I'm in shock, a little skeptical, but relieved!

[a-m-k]

I was just thinking. Since it's summer for me and pretty hot/humid for us and I always use my MBP on my lap. (I'm currently on my kitchen table.) Could the fans be covered up (unintentionally) because of my legs maybe covering up the fans. The bottom of my MBP was extremely hot a few minutes ago. I was sitting on my bed with it on my lap, but I put it on my bed for less than five minutes to do something. So, I was just thinking that maybe I could find an app that keeps track of the temperature of a macbook of anykind. Is there such an app? Is there a range that a macbook/ipad should be at?

 

[snaky69]

I was just thinking. Since it's summer for me and pretty hot/humid for us and I always use my MBP on my lap. (I'm currently on my kitchen table.) Could the fans be covered up (unintentionally) because of my legs maybe covering up the fans. The bottom of my MBP was extremely hot a few minutes ago. I was sitting on my bed with it on my lap, but I put it on my bed for less than five minutes to do something. So, I was just thinking that maybe I could find an app that keeps track of the temperature of a macbook of anykind. Is there such an app? Is there a range that a macbook/ipad should be at?

The computer has protection mechanisms to prevent any heat damage, it doesn't need to be monitored.

 

[a-m-k]

My latest black magic disk speed test, to me, things look a lot better.

 

[a-m-k]

I just ran the black magic screen test again just to see if the numbers got better, as you can see, they are better, but can you all explain what the items marked with an x means? I am extremely pleased things have turned around and that I can save a little extra money to get a really nice MBA when the time comes. (I currently have a mid-2012 MBP and this is the first big problem I have had with it.)

The only thing that I have noticed that my leg did get pretty toasty for a few minutes every now and then (the spot would be located on the upper right hand side of the bottom of my MBP, but overall, things are excellent. I have dealt with tech support two times in the past few months and I have to say they are far more knowledgeable and helpful than other companies I have dealt with.

 

[MacInTO]

I just ran the black magic screen test again just to see if the numbers got better, as you can see, they are better, but can you all explain what the items marked with an x means? I am extremely pleased things have turned around and that I can save a little extra money to get a really nice MBA when the time comes. (I currently have a mid-2012 MBP and this is the first big problem I have had with it.)

The only thing that I have noticed that my leg did get pretty toasty for a few minutes every now and then (the spot would be located on the upper right hand side of the bottom of my MBP, but overall, things are excellent. I have dealt with tech support two times in the past few months and I have to say they are far more knowledgeable and helpful than other companies I have dealt with.

It means whether or not your disk supports that video format.

If you launch the program and go to the Help menu and select 'Disk Speed Test Help' it will open the manual and will have the information in more detail.

I see you've been spending a lot of time diagnosing your machine! You're getting all of the life of that hard drive!

Here's what your machine would look like with an SSD,

 

[a-m-k]

I have two conflicting ideas offline. One person who is actually a person says it's time to look into replacing my MBP and going a step up in the technology of and get a MBA. Another person who uses windows PC's only says I shouldn't have problems. My current MBP has outlasted my old one by at least a year and a half. (I don't remember right now.)

So, I am keeping my eye on things and if things continue to drop. I'm going to look into getting an early 2017 MBA with a lot more space on the HDD. I have no real complaints because my HDD had been backed up and I took off things that I didn't want to keep on my HDD.

This is what I was told to do when I was talking to tech support:
Remove the genie effect on my dock
Use minimal magnification
Use scale effect to minimize windows

I have removed all the pictures after backing up with time machine so that gave me a little more room, too.

 

[saudor]

Your 2012 should be more than enough. A MBA would only be useful if you want something that is lighter and easier to carry. Your best bet as others have stated is to get a SSD. It'll breathe new life into the computer. If you have a time machine backup, all you need to do is hold down the option key and select that drive to restore your system (once you have the SSD installed)

 

[a-m-k]

Your 2012 should be more than enough. A MBA would only be useful if you want something that is lighter and easier to carry. Your best bet as others have stated is to get a SSD. It'll breathe new life into the computer. If you have a time machine backup, all you need to do is hold down the option key and select that drive to restore your system (once you have the SSD installed)

If I do anything, I'm going to wait until early 2017 models come out. Who knows, maybe the internal parts will be a little bit better than what I have now.

