High Sierra, 10.13.6)

Short and long hardware diagnostics ... all good, no errors.

Swapped RAM, no change (8G RAM)

Dis-connected the battery, DVD player, anything I could unplug, no change.

PRAM/NVRAM/SMC reset, no diff.

Replaced the HD cable, no diff.

Installed Windows and Linux. Similar symptoms. Just periodically slows, you can move the mouse, sometimes you can move a window but otherwise unresponsive for 10s of seconds. CPU usage remains low.

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Have not tried:

Have not re-flashed the firmware. High Sierra errored out on trying to run the re-flash program ... app too old as I recall. And I don't have Lion 10.7 DVD's and can't download the ISO from Apple to try re-flashing.

Have not tried another main battery.

Have not replaced the PRAM battery (which as far as I can determine it no longer has anyway, or is integrated into the main battery.)

Other than the HD, HD cable and RAM no other hardware has been replaced.

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jan 29, 2021 8:23 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

chaosManor Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 3, 2021 10:22 AM in response to chaosManor

RESOLVED: corrupt firmware

After forcing an update to the firmware this MBP runs as expected with no beachballs after several days using High Sierra (10.13, the newest version it will run).

To force an update I installed Yosemite (10.10). Then I logged in and ran a few apps ... no more beachball, etc. Then I re-installed High Sierra (10.13) and now no more beachball either.

For those of you that went back to an earlier version of MacOS because the performance after an upgrade was poor, you might consider upgrading to a current version again. Going back to an older version may have fixed a corrupt firmware update.

Some details: This MBP came with Sierra (10.12) and was slow. Updating to High Sierra didn't make any difference, still slow. The only 2 things of many I hadn't tried were forcing a firmware update or replace the main board. Main board replacement was not an option, the MBP would have been tossed (yeah it was that annoying). I tried a couple ways to force a firmware update, but couldn't get them to work. Then occurred to me that if I went back far enough a compatible (older) firmware would be installed. Since 10.8 was un-available and 10.9 was $20, I tried 10.10. And as it turned out firmware 87.0.0 was installed with Yosemite. And after High Sierra was re-installed firmware 87.0.0.0.0 was installed. And the performance problem was resolved.

DON'T TRY THIS without backing up your data first!

(Hey Apple, more rigor in firmware updates would be appreciated. This cost me a lot of hours in time. And how many people out there are running an older version of MacOS because their Macs performance went to crap after an upgrade to a newer version of MacOS. When it seems likely their firmware was corrupted in the upgrade process causing the performance problem.)

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Answer 2

rs09

Level 2

335 points

Jan 29, 2021 8:38 AM in response to chaosManor

Your SSD/HDD might be haphazard if a High Sierra 10.13.6 fresh install doesn't work. Try older versions of OS X such as Mavericks, Lion or Yosemite. Apple still does downloads for a few older versions, but not many. If you don't find the right one on Apple, check out DosDude1. Just download it onto a USB stick and install. If this doesn't work, replace your Hard disk.

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Answer 3

chaosManor Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 29, 2021 9:59 AM in response to rs09

To clarify, the MBP came to me with a non-SSD HD and older version of OSX. Swapping the original HD for the SSD didn't change the symptoms. And Windows and Linux had similar symptoms with the same SSD. So its not the SSD or OS.

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