Q: MacBook Pro Running Slow
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Sep 30, 2016 5:21 AMby Ella Fitzgerald,Have you tried to Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support
This can help.
This article can also be useful http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac/how-speed-up-slow-mac-3636548/
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Oct 1, 2016 4:51 AMby midnighte13,HelpfulThere are several things to consider with this system. At 6 to 7 years old it is at a point where performance will start to decrease, especially on the latest OS. It's right at the minimum model requirement for Sierra which is going to push the processor.
For the hard drive, is it the original? At 6 years, a rotational drive is going to be nearing the end of it's life. Also the stock drive on those were 5400 rpm. Something that will breath new life in the system is a solid state drive. I did a similar upgrade to my 2008 MacBook Pro 15-inch and the boot time reduced from about 2 minutes to 30 seconds (with Yosemite at least. I haven't tried Sierra on it yet). I'd also try doubling the RAM if possible to 8GB. While 4GB is higher than the 2GB minimum for Sierra, it will still be used up quickly when running other software.
Looking at your memory specs, your RAM is being used almost entirely which will lead to slower overall processing. Unfortunately newer software on older systems is never going to get faster unless you can upgrade some of the hardware to go with it. Bumping up the RAM and going with an SSD will noticeably increase the performance though and give you more time out of the system for much less cost than a new one.
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Oct 1, 2016 4:51 AMby Allan Jones,HelpfulIf you are going to do the "upgrade this one"or "buy a new one" analysis, note that you will soon have to add a US$129 expense to have Apple install a new battery. Yours is at 1350 cycles, 350 over Apple's published expectation of battery survival. Remarkable performance but it can't go too much longer,
It is best to have Apple install the new battery. It was not designed to be changed by the end user and Apple does not sell replacement batteries as a part any more. The two main reasons to let Apple do it are:
1) The removal of the old battery requires some care
2) Many replacement batteries offered on auction sites are counterfeit items that at best won't work and, at worst, will render your computer unrepairable.
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Sep 30, 2016 8:50 AMby John Galt,Back up your Mac if you have not done so already. To learn how to do that please read https://www.apple.com/support/backup/. To learn how to use Time Machine read Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac. The reason for creating a backup is that the symptoms you describe could be indicative of an impending hard disk drive failure, so securing your data is a primary concern.
Then, shut down your Mac and restart it in "Safe Mode". To learn how to do that please read: Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up. Compare how your Mac works in Safe Mode to how it has been.
Then, restart normally. If the same problem returns, please read the section If an issue doesn't happen in safe mode for Apple's recommended actions.
Finally, you can temporarily create a new User Account, and log in to that account to determine if the problem also exists when logged in to that Account. To learn how to do that read How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac. When you are finished troubleshooting, you can remove the temporary User Account by following these instructions: macOS Sierra: Delete a user or group. Before removing it, confirm you don't need any of the files you might have created in that Account.
Let me know what you determine.
