Does it sound like my hard drive needs replacing?
Suggestions on next logical steps to get my Macbook Pro running well again? I've tried software glitches and now somoene's suggested it's the hard drive... which I've got a feeling is probably correct.
1. Does it sound like a hard drive issue?
2. if so, should I do the external drive test - where you load it up with OS/X and run the laptop from that?
- -If so is that something I can do for a few months while I work out getting the hard drive replaced professionally?
- And if so should I get a firewire one instead of a normal USB drive- is the firewire faster? J
- Just concerned that firewire is redundant tech if everything's moving to USB3.0?
- Could I get a USB3.0 one or is my computer to old to cope?
the problem..
It has been running increasingly slowly over the past year... waiting for the timer thingy on opening all applications. This did get worse for using web browsers after upgrading to Mavericks OS/X 10..9.5
To free up RAM I have installed Memory Clean, which automatically cleans it when the free memory falls low. But Memory clean is constantly mopping up file caches that mount up by the second. I tried various software culprits eg getting rid of Google Chrome plug ins etc and in the end I just uninstalled Chrome and went back to Firefox. But the machine is slow whatever I do. Slow on start up, slow with just 1 program running. Skype often cuts out / crashes, any of the Microsoft Office suite take an age to open.
Memory clean typical readings: [4GB total RAM.] App memory 1.4 GB (typically), Wired 1 GB (typically) and then it's compressed maybe 900 MB.
I showed my Activity Monitor readings to a techie guy I know and he said he saw no reason for the machine to run slow. He suggested it was a hard disk problem. the machine is 4 years old and has been around the world with me and has fallen before now though only from a a heigh of 2 feet... but still ... so maybe it's got brain damage?
I do know the mouse pad underneath it needs cleaning - I had to disable many of the fancy swipe type actions because it was like the cursor arrow on the screen was possessed by a poltergeist. And also the battery is 3.9 years old and has a battery health rating of 69% according to the Battery Health app.
THANK YOU!
Hardware overview -
Hardware Overvie
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,1
Processor Name: Intel Core i5
Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Boot ROM Version: MBP81.0047.B27
SMC Version (system): 1.68f99
Serial Number (system): C2QFM5BYDH2G
Hardware UUID: 3F39F2C2-FF17-5AFB-87AE-D6F5BE65C390
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)
