Yosemite running slow

Question

Yosemite running slow

Hi all,

So a little while ago I installed Yosemite on my MacBook Pro (Mid 2012). I was foolish enough to do this without a backup of my mac. It's been running extremely slowly since then and doing any task is a pain. Even adjusting the brightness of the screen and turning the volume up and down is very laggy. I reset my PRAM and SMC, didn't enable filevault, and pretty much tried everything else that I read on the forums. I don't know what to do anymore. Also, when starting the computer after it has been shut down, it stops loading at the grey screen with the apple logo at a certain spot every time. In order to get it to turn on I have to do a safe boot, then shut down again, and then the second time it will turn on properly (still takes very long even after the safe boot). I'm not very good with computers and don't know what the problem could be. I got to thinking that maybe the new OS is eating up a lot of the RAM and that i should upgrade my RAM. I have 4GB of RAM and a 500 GB HDD that comes stock in the standard 2012 macbook pro. Any help getting my system to work at normal speeds would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 22, 2014 5:02 PM

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Answer 1

jeremy_v

Community Specialist

Dec 24, 2014 7:11 AM in response to mbfromtoronto

Hi mbfromtoronto,

Thanks for participating in the Apple Support Communities.

It sounds like you're seeing poor performance on your Mac after updating to OS X Yosemite. I know it can be frustrating to work with a computer that seems sluggish, especially after an upgrade.

You mentioned that your Mac stops loading on the gray screen when you start up. Because of this, the next step I'd recommend is booting to OS X Recovery or Internet Recovery and using Disk Utility to repair your hard disk.

Try Disk Utility

Use these steps to use the Disk Utility app to verify or repair a disk.

If you're using OS X Lion or later, start the computer from Recovery System or Internet Recovery. If you're using an older version of OS X and your computer came with a Mac OS X Install disc, insert the installation disc and restart the computer while holding the C key instead.

When your computer finishes starting up, choose Disk Utility from the Utilities window, or from the Installer menu if you're started from an installation disc.

Click the First Aid tab.

Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.

Select your Startup Disk (usually named "Macintosh HD").

Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.

From:

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck - Apple Support

Once Disk Utility has run, you may also want to verify that your Mac has at least 8 gb of free disk space, per the Yosemite system requirements:

How to install OS X Yosemite on your Mac - Apple Support

Your Mac also needs:

OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8, already installed

2 GB or more of memory

8 GB or more of available disk space

All the best,

Jeremy

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

685,293 points

Dec 24, 2014 12:16 PM in response to mbfromtoronto

Activity Monitor - Mavericks also Yosemite

Activity Monitor in Mavericks has significant changes

Performance Guide

Why is my computer slow

Why your Mac runs slower than it should

Slow Mac After Mavericks

Things you can do to resolve slowdowns see post by Kappy

Try running this program and then copy and paste the output in a reply. The program was created by Etresoft, a frequent contributor. Please use copy and paste as screen shots can be hard to read.

Etrecheck – System Information

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