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Mid 2010 MBP Very sluggish upon upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mavericks

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Saladsamurai

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
152
0
Running a Mid 2010 MBP with maxed out RAM. I upgraded from SL to Mavericks and I am running very sluggish. I am not running any memory intensive apps either. Just browsing the web and the like. I know that after SL, the OSes starting getting into features that "save the state" of the machine so that one can start up their Mac and continue working where they left off.

My guess is is that there are background processes such as this and possibly others that are contributing to the sluggish behavior. Any suggestions? Are there any features that I have control of that I can toggle off to improve performance? My next step would be to downgrade back to SL, but I am assuming that they have stopped supporting it (or will soon stop).

Thank you for reading.
 
Partron22

Partron22

macrumors 68030
Apr 13, 2011
2,655
808
Yes
Give the machine a week or so to settle down before considering a downdate. There's always indexing and some little prefs file or other that takes a while to reset itself for smooth running.
You can now turn off the annoying "reopen windows" feature with a checkbox in the shutdown dialog. Mac now remembers the value of that box, unless you crash or similar. Checking the box can speed up boot substantially.
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,340
12,458
Chances are, it's the internal hard drive.

Question:
Do you have a platter-based hard disk drive inside?

Both Mavericks -and- Yosemite seem to run much (as in "MUCH") slower on HDD's than on SSD's. Many users have reported similar experiences. I've experienced it myself.

If you've got an HDD inside, swap it out for an SSD, and you'll find things run FAR faster...
 
S

Saladsamurai

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
152
0
Partron22 said:
Give the machine a week or so to settle down before considering a downdate. There's always indexing and some little prefs file or other that takes a while to reset itself for smooth running.
You can now turn off the annoying "reopen windows" feature with a checkbox in the shutdown dialog. Mac now remembers the value of that box, unless you crash or similar. Checking the box can speed up boot substantially.
Click to expand...

Thanks Patron22 - I've had it running Mav for about a month or two now, so it's all done indexing and what not. I also unchecked that re-open windows business. I don't know that I have had much use for the upgrade which is why I am considering the downgrade. I only upgraded it to use a particular piece of software ... I should have just looked for an older version or an alternative. Thanks for your suggestions though. :)

Fishrrman said:
Chances are, it's the internal hard drive.

Question:
Do you have a platter-based hard disk drive inside?

Both Mavericks -and- Yosemite seem to run much (as in "MUCH") slower on HDD's than on SSD's. Many users have reported similar experiences. I've experienced it myself.

If you've got an HDD inside, swap it out for an SSD, and you'll find things run FAR faster...
Click to expand...

I do have a platter-based HDD. I am not really looking to upgrade. I know that prices have come down a bit on SDDs ... but I can't really justify the cost just to make my OS run smooth ... downgrading is free. :) I may swap out the optical drive someday with a small SDD to run apps and OS from. But I need to research the value of doing that a little more. Thanks again!
 
S

Saladsamurai

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
152
0
File Recovery

If I do decide to downgrade, I am curious: Can I use a Time Machine backup to restore my files? I know that applications I will need to re-install, but I would like to maintain my current file structure if at all possible. Thanks again.
 
C

comics addict

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2013
624
40
Saladsamurai said:
If I do decide to downgrade, I am curious: Can I use a Time Machine backup to restore my files? I know that applications I will need to re-install, but I would like to maintain my current file structure if at all possible. Thanks again.
Click to expand...

I did managed to get my files from a time machine backup once when I downgraded from mavericks to mountain lion and as recent as from Yosemite beta to the shipping version of mavericks. The only thing you can't do is bring back incompatible apps. Can't remember if I used migration assistance during setup on both occasions but I think so because I don't remember manually move over my files. I know for certain that I could browse my time machine backups from the time machine interface once setup. It's been a while since did this but do remember how amazed I was that time machine was that versatile.
 
S

Saladsamurai

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 8, 2009
152
0
comics addict said:
I did managed to get my files from a time machine backup once when I downgraded from mavericks to mountain lion and as recent as from Yosemite beta to the shipping version of mavericks. The only thing you can't do is bring back incompatible apps. Can't remember if I used migration assistance during setup on both occasions but I think so because I don't remember manually move over my files. I know for certain that I could browse my time machine backups from the time machine interface once setup. It's been a while since did this but do remember how amazed I was that time machine was that versatile.
Click to expand...

Thanks ca. As I recall, the last time I used TM (ages ago) there was a "just files" option. I will do a non-TM backup to be safe.
 
satcomer

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,973
The Finger Lakes Region
Saladsamurai said:
Running a Mid 2010 MBP with maxed out RAM. I upgraded from SL to Mavericks and I am running very sluggish. I am not running any memory intensive apps either. Just browsing the web and the like. I know that after SL, the OSes starting getting into features that "save the state" of the machine so that one can start up their Mac and continue working where they left off.

My guess is is that there are background processes such as this and possibly others that are contributing to the sluggish behavior. Any suggestions? Are there any features that I have control of that I can toggle off to improve performance? My next step would be to downgrade back to SL, but I am assuming that they have stopped supporting it (or will soon stop).

Thank you for reading.
Click to expand...

Since you upgraded and you have older services that are incompatible. So download the free program EtreCheck and run it. Whatever shows up in Red manually delete it. The program will show you the path to manually delete it. Once you have gone this immediately reboot then upon the reboot empty Trash and enjoy the speed.
 
A

asoksevil

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2010
483
158
London, UK
The first time I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mavericks I found it to be extremenly laggy, overspinning fangs and high CPU usage so decided to go with a clean install. This is way better than just upgrading, a lot of incompatibilities, customizations, files, configurations that were left behind and they are not making their way on Mavericks might be the core issue.

I had my Time Machine backup and all the important documents with it so if I needed any particular file I could just grab it from the HDD.

I would suggest anyone thinking on upgrading to Mavericks or any system to go with a clean install.
 
kwokaaron

kwokaaron

macrumors 6502a
Sep 20, 2013
574
257
London, UK
Try using Onyx and run the cleaning and maintenance tasks. I always use it after I do an OS upgrade. Definitely helps if you're using a platter-based HDD like I used to (my friends always asks me why my computer seemed so much faster than theirs).

Like mentioned by satcomer, make sure your apps are up-to-date and use Activity Monitor to see what apps are running in the background that you don't need it to. Cut down your login items.
 
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