Mac mini running extremely slow

Question

Level 1

17 points

Mac mini running extremely slow

Since I have bought this Mac mini, it runs extremely slowly. It runs slowly when booting up and still when using throughout the day. Even when just Safari and Mail are the only applications open. I ran hardware diagnostics and there were no problems. The specs:

Mac mini (Late 2014)

Processor 3 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Startup Disk Macintosh HD

Graphics Intel Iris 1536 MB

and the Etre results:

EtreCheck version: 3.4.4 (448)

Report generated 2017-09-17 15:33:56

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime: 144:47

Performance: Poor

Click the [Lookup] links for more information from Apple Support Communities.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Beachballing

Hardware Information: ⓘ

Mac mini (Late 2014)

[Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

Mac mini - model: Macmini7,1

1 3 GHz Intel Core i7 (i7-4578U) CPU: 2-core

16 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Handoff/Airdrop2: supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

iCloud Quota: 95.48 GB available

Video Information: ⓘ

Intel Iris - VRAM: 1536 MB

Thunderbolt Display 2560 x 1440

Disk Information: ⓘ

APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk0: (1 TB) (Rotational)

[Show SMART report]

EFI (disk0s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

(disk0s2) <not mounted> [CoreStorage Container]: 999.35 GB

(disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

USB Information: ⓘ

USB20Bus

hub_device

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Display)

Apple Inc. Apple Thunderbolt Display

Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

Mitsumi Electric Apple Optical USB Mouse

Apple, Inc Apple Keyboard

Apple Inc. Display Audio

USB30Bus

Seagate BUP BK

BUP BK disk2: (4 TB)

EFI (disk2s1 - MS-DOS FAT32) <not mounted> [EFI]: 210 MB

Seagate (disk2s2 - Journaled HFS+) /Volumes/Seagate : 4.00 TB (3.58 TB free)

Apple, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Apple Inc. Thunderbolt Display

Virtual disks: ⓘ

Macintosh HD (disk1 - Journaled HFS+) / [Startup]: 998.99 GB (617.02 GB free)

Physical disk: disk0s2 999.35 GB Online

System Software: ⓘ

macOS 10.13 (17A360a) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Configuration files: ⓘ

System Integrity Protection status: enabled (Custom Configuration)

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

Mac App Store and identified developers

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

[not loaded] 8 Apple tasks

[loaded] 176 Apple tasks

[running] 105 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[not loaded] 37 Apple tasks

[loaded] 184 Apple tasks

[running] 108 Apple tasks

Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist (? 9444eeeb be93c7fb - installed 2017-05-20) [Lookup]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (? 2afb3af7 4898e928 - installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.ea.origin.ESHelper.plist (EA Swiss Sarl - installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist (Shell Script e3fefdd2 - installed 2017-04-03) [Lookup]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

[loaded] com.ea.origin.WebHelper.plist (EA Swiss Sarl - installed 2017-09-17) [Lookup]

User Login Items: ⓘ

The Sims 4 Application

(/Applications/The Sims 4.app)

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

FlashPlayer-10.6: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-17) [Lookup]

QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (installed 2017-09-10)

Flash Player: 27.0.0.130 (installed 2017-09-17) [Lookup]

JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 131 build 11 (installed 2017-05-20) Check version

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

Flash Player (installed 2017-08-29) [Lookup]

Java (installed 2017-05-20) [Lookup]

Time Machine: ⓘ

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 998.99 GB Disk used: 381.97 GB

Destinations:

Seagate [Local]

Total size: 4.00 TB

Total number of backups: 40

Oldest backup: 7/9/17, 7:09 PM

Last backup: 9/17/17, 12:36 PM

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 4.00 TB > (Disk size 998.99 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

16% kernel_task

14% photoanalysisd

8% LocationMenu

6% photolibraryd

4% bird

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

1.20 GB kernel_task

639 MB mds_stores

218 MB spindump

185 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

108 MB com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

Top Processes by Network Use: ⓘ

Input Output Process name

423 KB 26 KB mDNSResponder

5 KB 3 KB netbiosd

5 KB 2 KB com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.Service

582 B 24 B SystemUIServer

Top Processes by Energy Use: ⓘ

9.24 bird

2.20 mediaanalysisd

0.90 mds

0.48 mds_stores

0.38 mdworker

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

10.97 GB Available RAM

5.12 GB Free RAM

5.03 GB Used RAM

5.85 GB Cached files

0 B Swap Used

Software installs: ⓘ

Civilization VI: 1.0.5 (installed 2017-09-12)

Adobe Flash Player: (installed 2017-09-17)

Install information may not be complete.

