Macbook pro 2011 13" i5 slowed down, any help would be much appreciated (detailed info).

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Macbook pro 2011 13" i5 slowed down, any help would be much appreciated (detailed info).

Ok first off let me preface with as much detailed information as possible, as i have read many many posts on problems and hopefully mine will be detailed enough to not cause all you wonderful people a headache.

Machine Details

Macbook Pro 13inch model (2011)

Core i5 4gb RAM 250gb Standard harddrive

As I am a very inexperienced I would very much appreciate a very idiot proof explaination, but any help I will be very thankfull for.

The laptop was running like a dream and much better than I remembered my last mac (Macintosh LC) ever did. Ive had minor hickups this last year (a trackpad that went bust under warranty and a broken power supply) otherwise its been a wonderfull experience. The final hiccup that might be a cause, not sure hence I will mention it is that my battery is Conditon: Replace Now for about a month now.

The laptop, as always was left ON, on its own connected to the wifi home network, when I returned the computer was working very slow. Any load on the harddrive/CPU. The cursor starts lagging (jumping), any keypresses are registered with a 2-10second delay. Any vidoes that i would try to play would suffer freezes in framerates/jams but audio remained fine. First step i was afraid that i may have contracted one of the new trojans so i downloaded an antivirus program, scanned the drive, but came out clean. Second step was to format the drive and perform a fresh install of OSX but no luck. Being inexperienced in Apple products i assumed that my harddrive (used to PCs) was on the fritz and went out and bought a 160gb Western Digital Black series 2.5inch harddrive. Having read all the guides and official knowledge bases on how to swap out the harddrive I did so with success. I placed in my installation OS 10.6 CD formatted the drive through the disk utility and performed a fresh install. Before doing any steps I went through the update cycle a couple of times till only the thunderbolt update remained (havent updated as I never used it). Sadly it hasnt solved the problems with cursor repsonse lag, video playback, and keyboard input lag under load.

On this install I have performed:

Verify Disk Permissions Many were found so I performed Repair Disk Permissions

Verify Disk Came up with "Appears to be OK"

performed a Pram reset (CMD+option +P +R)

My main problem is that I live in europe nowadays (Poland to be precise) and cant go to a genius bar as they dont exist, and sadly the support is a tad behind the US standards and any minor repair will be at least a 4 week wait, hence i would like to try to exhaust possible solutions before giving it off to professionals: being a month out of the warranty period has abit to do with it too:)

Sorry for the wall of text

Thanks guys for any help you could throw my way!

Chris M

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Apr 16, 2012 11:24 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,279 points

Apr 16, 2012 11:31 AM in response to Simply_Chris

See the following:

Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance

For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations ** cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior. Versions 1.5.1 and later are Intel Mac compatible.

OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or Lion and should not be installed.

OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems. For more about malware see Macintosh Virus Guide.

I would also recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc.

For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion.

When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.

Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):

Carbon Copy Cloner

Data Backup

Deja Vu

SuperDuper!

SyncTwoFolders

Synk Pro

Synk Standard

Tri-Backup

Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.

Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.

Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.

Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.

You may want to check for other issues outlined here:

Helpful Links Regarding Flashback Trojan

Visit Thomas Reed's site for insight and help: Mac Malware Guide

A Google search can reveal a variety of alternatives on how the remove the trojan should your computer get infected. This can get you started. However, be careful about what you do as new variants of the malware circumvent the efforts of earlier tools.

Also see Apple's article About Flashback malware.

Apple has released Java updates for Snow Leopard and Lion users:

Java for OS X Lion 2012-003; available only for users of Lion with Java installed.

Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 8; available only for users of Snow Leopard.

Flashback malware removal tool; available only for users of Lion without Java installed.

Install whichever shows up in Software Update. It removes the malware (if present), updates Java (if present) and tightens up Java settings for the future. You may download from Apple's web site instead of using Software Update, but it's important to know which one to get, because the other two won't work for you.

For the truly paranoid see 10 Simple Tips for Boosting The Security Of Your Mac.

However, I find it hard to understand the problems you describe on a computer if you erased the drive and reinstalled a fresh copy of OS X.

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Answer 2

Simply_Chris Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 16, 2012 1:40 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks Kappy for the info, sadly a vast majority of steps I have performed. I did get the personal version of Drive Genius yet this did not help after running scans.

I have not used any time machine/ transferred any old files back.
I have performed all of software Updates that are out till today.
The original hard drive (shipped with the laptop), before and after formatting, with the latest 10.6.8 version of OSX, suffer from the same system slowdown/cursor lag.
The new hard drive suffers from the same problems.
There are basically no files/only Google Chrome is installed on the system as it stands, aside from the standard software that is included on the factory Snow Leopard cd.
I have connected an external mouse and it too suffers the same problems

As I use the Macbook as an internet browser, media consumption device I have never performed any backup since there are rarely any files i would truely want.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,279 points

Apr 16, 2012 1:42 PM in response to Simply_Chris

I don't have a clue. I'd take it to an Apple tech for a checkup. Perhaps you have some other hardware problem.

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