Computer is way too slow, beach baling, randomly restarting, apps have to be restarted
I can't do anything on it anymore without having to constantly restart it.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.13
Your prime issue, other than it being an 11-year old computer, is the hard drive. Its performance scores are excellent, "on the nominals," for that model drive, but it is simple incapable of the speeds newer macOS versions, even High Sierra, and heavy-duty apps (Adobe CS) need.
Were the computer a year newer, the option of swapping out the mechanical hard drive for a solid-state drive (SSD) would be almost life-changing. However the older SATA 3GB drive bus in your computer is a bottleneck that cannot be upgraded. Yes, you would see some improvement but I an not sure if the investment of about US$80-100 is worth it on a computer model going for US$80-100 on the used market.
Even were your RAM not maxed out, more would not change the hard drive issue.
If you wish to pursue the SSD upgrade, which would give you about 4x faster data transfer, please consider only the Curcual MX series or the Electra 3G options from Other World Computing. Those are known-good and Mac-friendly options. OWC has instructional videos on their site so you can seen what is involved. IMHO, most average home users can do the drive upgrade on 2010 Macbook Pros.
One thing that might help with needing a screwdriver: Under CPU usage, "mdworker" —a component of Spotlight—shows it is using 1/4 of your CPU capacity at the time of the test. Run the test again when the computer has NOT been restarted for about 4-6 hours and see if mdworker is still being hoggish.
If it is, consider using system Preferences > Spotlight to limit what Spotlight has to index. Most apps like Mail have built-in search engines so you don't need spotlight to scan for those. I only have it look for files.
Your prime issue, other than it being an 11-year old computer, is the hard drive. Its performance scores are excellent, "on the nominals," for that model drive, but it is simple incapable of the speeds newer macOS versions, even High Sierra, and heavy-duty apps (Adobe CS) need.
Were the computer a year newer, the option of swapping out the mechanical hard drive for a solid-state drive (SSD) would be almost life-changing. However the older SATA 3GB drive bus in your computer is a bottleneck that cannot be upgraded. Yes, you would see some improvement but I an not sure if the investment of about US$80-100 is worth it on a computer model going for US$80-100 on the used market.
Even were your RAM not maxed out, more would not change the hard drive issue.
If you wish to pursue the SSD upgrade, which would give you about 4x faster data transfer, please consider only the Curcual MX series or the Electra 3G options from Other World Computing. Those are known-good and Mac-friendly options. OWC has instructional videos on their site so you can seen what is involved. IMHO, most average home users can do the drive upgrade on 2010 Macbook Pros.
One thing that might help with needing a screwdriver: Under CPU usage, "mdworker" —a component of Spotlight—shows it is using 1/4 of your CPU capacity at the time of the test. Run the test again when the computer has NOT been restarted for about 4-6 hours and see if mdworker is still being hoggish.
If it is, consider using system Preferences > Spotlight to limit what Spotlight has to index. Most apps like Mail have built-in search engines so you don't need spotlight to scan for those. I only have it look for files.
Thanks for posting in the Apple Support Community cwilf999,
The following information may help you narrow down the cause of the performance issues you're encountering so they can be resolved:
If you find your Mac is running slowly, there are a number of potential causes that you can check.
* Your computer’s startup disk may not have enough free disk space. To make disk space available, you can move files to another disk or an external storage device, then delete files you no longer need on the startup disk. macOS can also help you optimize storage by storing files in the cloud and helping you identify files you no longer need. Choose Apple menu> System Settings, then click General
in the sidebar (you may need to scroll down). Click Storage on the right, then click the storage recommendations you want to use.
* An app you’re using may require more memory than your Mac has easily available. You can use Activity Monitor to see how much memory your Mac and apps are using. See View memory usage in Activity Monitor. Also see the documentation that came with the app to find out its system requirements.
* Quit any app that isn’t compatible with your Mac. For example, an app may require a different processor or graphics card. See the documentation that came with the app for information about its system requirements.
* To see what processor your computer has, choose Apple menu
* To see which graphics card your computer has, choose Apple menu
* Quit any apps you’re not using.
* If you have problems with your disk, use Disk Utility to verify and try and fix any issues.
We hope this helps!
I believe there would be very little. The problem with downgrading is browsing. Many web browser no long support older mac OS and Safari versions. Some sites are also not supporting old Safari or OA version. High Sierra is about as low and you can go without the expectation of being denied access at times. We are already seeing a few reports of some sites not liking the Safari version includes in High Sierra.
The cost estimate for the SSD conversion I gave assumed a 500GB SSD. If you can live with a smaller capacity, the price goes down.
Okay so what if I were to downgrade the operating system on the Mac? Would there be improvement?
My MacBook Pro has recently been way too slow