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

2017-09-17 09:34:34 Console.app Crash [Open]

2017-09-17 09:25:22 Origin.app Hang [Open]

2017-09-16 09:00:03 The Sims 4.app High CPU use [Open] [Details]

2017-09-15 18:36:52 com.apple.WebKit.WebContent High CPU use [Open] [Details]

Mac mini (Late 2014), macOS Sierra (10.12.6)

Posted on Sep 18, 2017 7:42 AM

Reply

Answer 1

dunnd Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 18, 2017 10:17 PM in response to Eric Root

smartctl 6.5 2016-05-07 r4318 [Darwin 17.0.0 x86_64] (local build)

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===

Device Model: APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662

Serial Number: JD8002D8227USD

LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 82add3525

Firmware Version: JA0AB5D0

User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes [1.00 TB]

Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical

Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm

Form Factor: 2.5 inches

Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]

ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 6

SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)

Local Time is: Mon Sep 18 22:10:39 2017 PDT

SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.

SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===

SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:

Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity

was never started.

Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.

Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed

without error or no self-test has ever

been run.

Total time to complete Offline

data collection: ( 45) seconds.

Offline data collection

capabilities: (0x5b) SMART execute Offline immediate.

Auto Offline data collection on/off support.

Suspend Offline collection upon new

command.

Offline surface scan supported.

Self-test supported.

No Conveyance Self-test supported.

Selective Self-test supported.

SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering

power-saving mode.

Supports SMART auto save timer.

Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.

General Purpose Logging supported.

Short self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.

Extended self-test routine

recommended polling time: ( 227) minutes.

SCT capabilities: (0x003d) SCT Status supported.

SCT Error Recovery Control supported.

SCT Feature Control supported.

SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE

1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 062 Pre-fail Always - 0

2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 040 Pre-fail Offline - 0

3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 177 177 033 Pre-fail Always - 1

4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0012 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 5386

5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 005 Pre-fail Always - 0

7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 067 Pre-fail Always - 0

8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 040 Pre-fail Offline - 0

9 Power_On_Hours 0x0012 092 092 000 Old_age Always - 3573

10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 060 Pre-fail Always - 0

12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 5329

160 Unknown_Attribute 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 4294967319

193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0012 085 085 000 Old_age Always - 156329

194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0002 157 157 000 Old_age Always - 38 (Min/Max 13/49)

195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0008 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0

199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0

223 Load_Retry_Count 0x000a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0

254 Free_Fall_Sensor 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 25

SMART Error Log Version: 1

No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1

No self-tests have been logged. [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1

SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS

1 0 0 Not_testing

2 0 0 Not_testing

3 0 0 Not_testing

4 0 0 Not_testing

5 0 0 Not_testing

Selective self-test flags (0x0):

After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.

If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Thanks for your help

Reply

Answer 2

macjack

Level 10

111,272 points

Sep 18, 2017 7:51 AM in response to dunnd

I've never seen a longer runtime to generate the Etrecheck report. My best guess would be a failing hard drive. Run Disk Utility > First Aid from your Recovery Partition and let us know what it reports.

Reply

Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,683 points

Sep 18, 2017 8:01 AM in response to dunnd

In the disk section, click Show SMART Status and post the report in a reply.

Reply

Answer 4

dunnd Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 21, 2017 8:22 AM in response to dunnd

I erased the hard disk and reinstalled MacOS High Sierra Beta and the EtreCheck report performance is excellent.

Thanks for all of your suggestions.

Reply

Answer 5

dunnd Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 18, 2017 10:10 PM in response to EcoGreg

I wish I could get rid of Java and Flash but that's what I need to use now for work 😊

I installed High Sierra (10.13) when it first became available in the vain hope that it would fix the performance problems associated with Sierra (10.12). I am running the latest Beta release and it was installed on September 10 so it should be finished doing all the things it does after an update. The performance is poor regardless of which user account is logged in.

