Early 2011 13inch Macbook Pro running extremely slow!

The png files you reference didn't appear, but maybe I can move you in the right direction.

I agree that 4GB RAM is perfectly fine for most users. Judging from your text, you might want to go to Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, and pay special attention to items in Disk, CPU, and Network. If you notice anything that's consistenly high, you can deactivate items. If, say, an application is taking 100% of your resources, that's a warning.

Activity Monitor doesn't have any directions. You've got to find the hot items and see what's causing the problem. But you'll see it there, I'll guarantee it.

There's also a possibility that your disk is full. If your HD is packed, it's going to run very slowly. In that case, your best option would be to move files to an external hard drive, or delete them.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5523776?tstart=30

and

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6201

and

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5477875?tstart=30

The slowness may be caused by the new features on iOS7. Certainly, the information gleaned from your system is perfectly normal.

The slight slowness may be an annoyance, but you might want to take advantage of declining SSD prices and install one. Instead of a boot time of 45 seconds, you can boot in 10-20 seconds. In Dealmac, I see deals on SSDs nearly every day. I can assure you: the speed will amaze you. I already have a 512GB SSD on my MBP, and I'm not looking back.

I have the same MacBook Pro with the same problems...I takes 3-5 minutes to boot up and then 2 more minutes to load all without the deadly colorfull wheel. I've done a lot of things, even reinstall Mavericks after erasing all data and transfer it from an external hard drive(copied with Time Machine) and the problem is still there. I was planing to upgrade to 8Gb of Ram and an SSD with 256 or more...but what happend if the problem remains in my Mac?

Hope Apple or someone could help with this performance problems.

Hi,

I have a MPB early 2011, 13' inch, i7, 500HD which I use for audio recording. How do I change the HD to SSD? Whats the best SSD on the market?

I can’t recommend a “best” solution but here are some reliable sources and you can look at the various prices and search this forum for comments on a particular model. I recommend purchasing SSDs from Crucial.com or OWC (macsales.com). Their products are known to work well in Macs. The Samsung Pro series has also received positive reviews.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5941668?tstart=30

People have reported problems using the the Samsung EVO series, the Toshiba Q Series and the Kingston SSDNow V300 SSDs.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5641332?tstart=240

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5934089?tstart=0

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5549776?tstart=30

Also check the recommendations in the following URL on

Upgrading Your MacBook Pro with a Solid State Drive (SSD)

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4741

TRIM the SSD using Trim Enabler. (You will need to repeat TRIM step after every OS upgrade, including .1 upgrades.)

http://www.groths.org/software/trimenabler/

Thanks.

Hey guys,

Want to chime in here that my 13-inch, Early 2011 i7 with 8gb ram is underperforming as well.

I went in to the Apple Store and turned out my battery was at 14% of original capacity. They said that this could very well be the culprit, however after swapping it out with a new battery - the performance issues still stands...

I have all the symptoms that you guys are mentioning + that simple WebGL sites are rendering weird things sometimes and the FPS is way below what this machine should handle on paper.

To test it out, this site runs in 60fps on my Girlfriends Macbook Air early 2012 - http://liketodeath.com/ on mine, it barely goes over 15fps then it crashes the browser.

Im starting to suspect that this is a defect in the Early 2011 models...

hi everyone,

i have the exact same problem. I got the higher end 13 inch mbp early june 2011. In the past few months it's been painfully slow. Takes about 2 minutes to boot up, safari, itunes, mail all take about 30 seconds to open, switching between tabs in safari often gives me the spinning beach ball - it just lags, its painful. I've resorted to pretty much only having safari and mail open, having anything else open is just pointless. My housemates have the older white macbook's and it's as slow as theirs. I've tried everything, resetting the pram and smc work a little bit for a short amount of time but then it just goes straight back to being slow. Do a lot of people experience this with the early 2011 mbp's? Has anyone found a solution or anything that makes it better? So frustrating to invest a lot of money in a product I was told would last a long time and be useful but this feels like it's on its last legs... I was an avid apple user but this is so frustrating.

Hi everyone, I've already fix it. First I made a hand backup of all my data without Time Machine, copying foder by folder(only documents, downloads, images, music, videos, webs, shared, etc). Then, I've restart the system to enter the restore partition(start and push option key), enter Disk Utility to erase the entire partition with the second secure option, not the fastest one. Then re-install OS X and configure your session, put your account and then transfer the folders to your new system, configure your accounts, etc. I know, it's worksome but it really works, you're gonna notice that when you enter your session or open a lot of applications. I have my MacBook Pro 13 inch since early 2011 and I was planning to change it because that problem I have, but now I'm planning to stay with my Mac for two years more. Hope it helps you.

I've had this issue as well. When I bought the Macbook it was fine and worked well. When I upgraded to Lion, the whole user experience went out the window. I've had all of the problems that people have mentioned here and tried everything to fix it. I was even contemplating getting a new Macbook Pro as I use this machine when on the road.

Instead, I installed 16Gb of RAM (yes, I know it only should support 8, but it does 16) which improved things to some degree. This weekend I installed a SSD which breathed a whole new life into the machine. The crappy 5400RPM disk is the problem and given that I installed 512Gb (more than nearly 200Gb more than the machine shipped with) for about AUD$400, it's more than worth it. You guys in the US will get it for less than that.

Do it, you'll thank yourselves.

I have two 2011 Macbook Pros running Mavericks and have tried new Samsung SSDs in both. The speed definitely improves, but the battery lifs is zilch - moves from 6-7hours to 1.5-2 hrs. I've tried to upgrade SMC, etc but get a response that the upgrades won't work with my system. I've about decided that SSDs are not a good solution for these MBPs unless you want to run them on AC power.