Mountain Lion is slow

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Level 1

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Mountain Lion is slow

Hi guys,

I have an entry level mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13'' with an Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM and 500 GB HD (298 free) and I'm very disappointed with Mountain Lion's speed..

The system is very slow, not abnormally slow but still disappointingly slow. Some months ago, tired of this situation, I decided to make a fresh install of the OS but after 2 or 3 weeks my system became once again very slow so today I deleted some trash with onyx and repaired the disk with Disk Utility but it still takes too long to boot and even after booting up it will show me my desktop without icons for dozens of second before having the icons to appear and the pc to be ready to be used (I'm sorry if there are some mistakes but I'm Italian).

I'm very disappointed because my 4 years old late 2008 MacBook with OSX Snow Leopard is way faster than my new MacBook Pro and I find this very irritating (even more irritating if I think that I payed this MBP 300€ more than the MacBook).

At the times of Leopard/SnowLeopard OS X was all about speed and efficency now I can't really see the OS focusing on that anymore. They are focusing on making it easy to use but they are forgetting that it was not only usability that, in the past, made OS X better than Windows.. it was the fact that it didn't crash twice a day and that it was stunningly fast even after two years without formatting the HD.

And the most hilarious thing of them all is that my bootcamp partition with windows 7 boots up and runs WAY faster than ML:..

Does any of you guys have my same problems? Do you have any advices for me to fasten my system?

Anyways thanks for reading,
A very disappointed user.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 11, 2012 4:36 PM

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Answer 1

petermac87

Level 5

7,447 points

Dec 11, 2012 5:50 PM in response to biglex

biglex wrote:

Hi guys,

I have an entry level mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13'' with an Intel Core i5, 4GB of RAM and 500 GB HD (298 free) and I'm very disappointed with Mountain Lion's speed..

The system is very slow, not abnormally slow but still disappointingly slow. Some months ago, tired of this situation, I decided to make a fresh install of the OS but after 2 or 3 weeks my system became once again very slow so today I deleted some trash with onyx and repaired the disk with Disk Utility but it still takes too long to boot and even after booting up it will show me my desktop without icons for dozens of second before having the icons to appear and the pc to be ready to be used (I'm sorry if there are some mistakes but I'm Italian).

I'm very disappointed because my 4 years old late 2008 MacBook with OSX Snow Leopard is way faster than my new MacBook Pro and I find this very irritating (even more irritating if I think that I payed this MBP 300€ more than the MacBook).

At the times of Leopard/SnowLeopard OS X was all about speed and efficency now I can't really see the OS focusing on that anymore. They are focusing on making it easy to use but they are forgetting that it was not only usability that, in the past, made OS X better than Windows.. it was the fact that it didn't crash twice a day and that it was stunningly fast even after two years without formatting the HD.

And the most hilarious thing of them all is that my bootcamp partition with windows 7 boots up and runs WAY faster than ML:..

Does any of you guys have my same problems? Do you have any advices for me to fasten my system?

Anyways thanks for reading,
A very disappointed user.

What Login items are you running? Look in System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items

Also are you running any Anti-Virus programs? Mackeeper or similar?

Pete

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 11, 2012 6:17 PM in response to biglex

First, back up all data immediately, as your boot drive might be failing.

One possible cause of a slow user interface is a large number of image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons. If you have more than a dozen or so such files, move them to another folder.

Otherwise, take these steps when you notice the problem.

Step 1

Launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.

Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.

Select All Processes from the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.

Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for % User, % System, and % Idle at the bottom of the window.

Select the System Memory tab. What values are shown in the bottom part of the window for Page outs and Swap used?

Next, select the Disk Activity tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in and Writes out.)

Step 2

You must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.

Launch the Console application in the same way as above. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left.

Post the 50 or so most recent messages in the log — the text, please, not a screenshot.

When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into a message.

Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Edit it out before posting.

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Answer 3

biglex Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 12, 2012 4:45 AM in response to petermac87

I'm running the following Login Items:

iTunesHelper
Google Drive
DropBox

Thanks for your reply!

To Linc Davis: now I'll follow your advices and post the results please wait, thank you too! 🙂

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Answer 4

biglex Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 12, 2012 10:09 AM in response to Linc Davis

Here are the results!

