My Macbook Pro is going extremely slow

Question

Level 1

4 points

My Macbook Pro is going extremely slow

I have a Macbook Pro from mid 2010. It is currently running Mavericks and over the past year it has been running slow. I made a previous thread which can be linked here. My Macbook Pro is going extremely slow. Please help

Anytime I use apps such as Safari, Spotify, Pages, iPhoto, and so on I get the pinwheel of death and the computer slows down drastically. The CPU temperature goes upwards of 180 degrees and the fans run at 6200 rpm. This happens consistently.

Could it be that I don't have too much RAM? I currently have 4gb of ram and this model of Macbook Pro can support up to 8gb of ram. What about HardDrive space? I have noticed that it fluctuates between 28-40gb free, which doesn't make sense to me since I am not downloading anything at all so there is no reason for it to fluctuate that much. I have also noticed that I have over 90gb of "Other" data used up on my hard drive. Where does this come from?

The computer is almost unusable. Please someone help me out here. This is not what I expect from an Apple product.

Here are the Etrecheck results

EtreCheck version: 2.0.1 (82)

Report generated November 2, 2014 at 9:58:58 AM PST

Hardware Information: ℹ️

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) (Verified)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro7,1

1 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2-core

4 GB RAM Upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1067 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Old - Handoff not supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Video Information: ℹ️

NVIDIA GeForce 320M - VRAM: 256 MB

Color LCD 1280 x 800

System Software: ℹ️

OS X 10.9.5 (13F34) - Uptime: 0 days 15:58:16

Disk Information: ℹ️

TOSHIBA MK2555GSXF disk0 : (250.06 GB)

S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 249.20 GB (28.96 GB free)

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

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-898

USB Information: ℹ️

Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Gatekeeper: ℹ️

Mac App Store and identified developers

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support

User Launch Agents: ℹ️

[loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist Support

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

[running] com.spotify.webhelper.plist Support

[not loaded] jp.co.canon.Inkjet_Extended_Survey_Agent.plist Support

User Login Items: ℹ️

iTunesHelper UNKNOWNHidden (missing value)

Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector2 ApplicationHidden (/Library/Printers/Canon/IJScanner/Utilities/Canon IJ Network Scanner Selector2.app)

Spotify Application (/Applications/Spotify.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Check version

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 15.0.0.189 - SDK 10.6 Support

EPPEX Plugin: Version: 3.0.5.0 Support

Flash Player: Version: 15.0.0.189 - SDK 10.6 Support

Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

o1dbrowserplugin: Version: 5.4.2.18903 Support

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 Support

googletalkbrowserplugin: Version: 5.4.2.18903 Support

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30317.0 - SDK 10.6 Support

iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

Safari Extensions: ℹ️

AdBlock

Audio Plug-ins: ℹ️

DVCPROHDAudio: Version: 1.3.2

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

Flash Player Support

Time Machine: ℹ️

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

8% mds

5% WindowServer

2% coreaudiod

2% Safari

1% mdworker

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

249 MB Safari

116 MB softwareupdated

116 MB com.apple.IconServicesAgent

112 MB Finder

95 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

812 MB Free RAM

2.25 GB Active RAM

330 MB Inactive RAM

601 MB Wired RAM

1.33 GB Page-ins

33 KB Page-outs

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Nov 2, 2014 10:07 AM

Reply

Answer 1

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2014 11:05 AM in response to psploco

Could the hard drive be failing?

Is there a way to check this?

If it is failing should i upgrade the hard drive to an SSD?

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Answer 2

Nov 2, 2014 11:29 AM in response to psploco

Your hard disk has passed the SMART test but you could run disk utility and run the verify disk.

You would be wise to upgrade the memory to 8GB however you have a core duo processor and Mavericks and Yosemite are best on core i5 or i7 IMHO.

WWhy not go buy an external 1GB hard drive, reinstall the OS from scratch but don't clone the existing disk. You could partition this disk and install both the original OS and Mavericks on the separate partitions and use the alt key to select the boot partition on startup. You could then compare performance.

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Answer 3

Nov 2, 2014 11:35 AM in response to psploco

PS have you rebooted holding the shift key down so that the os only loads Apple components? Is this better?

You could also reboot and then immediately post the Virtual Memory section of the etrecheck since you are paging a little but the machine had been running for 15 hours. It would help to determine if it is disk activity that is slowing you down.

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Answer 4

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2014 11:53 AM in response to David Ramsay1

"however you have a core duo processor and Mavericks and Yosemite are best on core i5 or i7 IMHO."

What exactly does this statement mean? Would upgrading the ram effect the processor?

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Answer 5

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2014 11:54 AM in response to David Ramsay1

I have not. I will try that Ramsay

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Answer 6

Nov 2, 2014 11:57 AM in response to psploco

IIt would affect the processor in as much that there would be less need to page in/out memory. However it wouldn't upgrade the processor to a modern device!

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Answer 7

Nov 2, 2014 12:00 PM in response to psploco

Not that I am picky but the name is David!

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Answer 8

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2014 12:27 PM in response to David Ramsay1

But the performance would be improved right? I have noticed in the activity monitor that the memory pressure graph is usually yellow/orange ish.

Reply

Answer 9

Nov 2, 2014 12:39 PM in response to psploco

Yes it would, if the memory pressure is showing non-green then I would suggest that the 8GB upgrade would speed things up, BTW have you cleaned the machine internally yet?

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Answer 10

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 2, 2014 12:40 PM in response to David Ramsay1

No I have not cleaned it internally. I must admit I would be way to afraid to open this bad boy up. Who knows what type of wires lie underneath the hood. How would I do a nice deep cleaning

Reply

Answer 11

Linc Davis

Level 10

210,281 points

Nov 2, 2014 8:53 PM in response to psploco

Launch the Console 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 Console in the icon grid.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen. Click the Clear Display icon in the toolbar. Then take one of the actions that you're having trouble with. Select any messages that appear in the Console window. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of which is irrelevant to solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

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Answer 12

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,138 points

Nov 3, 2014 1:48 AM in response to psploco

Nothing specific to see from the etrecheck list.

It could be the disk, yes, the Veirfy and Repair you better do from the Restore partition Disk Utility.

4GB should be more than enough, although 8GB is better. Unless you have replaced the original ram, I would wait till this issue is solved.

Answer the Linc Davis post. This will certainly give additional information.

Lex

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Answer 13

Nov 18, 2014 3:50 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc,

I am disappointed that psploco has not responded to this thread for 2 weeks now. Either the machine has collapsed completely and he is no longer online or ...

I hope the email from this thread will prompt him to come back to us.

Reply

Answer 14

psploco Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 21, 2014 10:39 AM in response to David Ramsay1

Yes I fear my macbook pro is about to die so I barley use it anymore

I am now getting a message that says "startup disk is almost full" yet I have at least 60gb of memory free!

Reply

Answer 15

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,138 points

Dec 21, 2014 10:49 AM in response to psploco

This is a long time ago.

I propose to restart while holding CMD+R: it will start in the Recovery Partition: start DiskUtility from he menu bar, and do "Repair Disk": let's see what it does.

Your MBP 2010 is really not old enough to dump.

Lex

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