MacBook 3,1 running slow after upgrade

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MacBook 3,1 running slow after upgrade

Hello. Pardon any typing errors as I'm forced to write this on my iPhone. I am having many difficulties with my MacBook 3,1, and everything I have tried so far has not worked. I'm hoping the good people in this forum, most of whom are much more technologically savy than I, will be able to help. Let me give some background.

I recently decided to upgrade my 3,1 to 4gb of ram. Worked for a week with no issues. I then upgraded my is to lion. Latest version. Again, no issues. My next step was adding a network drive (seagate go flex home) for time machine. Worked fine. I then upgraded to a western digital sata 500 gb hdd. The installation went well, time machine restored all my files... All was well.

I was using Camtasia (version 1) making a screen capture. When I tried to view the capture after it was exported to QT in QT, it slowed my computer to a crawl. I tried a restart. My computer would not boot. I stated in safe mode. Restarted. No boot. I tried running disk utility to repair. It found some errors, but repaired an all was well for a while.

Again I tried Camtasia and experienced the same issues. I went through the same process again. This time Disk utility found no errors. I was able to start normally the next morning. I avoided using Camtasia all day and everything was fine. I upgraded to Camtasia 2. It crashed upon completing any screen capture. I went back to Camtasia 1, and as I expected same problem. All is well until I try to view a QT video.

I thought maybe Lion was the culprit. I reinstalled 10.6. For some reason it no longer recognized my password, so I had to go in and change it. I opened snow leopard and tried viewing a QT movie. For a few minutes, no issues. Then it all slows down to a crawl. However, my computer is able to restart. Now it seems like i get the beachball spinning at me very often.Right now I am using clamav to scan for malware. Though I am afraid the issue is with the HDD.

Please help! This is very frustrating as you can imagine. I will be happy to provide additional details. Thanks in advance,

Ryan

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 9, 2012 7:58 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 9, 2012 8:24 AM in response to mp4g

I would suspect a couple of things:

Two things you physically upgraded on your MB are the RAM and Hard Drive.

Sometimes, if you installed faulty RAM, you wouldn't notice the problem until days or weeks later.

I am however, leaning towards your hard drive as the main culprit.

We all know that western digital makes good drives. If however, you installed the WD Blue series drives, then that would be your issue.

The Blue series drives have compatiblity isses with MB's.

Best way to find out if it is your drive is to install your old drive back and see if the issues return.

If the issue returns when using the old drive, then go to and check your RAM modules.

Re-seat the RAM if needed and try your MB again.

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Answer 2

mp4g Author

Level 1

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Jun 9, 2012 8:33 AM in response to Bimmer 7 Series

Thanks for the assistance. The hard drive I installed is:

WD Scorpio Black 500 GB SATA 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 2.5" Mobile Hard Drive (WD5000BPKT)

Anyone know of any issues with that particular drive or any other possible solutions?

Is there a way to test the HDD and RAM to be sure they are functioning correctly?

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond, it is greatly appreciated!!

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Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jun 9, 2012 9:00 AM in response to mp4g

I'm going to add a totally different thought: you said your Macbook is the 3,1? I believe that is the oldest model that will run Lion if I am not mistaken? You've added RAM, replaced the hard drive, but you still have the older processor and logic board which may struggle keeping up with the demands you are putting on it? My previous iMac struggled with anything video related with 3 GB RAM (the max for that model) and it would take forever to process. Just my $0.02 worth.

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Answer 4

mp4g Author

Level 1

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Jun 9, 2012 9:57 AM in response to babowa

Yes, I had considered that. I reinstalled snow leopard, and still seem to be having the same issues. I guess I could try going back to leopard. I'd just hate to think I wasted all that money on updates.

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Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Jun 9, 2012 3:49 PM in response to mp4g

I think Snow Leopard would be fine - as I said, it may be the demands you put on the processor? Like processing videos? First, I'd suspect maybe that Camtasia is not playing nicely with your OS - are you sure you're within its system requirements? Have you checked Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilitites) to see which processes are hogging your GPU and how much RAM is being used - also, is it showing many swaps (meaning you're low on RAM and it needs to keep swapping the RAM to keep up). You might also want to try to "lighten" the load: if you're using it, don't have any other apps open or doing anything else while it's processing the shot.

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