Q: How Can I Improve Mavericks Performance (much slower than 10.8)?

Tos Cook posted:

User Login Items:

          Mail

          Safari

          SpeechSynthesisServer

          Download

 

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player

          Flip4Mac WMV

          Perian

          Shades Preferences

Try temporarily removing Mail & Safari from your login items, & turning off the announce & speak items in System Preferences > Text to Speech (which should remove the SpeechSynthesisServer login item). I don't know what the "Download" item is but if you hover the pointer over that entry in System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items tab, you should get a popup showing the path to its source. If it isn't something you need, try removing that as well.

Follow the instructions here to either temporarily turn off Shades or uninstall it. Make sure you have the latest version, but keep in mind that it hasn't been updated since Snow Leopard so it may not be fully compatible with later OS versions.

Some users have reported issues caused by Perian on systems running Mavericks. It did not seem to cause anything unusual on my system but I removed it anyway. Note that the Perian project is no longer supported & at http://www.perian.org there is a disclaimer that the last version "may or may not" work with OS X 10.8, so that applies to 10.9 as well.

Thanks for your help!

I removed most of the things you said. The "Download" from the login items is a directory from my external NAS (I'm not sure if it connects through SMB or AFP). Should I worry about some items marked as "invalid" in the launch daemons/agents? I wouldn't mind unistalling them if I knew how.

Hardware Information:

          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

          1 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

          4 GB RAM

Video Information:

          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

          InstantOn: Version: 7.1.0 - SDK 10.8

          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

System Software:

          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:2:11

Disk Information:

          Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02 disk0 : (500,11 GB)

                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499,25 GB (260,17 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

USB Information:

          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Kernel Extensions:

Problem System Launch Daemons:

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist

Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist

User Launch Agents:

          [failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

          [loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist

User Login Items:

          Download

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player

          Flip4Mac WMV

Internet Plug-ins::

          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16   - SDK 10.8

          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          EPPEX Plugin: Version: 3.0.5.0

          Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          Becon: Version: (null) - SDK 10.7

          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

User Internet Plug-ins::

          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1

Bad Fonts:

          None

Old applications:

          Keynote:          Version: 5.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Keynote.app

          Microsoft AutoUpdate:          Version: 2.3.6 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app

          Microsoft Error Reporting:          Version: 2.2.8 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0/Microsoft Error Reporting.app

          Microsoft Ship Asserts:          Version: 1.1.3 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0/Microsoft Ship Asserts.app

          Numbers:          Version: 2.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Numbers.app

          Pages:          Version: 4.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Pages.app

          SLLauncher:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app

          Spotify:          Version: 0.8.5.1333.g822e0de8 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/Spotify.app

Time Machine:

          Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

               4%          WindowServer

               2%          lssave

               1%          EtreCheck

               0%          mds

               0%          coreservicesd

Top Processes by Memory:

          61 MB              com.apple.IconServicesAgent

          37 MB              mds_stores

          37 MB              Finder

          29 MB              ocspd

          29 MB              Dock

Virtual Memory Statistics:

          2.58 GB            Free RAM

          612 MB             Active RAM

          169 MB             Inactive RAM

          416 MB             Wired RAM

          171 MB             Page-ins

          0 B                Page-outs

Tos Cook wrote:

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist

 

Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

          [invalid] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist

 

User Launch Agents:

          [failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

          [loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist

The launchd jobs will be in the following locations…

Launch Agents          - Stored in /Library/LaunchAgents

Launch Daemons       - Stored in /Library/LaunchDaemons

User Launch Agents   - Stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

Use the Finders "Go menu > Go to Folder…" when you need to open the hidden ~/Library (your users library).

Delete the 3 red ones & reboot. The pink ones are harmless (since they are not being loaded) but I'd remove them if you don't use Teamviewer.

Hi, thanks for your help.

I did what you said. I also removed Teamviewer.

But now I get other failed entries. Should I remove them too? These are from Apple, so I'm afraid these may be useful.

Hardware Information:

          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

          1 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

          4 GB RAM

Video Information:

          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

          InstantOn: Version: 7.1.0 - SDK 10.8

          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

System Software:

          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 1 day 11:31:45

Disk Information:

          Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02 disk0 : (500,11 GB)

                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499,25 GB (255,23 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

USB Information:

          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Kernel Extensions:

Problem System Launch Daemons:

          [failed] com.apple.softwareupdated.plist

          [failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

User Launch Agents:

          [failed] com.apple.SafariBookmarksSyncer.plist

          [loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist

User Login Items:

          Download

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player

          Flip4Mac WMV

Internet Plug-ins::

          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16   - SDK 10.8

          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          EPPEX Plugin: Version: 3.0.5.0

          Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          Becon: Version: (null) - SDK 10.7

          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20913.0 - SDK 10.6

          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

User Internet Plug-ins::

          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1

Bad Fonts:

          None

Old applications:

          Keynote:          Version: 5.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Keynote.app

          Microsoft AutoUpdate:          Version: 2.3.6 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app

          Microsoft Error Reporting:          Version: 2.2.8 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0/Microsoft Error Reporting.app

          Microsoft Ship Asserts:          Version: 1.1.3 - SDK 10.4

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MERP2.0/Microsoft Ship Asserts.app