 

[a-m-k]

I was going to change models just for a new change. It was recommended I get an MBA. I haven't gotten it, yet. If I did I was going to wait until the early 2017 models come out. My old MBP and my current one were mid year models. I thought an early model MBA from next year would be something interesting. It looks like I lost more, too. At least in the "Write" column.

Does this sound like an HDD problem? Will the green checkmarks continue to change into white "x"s? If they all do, will my MBP turn into a metallic paperweight?

 

[saudor]

Those stats look fine. Don't worry about the checkmarks. That stuff is important for people who work with video

 

[a-m-k]

Those stats look fine. Don't worry about the checkmarks. That stuff is important for people who work with video

Would it make any difference if I use FaceTime on my MBP?

 

[saudor]

Would it make any difference if I use FaceTime on my MBP?

not at all. Your internet is more important for facetime

 

[lambertjohn]

I was thinking that.... I just have to find a way HOW to do it..... Ignore the reply to myself. I don't know what happened.

Plenty of "How-To" videos/text all over the internet.

 

[a-m-k]

Those stats look fine. Don't worry about the checkmarks. That stuff is important for people who work with video

I was talking about the white x's, I assumed the green checkmarks were good.

 

[a-m-k]

To do a quick check on the battery condition.

It said it was normal. I think I overlooked this suggestion.

 

[a-m-k]

I just wanted to add, that my MBP is not a retina display model. I just looked because I was curious.

 

[a-m-k]

I've got a weird theory, but my lap isn't as nearly as hot as it was (right now). When I charged my MBP when I was using it I always had the top of the part that goes into the charge port facing me so I can see the top of the part that goes into the MBP. I now have it facing towards my knees. This is a really stupid theory, I know, but the temperature of the bottom is a lot cooler. (30.8C/87.4F overall.)

Could all this time with the heat problem I have had, hot leg or legs, I usually cross my legs when using my MBP, be because the charging cord wasn't in "right" posisition? (It's a stupid theory. I know. Though, I would like opinions.)

 

[snaky69]

I've got a weird theory, but my lap isn't as nearly as hot as it was (right now). When I charged my MBP when I was using it I always had the top of the part that goes into the charge port facing me so I can see the top of the part that goes into the MBP. I now have it facing towards my knees. This is a really stupid theory, I know, but the temperature of the bottom is a lot cooler. (30.8C/87.4F overall.)

Could all this time with the heat problem I have had, hot leg or legs, I usually cross my legs when using my MBP, be because the charging cord wasn't in "right" posisition? (It's a stupid theory. I know. Though, I would like opinions.)

Charger orientation has no effect whatsoever on heat output.

Look, I'll be blunt: You seem to be either ignoring or skirting the problem everyone's told you you had. Your hard drive is quite probably dying on you and all your slowness problems are likely due to that. If you are using the computer like that and are happy with it, that means buying a new one would be pointless as your current computer already meets your computing needs. Sure a MacBook air would feel faster, but it'd be because a dying hard drive is not crippling its speed.

What you need to do is keep a good backup handy so that when it does eventually croak (which could be a few minutes down the road or a few months, it's luck of the draw) you don't find yourself without your files, pictures, music, etc.

Once it dies, you're going to buy yourself a nice, cheap SSD drive and replace the hard drive that's in there and breathe new life in that perfectly capable machine rather than tossing it. Toss your fear of "third party" stuff out the window, everything in and on your MBP is made by a third party, Apple does not manufacture anything. There is no such things as an Apple SSD or hard drive. Just hard drives or SSDs made by others than Apple has slapped their sticker on.

You'll have a computer that'll feel faster than when it was new. 15 seconds to boot, apps opening in 1 bounce or less on the dock, documents opening instantly, etc.

The replacement process is very easy to do, it'll take longer to reinstall OS X and get everything back up and running than actually swapping the defective part.

 

[a-m-k]

Charger orientation has no effect whatsoever on heat output.

Look, I'll be blunt: You seem to be either ignoring or skirting the problem everyone's told you you had. Your hard drive is quite probably dying on you and all your slowness problems are likely due to that. If you are using the computer like that and are happy with it, that means buying a new one would be pointless as your current computer already meets your computing needs. Sure a MacBook air would feel faster, but it'd be because a dying hard drive is not crippling its speed.

What you need to do is keep a good backup handy so that when it does eventually croak (which could be a few minutes down the road or a few months, it's luck of the draw) you don't find yourself without your files, pictures, music, etc.