Thanks for your help,

Dan

Reply

Answer 6

John Galt

Level 10

158,126 points

Sep 19, 2017 6:08 AM in response to dunnd

Since I have bought this Mac mini, it runs extremely slowly.

The problems you describe are not normal and upgrading macOS to an unreleased version will not help. If you have not already done so, Contact Support. Do that before its warranty period expires.

If you already contacted Apple, what actions did they recommend or perform?

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 Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support. Compare how your Mac works in Safe Mode to how it has been, and describe your observations in a reply to this Discussion.

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.

If the same problems exist in Safe Mode as well as in a temporary User Account, the symptoms you describe and the actions you took strongly suggest a failed hard disk drive. Failed hard disk drives are almost always diagnosed anecdotally – in the symptoms you observe, the actions you take to address them, while also considering their age, assumed environment, and typical use. Since Sierra introduced a completely new logging system, I do not know of a reliable way to diagnose potential hard disk problems. Disk Utility will not suffice. SMART Utilities will not suffice. Until I come across a disk in a state of failure yet operational enough to test I can't provide a means of extracting any applicable log entries that could definitively show those failures.

A definitive conclusion could be drawn by installing Sierra on an external hard disk drive, booting from it, and determining if the symptoms are alleviated while running Sierra from that startup disk. To do that read How to set up and use an external Mac startup disk - Apple Support. If the external hard disk installation of Sierra works properly while the internal one does not, that is all the justification you need to replace the internal drive.

Hard disk drives are inexpensive and are easily replaced: Contact Support to have Apple perform the replacement. The ability to restore from a Time Machine backup makes their inevitable failure a non-event.

Reply

Answer 7

macjack

Level 10

111,272 points

Sep 18, 2017 1:26 PM in response to EcoGreg

Nice catch on 10.13, I completely missed that.

Reply

Answer 8

EcoGreg

Level 3

914 points

Sep 18, 2017 11:18 AM in response to dunnd

Hi dunnd

Several things are going on here…

First it looks like you have some how installed High Sierra 10.13 Not Sierra(10.12)! HS is still Beta. Expect issues!

Your computer is running facial and image ID in Photos. Depending on how big your Photos Library is, this could take days and is a known reason for very slow performance and for the fans to spin up. Nothing to do but wait.

Also TM may take a long time to back-up again.

Finally, since you are on High Sierra, your OS file system is most likely being updated to the new APFS and you may experience some compatibility issues. If your Mini is Flash drive based and this is the Golden Master of HS, it will install APFS instead of HFS+ as the file system, no opt out!

Get rid of JAVA if you can. It will cause issues.

You are going to have conflicts with having 2 versions of Flash Player installed, get rid of the older one. Make sure you have latest current version. FP needs updating almost every week.

Hope this helps, Greg

Reply

Answer 9

dunnd Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 18, 2017 10:01 PM in response to macjack

Here are the results of running First Aid:

Verifying storage system

Performing fsck_cs -n -x --lv --uuid 40EA5C25-18D0-4A54-8224-1484AED02979

Checking volume

disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers

disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Logical Volume Group 40EA5C25-18D0-4A54-8224-1484AED02979 on 1 device

disk0s2: Scan for Metadata Volume

Logical Volume Group has a 24 MB Metadata Volume with double redundancy

Start scanning metadata for a valid checkpoint

Load and verify Segment Headers

Load and verify Checkpoint Payload

Load and verify Transaction Segment

Incorporate 0 newer non-checkpoint transactions

Load and verify Virtual Address Table

Load and verify Segment Usage Table

Load and verify Metadata Superblock

Load and verify Logical Volumes B-Trees

Logical Volume Group contains 1 Logical Volume

Load and verify A23D9D25-F191-47C4-8623-7C784D5C6AC7

Load and verify B421163D-A5B5-4C14-87B7-8549480524CA

Load and verify Freespace Summary

Load and verify Block Accounting

Load and verify Live Virtual Addresses

Newest transaction commit checkpoint is valid

Load and verify Segment Cleaning

The volume 40EA5C25-18D0-4A54-8224-1484AED02979 appears to be OK

Storage system check exit code is 0.

