Q: Can anyone offer advice on how to speed up my mac its running extremely slow for a few months now, I have included my Etre report!

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

 

You should get 16GB.

 

The advice you received to ignore EtreCheck's "failed" warnings is questionable. They do need to be addressed. Those processes are probably being killed due to the "memory pressure" exceeding capacity, so more RAM should help with that, too.

EtreCheck has been modified to show such processes as "killed" but your advise is probably sound. Hard to believe that an OS advertised as needing only 2GB RAM actually needs 16GB.  I'm running with 20GB and just had 12 processes killed, most likely due to memory pressure.

I disagree here.

Getting 16GB of RAM will not hurt, but 4GB of RAM should be fine to run Yosemite. It's too easy to just point to the amount of RAM and say: more will fix all your problems. Look at how much RAM your most-used apps recommend and you should be fine with that amount.

We should be looking at a solution to the problem, not at stacking band-aids on top of each other.

CellarDwellr wrote:

 

I disagree here.

With what? I'm not the one that recommended more RAM, but Apple does give guidance on this in the Memory portion of How to use Activity Monitor. When the MEMORY PRESSURE graph turns red one needs to either quit some apps or buy more RAM.

What we have been struggling to understand recently is why the OS is killing processes due to Memory Pressure and what that has to do with the amount of RAM one has.

I guess I also don't understand your analogy of more RAM being a bandaid. It made a huge difference for me in Mountain Lion when I went from 4 to 20.

Hello Tekhnoir,

It has become quite an involved thread and I must admit I double counted the Gb available.   On the basis of that I would think moving up to 8Gb or even more, would be prudent. Thank you for the stars, though I'm not sure if the problem is yet resolved.  Do see my note at the end of this post.

Insofar as steamclean and ClamXav are concerned, I did some research via Google but my private search function was on and so the actual links were not recorded.  If MadMacs0 says it is safe, then as far as I'm concerned, it's safe.  I have never seen inaccurate security advice from that direction. 

But the conflict between Linc and Etresoft arises fairly often and I would just add that the reports do seem to have helped by drawing attention to some problematic aspects as originally highlighted in red ink. We cannot tell if their removal has increased the speed of the errant Mac or by how much so I do hope you will come back and tell us the situation now.

MadMacs0 wrote:

 

CellarDwellr wrote:

 

I disagree here.

With what? I'm not the one that recommended more RAM, but Apple does give guidance on this in the Memory portion of How to use Activity Monitor. When the MEMORY PRESSURE graph turns red one needs to either quit some apps or buy more RAM.

 

What we have been struggling to understand recently is why the OS is killing processes due to Memory Pressure and what that has to do with the amount of RAM one has.

 

I guess I also don't understand your analogy of more RAM being a bandaid. It made a huge difference for me in Mountain Lion when I went from 4 to 20.

I know you're not the only one. I meant to reply to everyone recommending more RAM. My apologies, I didn't mean to cause personal offense.

I guess what's happening here is that I'm a little allergic to advise that goes like "to solve your issue, don't troubleshoot, just buy new - or extra - parts."

Judging by the EtreCheck, tekhnoir has a ton of software installed on his Mac, any of which could potentially cause the RAM pressure if broken or out of control. Personally, I'd sooner erase and clean install my Mac to see if that solves it before I would buy extra parts.

CellarDwellr wrote:

 

I disagree here.

 

Getting 16GB of RAM will not hurt, but 4GB of RAM should be fine to run Yosemite. It's too easy to just point to the amount of RAM and say: more will fix all your problems. Look at how much RAM your most-used apps recommend and you should be fine with that amount.

 

We should be looking at a solution to the problem, not at stacking band-aids on top of each other.

I agree with your disagreement. It is just that most people have no idea how to diagnose these issues.

4 GB of RAM should be fine to run Yosemite. For many people, it may be fine. But for those people who report problems, adding RAM may be the quickest and easiest fix.

Also, Apple's yearly release schedule provides a strong disincentive to bother with this kind of diagnosis. In seven months, Yosemite will be gone and there will be big changes under the hood.

seventy one wrote:

 

 

But the conflict between Linc and Etresoft arises fairly often and I would just add that the reports do seem to have helped by drawing attention to some problematic aspects as originally highlighted in red ink. We cannot tell if their removal has increased the speed of the errant Mac or by how much so I do hope you will come back and tell us the situation now.

Between? It is a conflict that exists only with Linc. I don't comment on anything he does. He has added a note trashing my work to many of the copy-and-pasted blurbs he posts night and day like an automaton.

Once I found out what was going on with these entires, I changed them from "failed" to "killed". It is important to note that these killed processes are not, by themselves, evidence of anything going wrong. This is the way Yosemite is designed to work. Well, to be more accurate, this is the way iOS was designed to work. When Apple ported launchd from iOS to Yosemite, they introduced this new behaviour. If it were not for this new behaviour, Yosemite would be even slower than it is.

Just having these "killed" entries is not a sign of any problem. People are experiencing problems and then posting questions here, along with their EtreCheck reports. It just so happens that many of the "slow system" reports also include this new behaviour. So far, it makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is why Yosemite is running so slowly for some, but not all people. It doesn't make sense why it runs so slowly on systems with 4 and even 8 gigabytes of RAM when used with the same 3rd party software as before. It was a surprise for me. No one runs EtreCheck more than I do. I never saw this problem with 8 GB of RAM and I have to force it to happen via "memory_pressure -l warn" to see it with 16 GB. I never notice any slowdown, however. But I also don't run Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Aperture, or other, similar, prosumer apps.

I designed EtreCheck to be a report on the state of someone's Mac so that other people here on ASC could get a better idea of what is going on with it. I have to be very careful about what I show and what I hide. I don't want to encourage people to go into system folders and start deleting files. That never ends well. I also don't want to confuse them with "SMART: Verified" on a failing disk.

Hello etresoft,

Yes, perhaps I could have chosen my words better but I hope you didn't take anything to heart.   I was really thinking only of apparant conflict in this thread.   The history I know, and am always sad to read.

seventy one wrote:

 

Yes, perhaps I could have chosen my words better but I hope you didn't take anything to heart. 

No worries. I'm not annoyed with your post at all. There is a reason why the hosts frown upon these kinds of conflicts between Lounge members in the open forums. I am trying hard to keep it a one-sided conflict.