          Numbers:          Version: 2.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Numbers.app

          Pages:          Version: 4.3 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/iWork '09/Pages.app

          SLLauncher:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5

                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app

          Spotify:          Version: 0.8.5.1333.g822e0de8 - SDK 10.5

                    /Applications/Spotify.app

Time Machine:

          Skip System Files: NO

          Mobile backups: ON

          Auto backup: YES

          Volumes being backed up:

                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 499,25 GB Disk used: 244,02 GB

          Destinations:

                    TMBackup [Network] (Last used)

                    Total size: 1,97 TB

                    Total number of backups: 1

                    Oldest backup: 2013-11-27 09:24:20 +0000

                    Last backup: 2013-11-27 09:24:20 +0000

                    Size of backup disk: Excellent

                              Backup size 1,97 TB > (Disk size 499,25 GB X 3)

          Time Machine details may not be accurate.

          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.

Top Processes by CPU:

              12%          Safari

               7%          WindowServer

               1%          com.apple.WebKit.Networking

               1%          hidd

               0%          PluginProcess

Top Processes by Memory:

          106 MB             Safari

          106 MB             iTunes

          49 MB              Mail

          41 MB              PluginProcess

          33 MB              WindowServer

Virtual Memory Statistics:

          19 MB              Free RAM

          857 MB             Active RAM

          849 MB             Inactive RAM

          585 MB             Wired RAM

          3.74 GB            Page-ins

          650 MB             Page-outs

infinite vortex wrote:

 

If you find that your boot drive to be thrashing substantially more than previously then more than likely it's not a matter of OS X Mavericks itself but the physical nature of HDDs. Thrashing, where your HDD is constantly seeking from one end of your platter(s)s to another, is more a sign of where your OS and data is on your HDD rather than what is on your HDD.

 

My suggestion is to simply clone your boot drive to another, empty, drive (the best would be another internal drive of the same size or larger so you can directly compare) and see how well it runs. My guess is that given your disk utilisation is at 60% or so a simple clone off and clone back will mostly, if not entirely, fix your issues.

Joe,

It seems like infinite vortex's solution might work for you.

My mac had similar slowness issues, but I wouldn't say the HD was "thrashing". I tried many solutions, but what worked for my mac was resetting the NVRAM:

Resetting NVRAM / PRAM

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

After resetting NVRAM or PRAM, you may need to reconfigure your settings for speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, and time zone information. If issues persist, your Mac's logic board battery (not a portable Mac's rechargeable battery) may need to be replaced. The logic board battery helps retain NVRAM/PRAM settings when your computer is shut down. You can take your Mac to a Mac Genius or Apple Authorized Service Provider to replace the battery on the logic board.

I didn't try doing this earlier because it didn't seem like corrupt NVRAM was the issue. It's a pretty easy fix. If it doesn't work, then I hope infinite vortex's solution did the trick.

I will do that, thanks. I didn't know that's the right way.

Remove Safari & Mail from your log-in items, do all sorts of diagnostics, post screen-dumps, reset NVRAM & PRAM, take your computer to an Apple Store to replace the logic board battery, jump through all sorts of hoops so that you can (maybe) end up with a machine that works at least as well as it did before the 'upgrade'.

Come on guys, you're fooling yourselves! Mavericks is flawed. Having moved from PC's over 8 years ago I thought my confidence in things Apple was unshakeable and I still want it to be but whatever's going on at Apple 'post Jobs' is beginning to make me wonder. Until the issues are sorted with the new OS, despite my in-built desire always to have the latest version, I have gone back to Mountain Lion

BreizhRonB wrote:

 

Remove Safari & Mail from your log-in items, do all sorts of diagnostics, post screen-dumps, reset NVRAM & PRAM, take your computer to an Apple Store to replace the logic board battery, jump through all sorts of hoops so that you can (maybe) end up with a machine that works at least as well as it did before the 'upgrade'.

 

Come on guys, you're fooling yourselves! Mavericks is flawed. Having moved from PC's over 8 years ago I thought my confidence in things Apple was unshakeable and I still want it to be but whatever's going on at Apple 'post Jobs' is beginning to make me wonder. Until the issues are sorted with the new OS, despite my in-built desire always to have the latest version, I have gone back to Mountain Lion

I do that about every 4 to 6 months on Windows 7 at work, but I've never had to do any of that on Mavericks.

I have two macs, upgraded both, and one was noticably faster while the other was significantly slower. I've tried several things to try and resolve it, without much luck. Or rather, doing anything that requires a reboot seems to resolve it until enough time passes and/or the computer has been asleep and reawakened, and the performance problem came back. It seemed pretty clearly related to memory, as I could get a temporary performance boost back by exiting memory-hog applications.

Finally, I disabled Speech and Dictation support which was only enabled on the slow mac. That seems to have solved the problem.

Joe, Did you get this figured out?

I'm having a similar problem - slow performance after upgrading to Mavericks from Mountain Lion.

I noticed that you haven't posted any new messages to this thread. Did you solve the problem ? Have you tried Linc Davies' diagnostic ?

I solved it by going back to Mountain Lion (fortunately I had a Super Duper clone). I await Yosemite with interest!