Verifying file system.

Volume could not be unmounted.

Using live mode.

Performing fsck_hfs -fn -l -x /dev/rdisk1

Performing live verification.

Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.

Checking extents overflow file.

Checking catalog file.

Checking multi-linked files.

Checking catalog hierarchy.

Checking extended attributes file.

Checking volume bitmap.

Checking volume information.

The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.

File system check exit code is 0.

Restoring the original state found as mounted.

Operation successful.

Reply

Answer 10

EcoGreg

Level 3

914 points

Sep 19, 2017 11:28 AM in response to dunnd

Hi Dan

So as said before, installing a Beta anything when you are having issues is NOT a good idea! Beta's are the crowd sourcing to find issues and High Sierra has lots. Expect to see even fast updates after HS launches to fix problems in first releases. This is for anyone else viewing this thread.

The other problem with Betas is that both nightly and public betas change lots and lots of code, maybe 10s of thousands of lines affecting ~15million lines of code in the OS. So as these beta updates occur, it may affect lots of processing/databases/analysis going on in your computer. Given the date of install, this wasn't even the Golden Master (GM) so is definitely not ready for prime time.

Third party apps need to be rewritten and updated. Any of your apps can cause issues. 2 highlighted in your EtreCheck include Origin an AE app known to hang Macs. JAVA and Flash and can wreak havoc with macOS and a BETA! Yipes. Want to bet that Adobe says it is not compatible with High Sierra??

Again EtreCheck is showing that in fact at the time of running it, the snapshot is showing lots of Photos processes. This is a background analysis process that takes a long time, gets interrupted all the time, needs to be run nights on end while keeping the Mac awake, needs to upload to Apple servers if using iCloud anything; therefore, dependent on your internet speeds up and down. It also causes Spotlight to keep updating its database, lots going on.

Photos for High Sierra has lots of new coding so it will be a repeat of Sierra with complaints of slow Macs, even top end Macs. You have a Mini with a 5400rpm drive so will take time depending on size of your Photos Library and where you store it, iCloud Drive/Photos/ Streaming. Lots of last minute work in HS for Photos.

Photos analysis has to cycle through your Photos multiple times in order to analyze all the various parts and recognize faces and objects. Little AI is also going on each time through. Next to videos, which might be in your Library, Photos is a very intensive process, using lots of resources. Again only time will solve this, if it is the issue.

OK enough rant… maybe…

All of John G's suggestions are good.

Don't launch, and remove from Launch on Startup in System Preferences, the Origin app and JAVA.

Quit all apps and fully shut down and then reboot. Clears lots of junk.

You can use Activity Monitor (Utility Folder) to see what is going on. You can also sample the various processes, view internet activity, etc… EtreCheck is great, my hats off to the programmers and many thanks, but it is a snapshot of system. In AM you can watch in near real time what is happening. Watch as long and as often as you want. This and the various log files can really help you find your problems. My go to trouble shooting locations.

See what the top processes running are. Then you can focus in on possible app problems.

Turn off all unnecessary apps and let your computer work overnight for a couple nights without sleeping. Leave Photos open. You can turn down your screen brightness overnight if you want.

Good Luck, Greg

Reply

Answer 11

dunnd Author

Level 1

17 points

Sep 19, 2017 6:36 PM in response to EcoGreg

Hi Everybody,

Thanks for all of your suggestions. Yes, I agree that running Beta software is not a good option but I procrastinated and now I'm out of my warranty period. This problem has existed since I bought the computer a year ago when and it was running Sierra so, I do not believe that it is a problem with High Sierra. I have booted in safe mode multiple times and the problem still exists. I have multiple user accounts on this computer and the problem exists for all user accounts.

I have also analyzed for hours the console log messages and activity monitor has been my constant companion. Nothing appears to be out of the ordinary.

I am going to get another external drive and see if booting from it causes the same problems. It seems odd to me that with 16 GB of RAM that simply tab switching between running applications causes the beach ball to start spinning.

I will also contact Apple support to see if they can help. I will post any response I get from them.

Thanks again,

Dan

Reply