Combo 10.7.4 Update slowing down and freezing applications

Question

Combo 10.7.4 Update slowing down and freezing applications

After updating from Combo Mac OS X 10.7.3 to Combo Mac OS X 10.7.4, my third party applications slow to a crawl and freeze on a rotating basis.

Affected applications:

- BOINC with which I do volunteer medical research (3 CPUs used 100% of the time);

- aMule 2.3.1 to download files;

- Mozilla Firefox 12.0 to browse the internet.

I tried to reduce the CPU usage of BOINC (3 CPUs used 80% of the time instead of 100%) to no avail.

I re-installed with some difficulty Mac OS X 10.7.1 from the copy I bought on the Mac App Store to preserve the work I had done on my iMac since the last TimeMachine back-up, but did not improve performance, possibly because I ended up with a mixed system of Mac OS X 10.7.4 components surviving the Mac OS X 10.7.1 re-install.

I am currently performing a TimeMachine re-install of my previous system (Combo Mac OS X 10.7.3) which will take almost a full day and erase my Macintosh HD to copy the TimeMachine content.

When reading posts on AppleInsider.com and TonyMac x86 blog @ http://tonymacx86.blogspot.ca, I came up with at least 3 different explanations:

- The Mac OS X 10.7.4 System takes up all the RAM memory and gives back unused, free memory only slowly, so that third party applications (and Apple applications such as the Finder and Force Quit) don't have enough free memory and freeze on an alternate basis, although my Core i5 quad-core iMac has 12 GB of installed RAM recognized by Mac OS X;

- Apple has changed kext files in anticipation of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and accidently changed the CPU multiplier so that the CPU is artificially limited to 1.6 GHz (instead of a quad-core 2.66 GHz);

- Apple has changed the /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist file and the following lines of the booting sequence:

<key>GeneratePStates</key>

should be replaced by using TextEdit to copy the following lines:

<key>DropSSDT</key>

For more info, see:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=168&t=59889

I'm just an average user with no programming skills. I don't feel comfortable with doing undocumented tweaks when I don't really understand what I am doing. On this one, I sure hope that Apple engineers are investigating the issue to come up with a fix.

In the mean time, I am using TimeMachine to re-install my previous system (Combo Mac OS X 10.7.3) which will take almost a full day. I have been deprived of my iMac for 3 days and that's all the time that I can spend on a malfunctioning Combo Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update.

quad-core Core i5-750 @ 2.66 GHz

12 GB SO-DIMM RAM

2 TB hard drive with 100 GB of free space

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.3), Late 2009 Quad-core Core i5 iMac

Posted on May 11, 2012 2:20 PM

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Answer 1

May 11, 2012 2:40 PM in response to Pierre Fontaine

Addendum:

I have repaired permissions a number of times, and used also the freeware Maintenance from Titanium Software (the French maker of Onyx, Maintenance and Deeper utilities) @ http://www.titanium.free.fr/index.php to perform a thorough clean-up of the computer which seemed to worsen things.

But I did not try to reboot with a Safe Boot as described by Apple @ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455 to clear up one or more corrupted caches.

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Answer 2

lindros2

Level 2

188 points

May 13, 2012 8:23 AM in response to Pierre Fontaine

As posted elsewhere, my early 2011 MBP 13" i5 is slow as balls. I get the spinning rainbow ball all the time.

I reinstalled the combo update - little change.

I deleted a boatload of stuff (songs, photos, etc.), reinstalled a third time, and still slow.

It's not just slow, but unreliably slow. It works okay for a bit, then slow again.

I've tried safe boots (takes a long time), third party utilities and nearly everything short of clearing NVRAM/PRAM and reinstalling from scratch.

I don't think it's feasible or reasonable to ask people to reinstall the OS (and have to re-activate all software like MS Office, VMware, and Creative Suite) because Apple's updates (notably 10.7.2 and 10.7.4) have been poorly integrated.

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Answer 3

May 16, 2012 4:45 AM in response to Pierre Fontaine

Same problem here after 10.7.4 update. All system is slower than 10.7.3. Safari now uses a large ammout of RAM.

Graphics on Mission Control an Quick View are terrible poor.

Early 2008 iMac 2.8 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM.

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Answer 4

May 16, 2012 1:54 PM in response to miguel.gs

Final report:

I hope that my experience will help others who added their comments to this thread and anyone else who has problems updating Mac OS X.

Here's the solution to my problems:

1- I backed up the contents of my iMac using TimeMachine (before any attempt to install a major system update) so that I would always have a copy of my Mac running smoothly under Mac OS X 10.7.3;

2- I used Geekbench to measure the performance of my iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.3 and achieved a score of 7622;

3- Using Google and browsing through Apple Support Communities, I realized that Mac users weren't up in arms over the Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update, instead I was confronted with a number of users reporting various issues, none of which was similar to what my iMac experienced, meaning that my experience was unique, exceptional;

4- Starting the iMac through a self-made Mac OS X 10.7.1 booting DVD (I didn't make a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion USB thumb drive), I used my TimeMachine backup to erase the contents of the iMac and replace it with the copy of the backed up iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.3 (before the Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update);

5- Once everything was stable and running well, after repairing the Macintosh HD and then, repairing permissions with the Apple Disk Utility, I did what most Mac users do, i.e. use the Software Update command under the Apple menu to check if there were any available update for my iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.3;

6- Software Update offered me a 729 MB Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update which is bigger than the 692 MB Mac OS X 10.7.4 (Client) Delta Update being offered on Apple Support Downloads;

7- I downloaded and installed the 729 MB Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update offered through Software Update which, presumably, contained additional software which is specific to the iMac model and year that I use;

8- After making a Safe Boot as described by Apple @ http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455, repairing the Macintosh HD and then, repairing permissions with the Apple Disk Utility, and giving the iMac 2 more days to defragment on its own the hard disk, I am pleased to report that my iMac achieved a higher score of 7663 on GeekBench, showing that everything is back to normal and that my iMac runs even better with the Mac OS X 10.7.4 Update.

Hope this helps anyone reading this post. Good luck.

Pierre

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Answer 5

May 18, 2012 5:09 AM in response to Pierre Fontaine

Once I had updated my iMac with Software Update (729 MB), I decided to do the last point (8),

but unfortunately nothing has changed.

Thank you anyway.

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Answer 6

May 19, 2012 11:03 AM in response to Pierre Fontaine

Today I opened AutoCad 2013 for the first time after 10.7.4 update and after then the system become smooth and fast as before!!! The graphics are now perfect again! 😁

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