[SOLVED] Mac painfully slow

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rahamk

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Nov 10, 2010
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Hello,
My girlfriends Macbook has been running painfully slow lately. She is going to bring it to the apple store to get looked at later this week but i was going to try and see if there was anyway to fix it without their help. The internet is terribly slow it can take up to a min or two to load pages while using roadrunner. I deleted the history and cache, no change. I am now downloading Firefox. A site i read said to download a mac cleaner but i do not know of one that is safe/good to use. I guess i am here looking for suggestions and help on how to "fix" this slow computer. I am not a Mac guy so i am completely clueless. Thanks in advance!
 
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There are a number of reasons that may causing a macbook running slow, but generally two factors: hardware part & system part. For hardware part: I guess it's OK if your Mac is not that old. For system part: there might be a lot of junk files, caches, registry errors... out there which largely slow down any Mac machines. Here are a couple of things you can check:
- Check your Login Items under System Preferences > Accounts to see what you have automatically launching.Also check /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /Users/yourusername/Library/LaunchAgents/ for items launching at startup
- Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes". Then see what may be consuming your OS X system resources.
-...
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Do a PRAM and see if it is faster.Google it and then proceed from there.Roadrunner is not to fast to start with.
 
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Apple computers sometimes slows down when updating. If this is done through a wireless connection, this may severely slow down your other internet activities for days on end (until update completes). Connect the Mac with a LAN-cable to your network (modem/router) and leave it on for a couple of hours (perhaps even start the update process manually to make sure it is running). This may solve the problem.
 
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There are a number of reasons that may causing a macbook running slow, but generally two factors: hardware part & system part. For hardware part: I guess it's OK if your Mac is not that old. For system part: there might be a lot of junk files, caches, registry errors... out there which largely slow down any Mac machines. Here are a couple of things you can check:
- Check your Login Items under System Preferences > Accounts to see what you have automatically launching.Also check /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /Users/yourusername/Library/LaunchAgents/ for items launching at startup
- Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes". Then see what may be consuming your OS X system resources.
- Check the System Memory tab at the bottom of Activity Monitor to see if you have excessive "page outs", a sign that you may benefit from more RAM.
- Check if you are running any poor Mac anti-virus programs as they may take large resources.

Learn more: http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html
 
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Solution
Wow! I've been in your shoes so many times. You must be really confused at all these different suggestions. Believe it or not most of them are very good advice.

The only problem is you need a mac genius to put them in order for you, by priority and likely relevance; This is what I do when taking my dog to the vet. Unfortunately, for us both, my superpower is bargain shopping, but I'll try to contribute a little something.
If you zap the pram (perammiter ram, misspelled/no charge) it couldn't hurt, although for the kind of performance issues you have I doubt it will be a miracle.

To do this, restart and when you see the screen go black hold down the p and the r and the option and command keys all at the same time while the start up cycles through with 3 separate start up cycle chimes ( I've been known to do 5 cycles, but I'm knutts)
Next the predictable thing to do with any performance mystery, assuming you have the boot-up or install disk for her OS, (you should always name the version OS X aka Snow Leopard/10.6 or leopard/10.5, etc.) is run Disk first aid, rarely fixes it or even identifies real problems but it's like centering your core.

Insert install disk (#1) ~link to a genius giving directions
(http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/macbook_13inch_mid2010_ug.pdf)
Select the icon on the left margin that represents your gf's Mac. Once it is highlighted select "repair permissions" ( I have been told to do this before selecting "repair disk").

You will see "verify permissions", "verify disk", above these choices, but I just select the bottom action buttons because it takes as much time to be told you need to repair permissions, and why not just do it.

Each step: "repair permissions" and "repair disk" can take 2-12 minutes or even more, so relax and don't worry, a watch pot never boils.

When you come back you can look at the log and see if permissions were whack, ( they usually are, at east a few) and then when you, concurrently, select "repair disk" and come back, if repairs were made, you see it in the scroll down log.

After these two steps, Go back to "Start up disk" in Utilities and choose the original icon representing gf's hard drive, and highlight it again, then select restart.

I know this seems daunting but if you drink the Apple coolaid, it's like changing your babies (that looks just like you) diaper, and becomes second nature. The steps above, and the next one, should be done periodically, to prevent the software from getting corrupted, (natural softwear and tear).

my final suggestion, (they're coming to take me away) A good cache cleaning is in order. Fresh off the press and free is http://www.piriform.com/mac/ccleaner install it if you need to and then run it.
At this point if the problems isn't fixed, you may get advised to do other things and perhaps they are valid, but personally, even if i didn't have my mac backed up (everyone is saying Nooo!) I would reinstall the OS from that same "boot disk".

I say this because for a long time I sat on the same problem and didn't have a back-up drive or the space on my hard drive to partition, nor the confidence that i knew how, until I finally just reinstalled any way, devil may care, and never lost a font or a phone number. I may be wrong but that's my humble wanna be experience.
Mozl Tov!

 
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This is a good answer. I learned from it and will try it in the future, thanks!
 
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Wow, grumpy ol' fella, aren't you?

Smashing my head with a hammer doesn't seem like a very smart thing to do. Might hurt just a little bit 🙁

I didn't much care for the old macs as I do for the new ones. The Power PC hardware was.... Different.

Now you have yourself an exquisite and lovely day, Marv. :)
 
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What Mac OSX are you running, 10.4,10.5,10.6,10.7? Try and verify and repair your disk permissions and disk in the disk utility under the tools drop down menu in your finder. Also go to your console in the same uttilities folder and post the log entries from when you start your Mac up. Also post the entries from after you start up as well. Anti-virus is a huge problem with start up issues for Mac from my experience. If you are running 10.7 I will tell you how to reset your permissions, this is more effective than the regular verify and repair permissions.
 
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What Mac OSX are you running, 10.4,10.5,10.6,10.7? Try and verify and repair your disk permissions and disk in the disk utility under the tools drop down menu in your finder. Also go to your console in the same uttilities folder and post the log entries from when you start your Mac up. Also post the entries from after you start up as well. Anti-virus is a huge problem with start up issues for Mac from my experience. If you are running 10.7 I will tell you how to reset your permissions, this is more effective than the regular verify and repair permissions.
 
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