Why is my brand new Macbook Pro so slow?

If it has 10.6.4 on it (your signature in your profile says 10.6.4), and you just bought it this week, it is not a new machine, and has all the trappings of a possibly older machine. Upgrading to 10.6.8 will allow you to treat the malware completely, if it is 10.6.4 and get your Java usable again

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3261

If the machine is new and has 10.7.3, use the Flashback update in that link to ensure it wasn't sitting on the shelf from prior to the Flashback update.

If you transfered anything that had been on a PowerPC Mac to the MacBook and then to your Pro, that could be slowing it down. Make sure there are no PowerPC plugins installed. Check how full the disk is, and how big the disk is. Make sure you don't have any system "maintenance" tools installed. If you do, these may be slowing you down.

You have only quantified how fast the Windows machine is. You haven't said anything about what "slow" is for the Mac. Are you trying to open files locally or on a network? Run Activity Monitor, tell it to show "All Processes" instead of "My processes", sort by CPU, and report which ones are taking your CPU.

OK, since you have 10.7.4, what applications do you have installed?

Are you sure all of them have been tested with 10.7.4?

Is your data backed up from before yesterday's update?

PowerPC applications should not be able to run since you have 10.7.4. If you migrated your data including Universal applications (those that run natively on both PowerPC and Intel) that have plugins from a PowerMac, iMac G5, G4, G3, Mac Mini G4, iBook, or Powerbook, they could be slowing down the software attempting to use those plugins, since they can't find out how to run them. If someone instructed you to install Onyx, MacKeeper, Macaroni, Applejack, or Lion Cache Cleaner, all of these have potential pitfalls that may slow you down. MacKeeper is the worst. If you attempted to install Adobe software from anything but an Adobe website or Adobe's own software update, that could slow you down. Lastly, have you run the hardware test that came with your machine? This article explains how:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303081

Let us know if any of these ideas may apply. If you aren't backed up, you should take that step first, before doing anything else.

Also worth mentioning that if you bought your Mac with the default setup, the standard 4GB RAM is barely enough for the OS. If you start running stuff on the Mac side of things, the system will bog down as it tries to make up for the needed space thru virtual memory paging off the hard drive.

Consider upgrading the Mac to 8GB ASAP. Upgrade kits can be found for $45-$50. And before getting mad for not having this sold to you by Apple, consider that you will have saved about $150, since it charges an extra $200 for the upgrade.

The belief that 4 GB of RAM is necessary may be true for some memory hungry applications, but really I've run on just 2 GB on Lion and an iMac 5,1 and MacBook Pro 3,1 for so long, it really is more a luxury. And you have to remember, unless you are doing gobbs of Photoshop or video editing, or high end gaming RAM is just going to speed certain things up, while not do much to anything else. Having a hard drive with plenty of free space goes a long way to making a difference. Having a faster hard drive can even help more.

I concur with everything A Brody has to say.

I have a MBP that has very good performance with 2 GB of RAM.

Allan

Wow, granted that "slowness" is in the eyes of the beholder and these sage gents are probably saints of patience, but running a 64-bit OS on 2GB boggles the mind.

But it works. I can vouch for that.

While my MBP is slower then my MacPro, it is not so slow that I can't use it. I would say that perfromance has been pretty much the same on Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion. That even includes Aperture which is noticably slower then it is on the MacPro but is still useful for showing my photos.

Allan

You still haven't defined "slow". If it takes 3 hours to launch CS5 and your 8 GB of RAM causes CS5 to launch in only 2.5 hours, the problem is fixed then - right? That would be "faster".

I don't have CS5. I am still using CS3. I can say that CS3 under Lion runs at the same speed it always has as far as I can telling. I can say that everything I do in CS3 is done in under a minute. If it were taking hours I would have trashed it long ago and replaced it with anything else.

More details on exactly which troubleshooting steps you have taken might help. Just saying "all" isn't very helpfuk because your definition of "all" and ours might be different.

Allan

Schmitty83 wrote:

Does CS5 just run slow on Lion? Is that the issue?

Yes there are reported issues with CS5 and Lion.

http://roaringapps.com/app:412

Adobe released CS6 just a few days ago and it works well with Lion, you might want to upgrade.

Run through this list of checks, Hardware check especially

Step by Step to fix your Mac

I just tried to open a small photoshop file and it's taking forever! All of the sudden everything is so slow on my macbook. Is there another virus out now for macs that is slowing my computer down?

Not for Lion and it's updated, however since it's a new machine I suspect there is a problem with the hard drive as that usually appears right away.

Take the machine back and have the drive replaced is the easiest thing you can do, unless you feel up to zero erase and reinstall Lion as thats the method to map off a lot of the bad sectors on the hard drive.

Reducing bad sectors effect on hard drives

How to reinstall just OS X or erase/install OS X

Schmitty83 wrote:

I'm going to buy 8 GB of ram to replace my 4GB and I hope that will make it faster.

You can upgrade it to 16GB of RAM yourself for $200, if you have Apple increase the 4GB to 8GB it's going to cost about $435

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333DDR3S16P/

Use these videos

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

Upgrading the RAM yourself is a user replacable part, as long as you don't break anything, your allowed to do it and not violate your warranty/AppleCare. The new RAM is not covered of course.

You'll need the tool kit and a mat to catch fallen screws as they are tiny.

The Apple 8GB upgrade is $200 over here at the Americas.

Corsair had a link for their premier 16GB upgrade kit at an Amazon store for $154 + shipping (international offered).

The only "tool kit" you need for upgrading the RAM is a Phillips #00 screwdriver and maybe a plastic spudger if you're all thumbs or got fat fingers.

As for Adobe and their maligned selling practices, there is now a security advisory out for any CS5 user, since that platform is vulnerable to 0wning ( http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/52634/info ). The execrable part was Adobe's "solution": upgrade to CS6 for a fee...

There is a set of seven related articles on "tuning up" CS5 on this creative-focused site:

http://macperformanceguide.com/PhotoshopCS5-performance.html