Why does my Macbook Pro 15' Mid freezes/hangs every few seconds

Question

Level 1

8 points

Why does my Macbook Pro 15' Mid freezes/hangs every few seconds

Hello there,

I've been having constant problems lately that my Macbook freezes nearly every few seconds for a duration of about 5-20 seconds before it recovers again.

I have already formatted the entire hard drive and did a fresh new install of Mac OSX High Sierra 10.13.6 which seems to be the latest supported for the device and that has been in use before the problems occured.

Is it possible the SSD drive is broken, a cable, connection or similar. So a hardware error?

EtreCheckPro

thanks for your kind help in advance!

Posted on Jul 27, 2021 2:42 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Allan Jones

Level 9

72,698 points

Jul 28, 2021 7:53 AM in response to romu85

BACK UP NOW!

The hard data that supports Dominic23's conclusion is here:

Performance:

System Load: 1.30 (1 min ago) 1.31 (5 min ago) 1.58 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 7.21 MB/s

File system: 124.00 seconds (timed out)

Write speed: 4 MB/s

Read speed: 200 MB/s

Both values should be roughly 250MB/sec for your computer and that model drive. With a write speed of 4MB/sec, I am surprised the computer worked at all.

Based on many reports here, the SSDs the work best in Macs are Crucial's MX series and those from Other World Computing. Too many on the obscure brands are of low quality and/or were never optimized for Macs.

Also, the Hitachi drive is much slower than the computer can handle. Both the main drive bay bus and the optical bay bus are rated at SATA 3GB/sec; your Hitachi is only rated at SATA 1.5GB/sec.

I would remove Drive Genius. Such tools were invaluable in the early days of macOSX but the OS is so evolved now that our old, "must-have" third-party tools are not needed, and can actual compete with newer features built into OSX.

Yes, replace the drive cable when you replace the SSD. I get drive cables here:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/9229751/

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Answer 2

romu85 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 27, 2021 3:56 AM in response to dominic23

Oh i didn't notice it. The obsolete hardware message i guess is normal as the Macbook is from 2010.

However the information that the hard drive appears to be failing could be a sign of a broken disk?

Well i do not have an alternative SSD drive here at the moment so i probably have to get one and see if this will fix these issues.

thanks for your help so far.

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Answer 3

a brody

Level 10

84,163 points

Jul 27, 2021 5:58 AM in response to romu85

2010 Macs only have USB-2. If you can find a Firewire 800 hard drive, those are much faster for those Macs. Installing your own internal drive is not recommended. It is easy to damage the heat sensor, and logicboard doing that. Most authorized service centers won't touch hardware that old.

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Answer 4

a brody

Level 10

84,163 points

Jul 27, 2021 6:01 AM in response to a brody

Also note, SSDs automatically format as APFS unless you specify the format with Disk Utility of the installer CD or if available the recovery partition. Some 2010 Macs have a firmware installed that supports internet recovery. Others depend on the High Sierra installer having added a recovery partition itself.

Sierra and older systems can't see APFS partitions. HFS Extended Journalled is necessary for those older systems.

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Answer 5

romu85 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 28, 2021 7:06 AM in response to a brody

Thanks for your kind help so far.

Well as the MacBook is already old and I have a newer alternative device already I don’t be afraid of damaging it in case of a internal SSD replacement. It’s not so complicated, I did it before on some other MacBook. I just didn’t know if the errors might have to do with a broken hard drive but after reading your answers and the report marking there could be an issue with it and it’s already quiet old that might be the reason.

I think of getting a Crucial MX500 as a replacement drive but not sure it might also replace the Sata Cable connecting it. Is there a recommend cable for SSD’s so will buy a new cable too and replace it as well if i already have to open it.

Kind regards

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