How can I find out if my MacBook has viruses, it's running super slow lately?

Kvitols wrote:

My MacBook has been running very slow, and I was trying to figure out how to detect viruses on it, or how to try other options. I've not delt with it much other than for college classes so any advice helps.

Thanks!

Your macbook has too many processes running for the amount of memory you have - thats why it appears to be slow in one process -

Regardless of OS - doing a shut-down will clear any stranded processes that are running - restart does not.

Check Safari top sites if you don't use them or do - edit out any that are not top sites.

Look for any software applications that update in background - including Itunes those updates do take up time.

There are no viruses to make it run slowly.

Ways to help make a slow Mac faster

17 Reasons Why Your Mac Runs Slower Than it Should

Slow Mac Performance? This Article Solves It!

Fix slow start-ups in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

6 Easy Tips to Speed Up OS X Yosemite on Your Mac

Avoid using any third-party software that claims to clean up your computer. Usually this software does more bad than good. Furthermore, you don't need it. Note that all computers will become slower over time even under normal use. Experienced users typically erase the hard drive and do a clean install from scratch at least once a year or whenever installing a major OS upgrade. Of course doing so also means you must maintain regular and multiple backups.

Add more RAM or cut back on the number of concurrently running applications and utilities. Remove unnecessary software such as anti-malware and software that promises to clean your Mac. Check for runaway processes: Runaway applications can shorten battery runtime, affect performance, and increase heat and fan acti… Also see:

Pre-Mavericks

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.

Mavericks and later

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the %CPU column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of %CPU, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.

When you see a beachball cursor or the slowness is especially bad, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

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 and start typing the name.

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.

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.

Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.

Copy the messages 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 it useless for 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.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

In regard to running virus protection - on both Windows and Mac - the only time it causes a problem is if you have it set/scheduled to check for updates and do either a quick or full scan after update at a time when you are busy. Have always done a manual pickup/quick scan and any full scans at a time when I will not be using the device.

Download and post an Etrecheck report.

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

It may offer clues to your problems.

Ciao.