Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Level 1

0 points

Running slow, Not responding

My Mac Pro is about 4 years old now. I have internal drives in 3 of the bays. My Main drive (boots from) is 1TB. I'm not even using half of it for system and software. I keep everything else on other drives (photos, files, tunes, etc.) The problem is everything is running very, very slow. Apps including the Finder are often Not Responding. Some just won't open at all. The spinning pinwheel is constantly revolving but not resolving. My browsers are running very slow despite getting 12 MBs/sec download speed from my router. Here's what I've done . . .

Disk Utility - Verify Disk, Verify Permissisons. It says "The volume on Main Drive appears to be ok.

MacKeeper - Scanned and deleted junk files. It says "Your system status is excellent."

Created a new account with Admin rights. Same thing happens with the new account.

Deleted preference files and restarted in hopes of rebuilding preferences.

I'm running the Free Memory app now and it says I'm using 2.15 GBs and have 1.03 GBs free.

I'm not sure if my computer is dying, the hard drive is failing (drive is only 6 months old), memory is running out, or something else. Can anyone suggest something else to try or have any idea what's going on?

Posted on Oct 10, 2011 8:40 AM

26 replies

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2011 8:06 AM in response to fuquam

Well I tried it and it didn't work. It was worth a shot though. My boot drive was in slot 2 so I moved it to slot 1 and took the others out. I also disconnected my exteral drives. Now all that's left is a hardware diagnostic which I think you can do from an old system disc. I've never tried it though. I also have the TechTool Deluxe disc that came with my Apple Care. Might give that a try. If all else fails I'm going to back up the boot drive, again, and wipe it clean, then do a fresh install. I have a LOT of software so I was hoping to avoid this. I have the original Snow Leapard disc but now that everything is purchased through the App Store I have no idea how to do a clean install using Lion???

Falco119

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2011 5:35 PM in response to fuquam

Sorry to hear it didn't work out, I was hoping it would do the trick. It's actually not too painful of a process to re-install osx and your software though, just a little time consuming.

As for making a clean Lion install, you could either just install Snow Leopard, and upgrade by re-downloading Lion through the app store again (It won't charge you again, it will just let you download it if you've already bought it.) Or you can actually make your own Lion install disc, and avoid snow leopard altogether. Here's a how-to link for that: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc/

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2011 4:55 PM in response to Falco119

I'm about to reinstall Snow Leopard. I tried rebooting into recovery mode but none of the start up key commands work either. (command + D) or R. Here goes.

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 27, 2011 5:12 PM in response to Falco119

Ah crap it won't let me boot off the Snow Leopard disc and CNET's instructions only apply if you create a boot copy before you install Lion. Once you install it those instructions don't work. I have a back up so I might try erasing my main drive but then I don't know how to install Snow Leopard onto the drive once it's erased. Ugh! I should go back to dual booting Ubuntu with Windows but I don't want to reinvest in software.

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 5, 2011 7:35 AM in response to fuquam

So after trying everything I brought my Mac Pro into the shop. They said the boot drive was bad and contained bad sectors. I told them I cloned the drive to an external drive and booted off the external drive. Apparently when your hard drive goes bad and you clone it you're also cloning everything wrong with the original drive which is why booting off the external drive didn't help. Luckily the hard drive was purchased from the same Mac Store that services my computer so it was under warranty. They replaced the drive at no cost but could only install Leopard on it which is what came with the computer. Computer seemed to work fine until I tried upgrading to Snow Leopard via the install disc and now none of my usb ports work so my mouse and and keyboard won't work but that should probably be for a new post.

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Nov 5, 2011 7:51 AM in response to fuquam

Clone your system and keep a good clean backup AND a copy of your working system

$100 buys a spare; buys a copy of Disk Warrior (which has been #1 in disk repair).

HFS gets better but the best cure for bad or weak sectors, and they can happen in hidden areas that cannot be remapped, is to zero the drive before using though Disk Utility for some reason doesn't do as good a job a the vendor's own utility would or some 3rd party; invest in SoftRAID4 that does background idle scanning for weak sectors during life of drive.

normally cloning and then running Disk Warrior and Disk Utility on the clone before using, along with a Safe Boot on said clone, works. But preventative is 100x better than any cures.

RAM parity errors can write garbage out and not be corrected.

Keeping the OS separate from data most errors do happen to boot drive.

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 5, 2011 9:32 AM in response to The hatter

Disk Warrior is a specialized tool that has only one use: to recover data from an HFS volume with a damaged directory that Disk Utility can't repair, when there are no backups, or inadequate backups, of that volume.

It is useless as a maintenance tool and useless to anyone who has adequate backups. A complete waste of $100.

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 5, 2011 10:06 AM in response to Linc Davis

I have Disk Warrior at work and I agree that it has been a waste. It hasn't helped any of our issues. Hatter I'll try the RAID you suggested once I'm back up and running. Thanks for the replies. Now to figure out why my USB ports aren't working.

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Nov 5, 2011 11:14 AM in response to Linc Davis

Sorry it didn't help.

Want to bring this up every time I menton Disk Warrior, go ahead.

This is/was one scenerio where

it might help

where better preventative maintenance

as I said for 10 yrs even Rick and I have found and endorsed using it and 100s of users too to save their bacon. In part due to weaknesses in HFS+ and OS X.

So would be Drive Genius and TechTool Pro. Take it up with the vendors. Tell BBB that they sell snake oil. Sue Symantec for faulty programs.

Buy enterprise drives.

Zero with the vendor's tool, not Disk Utility.

Use SoftRAID instead - recommended by dlloyd also even in non-RAID drives.

But don't tell me what to say, or not. That is not yours to decide. That is your opinion and experience. To me $100 is just another tool that costs $20/yr to keep current. Peanuts or small potatoes in grand scheme. I have spare parts that cost 10x that.

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 5, 2011 11:24 AM in response to The hatter

But don't tell me what to say, or not.

I'm not telling you what to say. I'm disagreeing with you, and I'll continue to do so until you produce some good engineering data that supports your position. As for Rick, if you mean Ricks ricks@macgurus.com then you might want to read this thread, near the end:

photo corrupted, repair software for...: Apple Support Communities

fuquam Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 17, 2011 7:36 AM in response to Linc Davis

Apparently the answer was two hard drive failures in a row. Mac Store replaced the boot drive. They said it had bad sectors and that was causing my back up to give me the same issues (copy a cloned drive with bad sectors you're copying all the problems back). The second drive failed when I tried running system updates so back in the shop it went. So far the third drive is running fine.

Running slow, Not responding