aideenmccole

Q: My MacBook Pro is super slow

Hey there

 

I've got a 13 inch 2013 MacBook Pro, which was running on Mavericks until today. About two weeks ago it started to slow down a huge amount, with the pinwheel of death appearing after every couple of clicks. Since it started, I've:

 

- checked activity monitor, CPU has been really low every time I checked (about 5% for system, 7% for user)

- run disk utility, finding some disk permissions and repairing them, finding nothing on the disk to repair

- run Clean My Mac, it found about 5GB of stuff that could have been deleted (but I didn't delete everything it found)

- time machined back to before the problem started, no change there

- run a ClamXav virus scan, it found one dodgy file, I've deleted it

- updated to Sierra, no change there

 

No significant change since doing all of this, the machine is still slow as ****, and doing all of this has taken soooo loooong (the virus scan took three days. THREE DAYS!!)

 

Naturally I'm not in warranty anymore, I was when something similar happened last year and a part was replaced (can't tell from the documentation quite what was done...) Anything you guys can think of that I should try before I go and pay for a repair?

Posted on Sep 27, 2016 3:04 AM

Close

Q: My MacBook Pro is super slow

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

first Previous Page 3 of 3
  • by Celeste Jones,

    Celeste Jones Celeste Jones Oct 3, 2016 10:25 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (41 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 3, 2016 10:25 AM in response to John Galt

    Have been following your discussions with aideenMccole....way too similar to what I am experiencing but I have used Memory Clean...a free program...hope I haven't created the same problems! Is this a corrupting program too...do I need to try to clean it out? Any ideas? …

     

    Please see earlier post on Oct 2

    Celeste Jones

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Oct 3, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Celeste Jones
    Level 5 (4,801 points)
    Oct 3, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Celeste Jones

    Celeste Jones wrote:

     

    ...I have used Memory Clean...a free program...hope I haven't created the same problems! Is this a corrupting program too

    I wouldn't necessarily call it a corrupting program, but it has been an unnecessary program since Mavericks implemented it's new memory management system that attempts to keep RAM as full as possible to avoid having to access your drive. If used excessively, it can slow down your computing experience as the system then has to re-load RAM that code that you often re-use from the disk.

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 3, 2016 12:57 PM in response to Celeste Jones
    Level 9 (50,065 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 12:57 PM in response to Celeste Jones

    Memory "cleaners" work by purging inactive memory contents to mass storage in the same manner that your Mac will on its own, except they do it when it is not needed. All that can possibly accomplish is to cause your Mac to reload the same information again when it needs it.

     

    Reading data from mass storage (hard disk or flash memory) is slow compared to reading information from RAM – and in the case of spinning hard disks, extremely slow. That reduces performance, as well as causing needless hard disk activity (or equally needless flash storage write/erase cycles in Macs with solid state memory).

     

    Those products are popular because they result in the instant gratification of a user observing a lot of free or unallocated memory right away. That degrades a Mac's performance, since RAM is extremely fast. RAM that goes unused is a resource you paid for that is simply going to waste.

     

    It is normal for a Mac to use as much memory as it has available to it. OS X versions starting with Mavericks introduced memory compression algorithms that result in even greater utilization of installed RAM.

     

    Don't use those things. Like all similarly categorized "cleaning" apps, they are little more than scams, and convey no benefit regardless of whether you're using a Mac or a PC.

  • by Liatte,

    Liatte Liatte Oct 3, 2016 1:13 PM in response to aideenmccole
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 3, 2016 1:13 PM in response to aideenmccole

    Funny that you are having this issue because I literally just posted about my keynote acting so strange and slow and pinwheeling all of the time and unexpectedly closing. Let me know what you find out

  • by aideenmccole,

    aideenmccole aideenmccole Oct 4, 2016 6:05 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Notebooks
    Oct 4, 2016 6:05 AM in response to John Galt

    I've booted in Safe Mode, and the problems persist (in addition to the screen flicker I experienced in Safe Mode before). In fact, they were particularly bad, with everything slowing to a halt.

     

    Just to be sure, I also spent some time working in a test user account. While things started off ok, things began to deteriorate, with lags and pinwheels increasing the longer I spent working. Lastly, I tried Safe Mode using the test user account, and performance was terrible again.

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Oct 4, 2016 7:49 AM in response to aideenmccole
    Level 9 (50,065 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 4, 2016 7:49 AM in response to aideenmccole

    I think you have done everything you can to eliminate software as a cause of your troubles.

     

    It is almost certain to be a hardware problem that only Apple will be able to fix. You could run Apple Hardware Test / Apple Diagnostics but each of its possible results leads to the same outcome:

     

    • identifying faulty hardware that only Apple will be able to fix,
    • "no trouble found" despite the fact something is obviously wrong,
    • or an inability to run AHT due to the problem you're experiencing.

     

    For repair options contact Apple using the Contact Support link above.

first Previous Page 3 of 3