CurtisRider Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 I just acquired a MacBook Pro, it has had a wipe and fresh install from Apple and so should be running pretty sweetly. Unfortunately this is not the case, it is slow to do anything (even opening a new tab on Safari), it always comes up with that rainbow wheel thing and is just thoroughly disappointing compared to my 5 year old Toshiba poverty laptop which it was supposed to be replacing! I mainly want to use this laptop for the internet and for Word/PowerPoint stuff for my teaching, so I am not asking much of it at all. I have the 2.66 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4GB 1067 MHZ DDR3 ram and the version 10.6.8 of the Snow Leopard operating system and I am currently downloading Mountain Lion in the hope it'll make some kind of difference (slow net connection means it'll take a while to download). Can anybody think of a reason why the laptop may be playing up? I did winder if the hardrive was perhaps getting tired out as it is nearly 3 years old and causing it to be slow, it isn't that noisy though so that suggests its probably alright still although I am tempted to by an SSD to keep it running quickly (I don't need much storage space as this isn't my main computer). Are there any settings that I can adjust to get better performance out of it? I'm new to Mac computers so i'm not really aware of what I can do with these things yet compared to a windows PC. Cheers in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arw_86 Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 All id say is go see apple. Their customer service is the best out there. Especially as they did the wipe and reinstall they will be more inclined to sort it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisRider Posted March 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 Yeah that was going to be my next option but I didn't want to go before seeing if there were any simple easy to fix reasons for its slug like performance Apple are very good for after sales care, they have replaced my iPad twice with no fuss (although it's disappointing that all 3 iPads have been unreliable I guess...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 Yeah it should be pretty zippy with that spec - I've got an 'Early 2011' Macbook Pro so pretty similar to yours. I recently bought an SSD (which is amazing BTW - should have done it years ago)* and before I installed that it would run smoothly but grind to a halt after a while with lots of tabs (15+). But on a fresh restart with only a few tabs open it would be pretty quick, suggesting that something is definitely not right with yours. It may well be the hard drive from the sounds of it. The usual stuff - open up activity monitor and check that all your RAM is available / not being used Check the CPU usage (also in activity monitor) and make sure there isn't one thing that's hogging that One thing most people suggest for random errors is to 'Repair Permissions' on the disk using the Disk Utility app. I doubt this ever really does anything but it's worth a try You can do a hardware test (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1509) to see if that identifies any problems. You'll probably have to do the extended tests (takes hours - I suggest leaving it overnight) to identify any HDD problems *I also bought 16Gb of RAM because it's a hilariously large amount. According to activity monitor I've never even used half of it This does have the advantage of never needing to close down applications. Although from the SSD, Photoshop only takes about 3 seconds to load anyway. I love my computer's recent upgrade! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisRider Posted March 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 Cheers for your help Tomm! I think a ram and HD upgrade is on the cars regardless. Battery does 2.5 hours so isn't bad but shouldn't it do more like 4 or 5? Could replace the battery whilst i'm there you see. What HD and ram did you go for? I have done the repair/verify thing, nothing has changed. Activity monitor says: System 70% idle Memory 1GB inactive HD 300GB free So something is eating up my ram, I have 5 tabs open (FB, eBay, TF, Hotmail and a Mac forum) so they shouldn't be consuming too much. I have not got any programs installed yet, and have closed any pre installed ones that I have opened when exploring Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 2.5 hours is a bit less than your battery should get, but not by lots. Depends what you're doing of course. Mine says it has 4.5 hours from full charge. You can try running the battery down completely a few times to 'calibrate' it, that sometimes helps. I would have thought that your memory 1Gb inactive is about right. OS X is different to Windows in how it allocates memory. So 'inactive' is not the same as free. I think if you have something open, then shut it down, OS X will try and keep that application's data in the RAM as 'inactive' unless more RAM is needed for other things. I.e. if you reopen the application straight away then the data may still be in RAM for quicker loading. Having said all that, I don't know exactly what are healthy values. Mine is 1.87Gb Wired/2.45Gb Active/282Mb Inactive/11.40 Gb free ( ). I would be more concerned as to why you're only on 70% idle. What is taking up the 30%? With 13 apps open at the moment I have 87% idle. 10% of that is a quicktime decoder for one of my tabs. If you're doing nothing then 70% is wrong - however make sure that the spotlight search isn't indexing. That happens automatically after a reinstall and does take a while, hogging CPU and HDD speed until it's finished. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Aston Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 i found after i got my new mac mini that it took a few days of use to get properly snappy and i think this was down to spotlight search was indexing after that its flying. 16gb of ram will be going in soon and possibly a ssd although im struggling to justify it at the moment. off topic but still relevant. there are a few viruses popping up recently disguised as java updates. i have been recommended sophos anti virus for mac. its a free download from their website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisRider Posted March 30, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 Spotlight isn't indexing, so thats another thing to cross off the list.... Mine can only go to 8GB ram, although I'm sure that is plenty for what i need, even 4GB is! I found that the Mail thing is soaking up some CPU speed, for some reason it wants to load EVERY email in my inbox, rather than the last 50 like my iPad/iPhone do? Can I change that? I will try Sophos, I have to have an antivirus on there to be allowed on the school network anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blake Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 It's weird that it's running slow, my standard macbook from 2006 runs faster than pretty much all my friends laptops that are new models. