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Macbook air random stutter clarification

S

staradder

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 25, 2011
15
0
Hello,

I just got my brand new macbook air 2011 and its fantastic. However there are a few things that bother me and i would be really grateful if someone could clarify for me if its the case for all the macbook airs or just mine.

Maybe im just being too fps sensitive but i use it mainly for app development and in xcode 4.2, if i scroll in some of the tabs such as the app "summary" tab or "info" tab it lags while scrolling up and down. Not too badly but still significantly.

Also, when i am viewing a 200+ page pdf and i attempt to zoom in it starts to lag pretty badly when scrolling through when its in a "zoomed" state". Besides these minor things the macbook is a beast and i really love it. So if anyone out there be so kind to clarify these issues, ill be extremely grateful. If its just my macbook ill submit a support ticket.

Thanks very much for reading
 
MacModMachine

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
staradder said:
Hello,

I just got my brand new macbook air 2011 and its fantastic. However there are a few things that bother me and i would be really grateful if someone could clarify for me if its the case for all the macbook airs or just mine.

Maybe im just being too fps sensitive but i use it mainly for app development and in xcode 4.2, if i scroll in some of the tabs such as the app "summary" tab or "info" tab it lags while scrolling up and down. Not too badly but still significantly.

Also, when i am viewing a 200+ page pdf and i attempt to zoom in it starts to lag pretty badly when scrolling through when its in a "zoomed" state". Besides these minor things the macbook is a beast and i really love it. So if anyone out there be so kind to clarify these issues, ill be extremely grateful. If its just my macbook ill submit a support ticket.

Thanks very much for reading
Click to expand...


i have no issue with 400+ page pdf's , zooming in and out without issues.

must be an issue somewhere , what media is the pdf on ?
 
B

bill-p

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2011
2,889
1,550
Those are expected behaviors. That's as much as I can say.

If you are expecting it to be a smooth sail like on your iPhone or iPad, then you're in for some disappointment. Even the fastest Mac on the planet, the Mac Pro, still stutters in some regular occasions with very light load.
 
MacModMachine

MacModMachine

macrumors 68020
Apr 3, 2009
2,476
392
Canada
bill-p said:
Those are expected behaviors. That's as much as I can say.

If you are expecting it to be a smooth sail like on your iPhone or iPad, then you're in for some disappointment. Even the fastest Mac on the planet, the Mac Pro, still stutters in some regular occasions with very light load.
Click to expand...

this is completely untrue.
 
S

staradder

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 25, 2011
15
0
I've done a complete hardware test and etc because im that paranoid and there were no errors whatsoever. Im thinking this is just normal behaviour and im being paranoid.

Im viewing a pdf file in the default mac preview program which support full screen mode.. and in full screen mode when i view it fit to screen and i scroll up and down it lags when scrolling.

Nowhere near as smooth as scrolling in an iphone or ipad so what bill-p is supposedly true unless i have gotten a product with a defect that the hardware test cannot find.

I would really appreciate if anyone could open up a pdf and try scrolling up and down when in full screen mode and tell me if you experience the same thing. Otherwise i would have to call apple support to ensure i didn't recieve a defect product

EDIT: I also noticed that a certain process called "mdworker" shoots up toe 80% even 99.5% sometimes when i scroll vigorously.
 
antonis

antonis

macrumors 68020
Jun 10, 2011
2,085
1,009
mdworker is the indexing mechanism used by spotlight searches.It has nothing to do with scrolling a pdf but it can take some resources from the cpu sometimes (causing a momentarily stutter), especially when you plug in a new media/disk that tries to index. Although, after indexing is done, you should not see it taking any cpu power.
 
B

bill-p

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2011
2,889
1,550
MacModMachine said:
this is completely untrue.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you haven't run into it. But I have, and it's just a fact that there are things that can bring a Mac to stutter beyond recognition.

staradder said:
I've done a complete hardware test and etc because im that paranoid and there were no errors whatsoever. Im thinking this is just normal behaviour and im being paranoid.

Im viewing a pdf file in the default mac preview program which support full screen mode.. and in full screen mode when i view it fit to screen and i scroll up and down it lags when scrolling.

Nowhere near as smooth as scrolling in an iphone or ipad so what bill-p is supposedly true unless i have gotten a product with a defect that the hardware test cannot find.

I would really appreciate if anyone could open up a pdf and try scrolling up and down when in full screen mode and tell me if you experience the same thing. Otherwise i would have to call apple support to ensure i didn't recieve a defect product

EDIT: I also noticed that a certain process called "mdworker" shoots up toe 80% even 99.5% sometimes when i scroll vigorously.
Click to expand...

Certain PDF files with high resolution images and a lot of vector graphics will cause Preview to stutter, and it's especially bad in fullscreen. I have tested this behavior on Engadget's magazine PDF file on a Mac Mini 2011 (w/ Radeon 6630m), an iMac 2008 24", a Macbook Pro 2010 13", a Macbook Air 2010 13", and a Mac Pro 2006...

There is just no way around it. Certain PDF files are just too much for Preview. The only exception would be if it's a PDF with plain text, only text, and nothing else. In such a case, the behavior you are experiencing is not normal.
 
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