Activity manager:

- CPU Usage (while Activity Manager is the only application running)

1) Process: kernel_task | User: root | %CPU: from 0.7 to 0.9

2) Process: activity monitor | User: <myusername> | %CPU: 0.7

3) Process: activitymonitord | User: root | %CPU: 0.5

- CPU Tab (while Activity Manager is the only application running):

%user: 0.38 (on average)

%system: 0.50 (on average)

%idle: 99.30 (on average)

- Disk Activity Tab:

Read in/sec:0 (idle) | 89 (average when opening an application)

Read ou/sec:0 (idle) | 70 (average when closing an application)

Console Log:

12/12/12 14:07:45,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3827) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

12/12/12 14:07:45,940 sandboxd[3827]: ([3824]) mdworker(3824) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:07:45,949 sandboxd[3827]: ([3825]) mdworker(3825) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:07:45,956 sandboxd[3827]: ([3823]) mdworker(3823) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:08:26,117 WindowServer[74]: Created shield window 0x20e for display 0x042730c0

12/12/12 14:08:26,133 WindowServer[74]: device_generate_desktop_screenshot: authw 0x0(0), shield 0x0(0)

12/12/12 14:08:26,140 WindowServer[74]: device_generate_lock_screen_screenshot: authw 0x0(0), shield 0x0(0)

12/12/12 14:08:46,702 mdworker[3834]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:08:46,781 sandboxd[3837]: ([3834]) mdworker(3834) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:08:46,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3837) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

12/12/12 14:09:47,352 mdworker[3843]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:09:47,423 sandboxd[3845]: ([3843]) mdworker(3843) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:09:47,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3845) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

12/12/12 14:11:48,018 mdworker[3852]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:11:48,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3858) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

12/12/12 14:11:48,074 mdworker[3853]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:11:48,124 sandboxd[3858]: ([3852]) mdworker(3852) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:11:48,131 sandboxd[3858]: ([3853]) mdworker(3853) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:13:17,772 WindowServer[74]: handle_will_sleep_auth_and_shield_windows: no lock state data

12/12/12 14:13:48,807 mdworker[3870]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:13:48,835 mdworker[3868]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:13:48,858 mdworker[3869]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:13:48,961 sandboxd[3873]: ([3870]) mdworker(3870) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:13:48,974 sandboxd[3873]: ([3868]) mdworker(3868) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:13:48,986 sandboxd[3873]: ([3869]) mdworker(3869) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:13:49,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3873) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

12/12/12 14:14:08,356 SystemUIServer[153]: problem with path MAMP

12/12/12 14:14:17,042 com.apple.Preview.TrustedBookmarksService[3899]: Failure to de-serialize bookmark data file.

12/12/12 14:14:17,472 WindowServer[74]: CGXDeferSurfaces : Invalid source window 537

12/12/12 14:14:17,472 WindowServer[74]: CGXDeferSurfaces : Invalid source window 536

12/12/12 14:14:17,474 WindowServer[74]: CGXFilterEventToConnection : Invalid connection

12/12/12 14:14:17,474 WindowServer[74]: CGXDeferSurfaces : Invalid source window 533

12/12/12 14:14:17,475 WindowServer[74]: CGXDeferSurfaces : Invalid source window 534

12/12/12 14:14:27,912 SystemUIServer[153]: problem with path MAMP

12/12/12 14:14:42,503 iTunes[3905]: AVF KeyExchange Version from driver for Certificates 1

12/12/12 14:14:45,446 iTunes[3905]: 2012-12-12 02:14:45.445542 PM [AVSystemController] Stopping AirPlay

12/12/12 14:15:19,449 com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.qtkittrustedmoviesservice[3895]) Could not terminate job: 3: No such process

12/12/12 14:15:19,449 com.apple.launchd[1]: (com.apple.qtkittrustedmoviesservice[3895]) Using fallback option to terminate job...

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: CODE SIGNING: cs_invalid_page(0x1000): p=3916[GoogleSoftwareUp] clearing CS_VALID

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: MacAuthEvent en1 Auth result for: 00:18:4d:c0:d5:3c MAC AUTH succeeded

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: wlEvent: en1 en1 Link UP virtIf = 0

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: wl0: Roamed or switched channel, reason #8, bssid 00:18:4d:c0:d5:3c

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: en1: BSSID changed to 00:18:4d:c0:d5:3c

12/12/12 14:15:57,000 kernel[0]: en1::IO80211Interface::postMessage bssid changed

12/12/12 14:16:20,816 mdworker[3920]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:16:20,821 mdworker[3922]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:16:20,825 mdworker[3921]: Unable to talk to lsboxd

12/12/12 14:16:20,909 sandboxd[3925]: ([3920]) mdworker(3920) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:16:20,917 sandboxd[3925]: ([3922]) mdworker(3922) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:16:20,924 sandboxd[3925]: ([3921]) mdworker(3921) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ls.boxd

12/12/12 14:16:21,000 kernel[0]: Sandbox: sandboxd(3925) deny mach-lookup com.apple.coresymbolicationd

P.S. I backed up my disk in case of failure as you suggested!

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Answer 5

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Dec 12, 2012 10:18 AM in response to biglex

You have an application called "MAMP" that seems to be trying to display a faulty menu-bar item. Remove it, then log out and log back in. See whether there's any improvement.

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