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 I'd just leave it. The mail thing is the problem but it'll go away when it's finished its thing. I'm sure there's a way to make Mail do what you want, but I don't know it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_malcolm Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 repair persmissions can be pretty usefull i used it on my late 2008 macbook and it did speed up a bit afterwards. Also a ram upgrade can do huge differences i upgraded from 2 to 8 gig of ram and it runs like its brand new now and mine is older and lower spec then yours is. Its probably something really petty thats doing it so I would recomend taking it into apple there is no harm in doing so. I have heard mixed reviews about lion slowing down some machines im on snow leopard 10.6.8 with no issues at all. It could potentially be the hard drive giving up mines over 5 years old no issues but hard drives can be hit or miss though. Battery wise yeah that happens after some time mine last about 2.5 - 3.5 depending on what im doing and what mood it is in lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bikerdude2006fr Posted March 30, 2013 Report Share Posted March 30, 2013 My 2009 macbook was running really slow until I did a NVRAM reset. It's been super speedy since so worth a try.... - Shut down your Mac. - Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4. - Turn on the computer. - Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears. - Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time. - Release the keys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 I found with mine (similar spec to yours but 8gb ram and a ssd) if you do an OSX upgrade performance was utterly terrible. A nice fresh install wiping the drive and all was nice and speedy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisRider Posted April 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 Thanks for everybody's help. I installed Mountain Lion and the difference is huge, it's so much faster than before! This was on top of a clean install already if that makes sense. My processor is often at 90% free with occasional dips to 70%. I am going to order some more ram soon though as the computer appears to be eating it up and many people recommend it, and then once my student loan comes through I will order an SSD (or maybe just wait and order both together...) I will get the 8GB ram and 256GB SSD from Crucial unless anybody can recommend better for a similar price? I did wonder about going 16GB ram but I fear its a bit extravagant for a computer that only does net, basic Photoshopping and word processing... Ram: http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=668A5C6BA5CA7304 SSD with transfer cable: http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=ECC1BE18A5CA7304 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted April 3, 2013 Report Share Posted April 3, 2013 After a few hours using Photoshop yesterday I managed to use more than half of my 16Gb - just! I suspect if I was using large files, or maybe some complex Final Cut project, it would be worthwhile to have 16, but 8 would easily be fine for me. Having said that, there was only £25 difference when I ordered, and 16Gb makes me lol more. P.S. That was the SSD I bought a few weeks ago - very happy with it although they had a 20% off sale so it was £110+VAT. Might be worth waiting and seeing if they have another sale? Do you need the transfer cable? I didn't bother. I just did a clean install but moved all the files from a Time Machine backup via the Migration Assistant. All worked very painlessly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted April 5, 2013 Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 I have 2 hard drives in my macbook pro. I have a 120gb Vertex 3 SSD and the original 320gb mechanical drive. Using one of these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-Optibay-2nd-Hard-Drive-Caddy-SATA-/280707023971?pt=UK_Computing_Other_Computing_Networking&hash=item415b714463 The 120gb SSD is more than enough for OS-X and all my applications. Saying that my SSD cost more than that crucial 256gb. I can't say ive needed the cd drive since but i put the original drive in one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Slot-in-USB-To-Sata-External-CD-DVD-RW-Drive-Enclosure-Caddy-For-MACBOOK-PRO-Air-/200768013495?pt=UK_Computing_Drives_Storage_CD_DVD_Drives_ET&hash=item2ebeb4c4b7 On the ram note prices seem to have rocketed. My 8gb was ~£30 about a year ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted April 5, 2013 Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 Yeah I've done that too. Also remapped the redundant 'eject' key to mount/unmount my 320gb standard drive to save battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted April 5, 2013 Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 I can't say i noticed any real drop in battery but i guess i would have seen a gain if i simply swapped the mechanical drive for the SSD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Aston Posted April 5, 2013 Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 On the ram note prices seem to have rocketed. My 8gb was ~£30 about a year ago. i noticed this too, I looked at ram for my mini end of last year and im sure it was about £40 for 16gb now its closer to £100 SSD prices do seem to be coming down which is a good thing. does any body know if its possible to boot from a USB drive, i dont really want to risk my warrenty fitting the SSD internally but rather stick it in a USB3 caddy and just boot from that? Would the speeds be better than the 5400rpm internal drive thats in it now. Thanks Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted April 5, 2013 Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 For the sake of speed, neatness, stability, user-friendliness, install the hard drive within the case. If you don't feel up to doing it, pay someone? It'd only take 30 mins for someone to do. iFixit is a great website http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Mac+mini+Model+A1283+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1063/1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisRider Posted April 7, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2013 Cheers for your help everybody! Running 2 hardrives sounds well handy! And by having my CD drive as an external drive it means my girlfriend can nab it too (she has the new Macbook with no CD drive). Cheers for the links! Laptops been running really nicely since updating, I now have Fusion running Windows 7 Ultimate so I can use some education software that's Windows only as well as running XP mode so I can run my Car disagnostics stuff as it's not 7 compatible...XP inside Windows 7 inside Mountain Lion, poor computer! It's coping pretty well in all fairness to it. Battery life has improved quite alot since full charge/discharge, I get about 3.5-4 hours depending on what I am doing which is acceptable. Also just got a VGA adaptor and a HDMI adaptor so I can run it into a projector/TV, just need some money so I can order the ram and SSD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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