Once it dies, you're going to buy yourself a nice, cheap SSD drive and replace the hard drive that's in there and breathe new life in that perfectly capable machine rather than tossing it. Toss your fear of "third party" stuff out the window, everything in and on your MBP is made by a third party, Apple does not manufacture anything. There is no such things as an Apple SSD or hard drive. Just hard drives or SSDs made by others than Apple has slapped their sticker on.

You'll have a computer that'll feel faster than when it was new. 15 seconds to boot, apps opening in 1 bounce or less on the dock, documents opening instantly, etc.

The replacement process is very easy to do, it'll take longer to reinstall OS X and get everything back up and running than actually swapping the defective part.

I do want to do something soon, however I live in a family who all have been on PC related devices. (Except two other iPhones.) Trust me, this is extremely frustrating for me. I wanted to get this taken care of quite a while ago, but unknown to me, the place closed up.

Do you remember me telling you that my family tried to do something when my MBP came back to life. Well, I have a new place to take it to, but since I don't drive, health reasons, its hard.

As for getting a new mac. I was told I should just forget about this MBP and go for a MBA. I was also thinking that once the early year models of the 2017 MBA's come out. I'd get one of those. I know I am going to play a pretty risky game until the early year models of the MBA's come out for next year, though.

The last time I used time machine was on September 1st. I back up on the first of every month. (Though, this might be related and I think it's strange, too, I have to erase what's on my external hard drive to back up my MBP every month, why is that?)

During the calls to Apple directly, I made a few changes on my MBP in the preferences and took off a few apps to replace with better apps that did a better job. That seemed to help, too.

 

[a-m-k]

View attachment 648045

The screen shot I just took right now looks a lot better. All I did was changed some settings, take off a couple of apps and replaced them with two that were suggested by . (Monit and Malwarebytes.) Things are better, too. I don't have the hot lap anymore. I also have more room on my HDD only because I took off things I backed up on my external hard drive. (393.36 GB out of 498.88 GB now. It wasn't ever near capacity.)

Other than calling , and one good friend recently looking at my MBP. It's just this great group and myself trying to figure out what is going on. I know I am not at optimal performance, but this current test is a big jump from where I was and thank you for all the help this far.

 

[a-m-k]

The presence of checkmarks and the numbers are improving. I just ran the black magic speed test again today, but chose not to post the results. I have no idea what this means, I have also noticed a drop in situations where I want to use a certain app on the dock and it's not listed as "not responding". I'm going to assume that iTunes is back to being normal again, too. (I'll check that later.)

Is there anything (like another app, for instance) you all want me to check to see if it functions correctly? As far as I know, all I should be concerned about is what is in the "write" and "read" areas, and they keep going up.

 

[a-m-k]

Is there anything I should look for when turning on my MBP in the morning. It took well over a half a minute to turn on today and that has never happened before. (It usually shut down time that takes a long time to complete.) Is there anything I should look for while I am using it. (Other than slow load time from one page to another or different apps? I was reading once to work on this on my own and it said to limit the number of apps on the doc, too.)

 

[a-m-k]

I've had this reading for the past few days.... If I understand what this mean right, I am surprised my MBP still runs. Up until a few day ago, I was able to get some sort of color coded strip of what took up space on the HDD.

 

[iMacC2D]

Removed.

 

[a-m-k]

Those checkmarks are not for diagnostic purposes. Blackmagic is a company that produces medium to high end video production equipment for studios, and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is intended for professionals that want to determine whether their internal disk is fast enough to record a type of video without frame drops or performance issues. So a MacBook Pro with a standard hard drive (non-SSD) will always have grey or red "X"s on most of the boxes, because the drives in those machines simply aren't fast enough even when they are working perfectly.

That said the Hard Drive Cable in the MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) is notoriously unreliable and can cause all kinds of performance issues. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it slows down, sometimes the drive won't mount or detect, sometimes the computer won't boot. As a matter of fact Apple has an active quality program for defective drive cables. I replace about 10-20 a week, and for some that would be considered low volume. It's extremely common.

The drive could also be failing. Not unheard of by any means.

Knowing these machines, I typically run SMART Utility over the drives. ( https://www.volitans-software.com/apps/smart-utility/ ) If SMART Utility shows "PASSED" next to the drive name, then there is a good chance the drive is fine, and I replace the hard drive cable. If it shows "FAILING" or "FAILED", then I replace both the drive and the drive cable at once to resolve the issue.

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