Send Help - Slow MBP

[Mac03ForLife]

Please, someone help a guy out
I have an MBP 8,1 and it is slow as molasses going uphill in January.
There's almost nothing on the drive, only about 222GB used of 500 5400RPM SATA Drive

I can't get a clean startup, transfers are slow as... well, you know,
FF57 wont launch, Preview freezes when I hit Cmd+P, and it just overall is not the screaming machine it was 3months ago

It runs OSX 10.12 Sierra, (10.13 would REALLY kill it)

PLEASE IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO UNTIL I GET IT WIPED CLEAN AND REFLASH 10.6.8?
SEND HELP!

 

[Fishrrman]

Put an SSD into it.
Problems solved.

 

[CoastalOR]

It could be a degraded internal SATA disk cable that needs to be replaced and/or a failing internal HDD. Have you tested the drive with First Aid in Disk Utility? If it is a hardware problem, then downgrading to Snow Leopard will not solve your problem.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

It could be a degraded internal SATA disk cable that needs to be replaced and/or a failing internal HDD. Have you tested the drive with First Aid in Disk Utility? If it is a hardware problem, then downgrading to Snow Leopard will not solve your problem.

@CoastalOR You were spot on. Thanks

 

[Mac03ForLife]

@CoastalOR Now the question remains: What caused it, and can it be fixed using Apple's native Disk Utility? The scan came back positive for corrupt HDD. What's the best course of action?

 

[treekram]

If the HDD is original to the MBP or even more than a couple of years old, it's likely that the drive is failing and should be replaced. If it's new or under warranty, get it exchanged/replaced. It's possible that it was just a fluke incident and that the drive will work fine but I wouldn't use it unless you run a complete sector-by-sector diagnostic on it. The software I use to test HDD's cost $40, which is not financially feasible if you only need to test a single HDD. In that case, you should just buy a new HDD. If you wish to continue to use your 2011 MBP, you can buy a SSD - now is a good time as there tend to be sales at this time of year. If you buy a new HDD or SSD, they can be re-used as external drives (by buying an enclosure) if you upgrade to a new MBP or MBA in the future. A HDD or SSD you buy for your 2011 MBP will not be usable INSIDE a current model MBP or MBA.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

Okay @treekram so. I would like to be able to keep using this drive, as my household has a strict no internal modifications. I cannot do anything about the RAM or the SSD. However, I can get an external drive. Is it worth it? Can i actually boot off of it? Considering it just sits on a shelf and powers a desktop setup, I can get away with constantly having to have an external drive connected. However, this isn't really a permanent solution, as I do need it for college classes, etc.

Btw: All this help has been quite .... helpful. A huge heap of thanks to all of you!

 

[elf69]

thunderbolt external would be one option but fitting an SSD inside is much better if you need move about.

but if you have a rule of no mods you might be in trouble there.
your Mac should happily run Sierra or high Sierra without issues.

In long run an internal SSD is way to go.

my old MacBook had an ssd and pulled the cd drive and fitted 2nd hdd there.
carried usb cd drive for very rare times I needed it.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
Thread title updated to be more descriptive. OP, please avoid such generic titles like "help" as they do not provide adequate explanation. The thread was also moved to the MBP forum, since the discussion isn't related to macOS.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Okay @treekram so. I would like to be able to keep using this drive, as my household has a strict no internal modifications. I cannot do anything about the RAM or the SSD. However, I can get an external drive. Is it worth it? Can i actually boot off of it? Considering it just sits on a shelf and powers a desktop setup, I can get away with constantly having to have an external drive connected. However, this isn't really a permanent solution, as I do need it for college classes, etc.

Btw: All this help has been quite .... helpful. A huge heap of thanks to all of you!

Why no internal mods it’s very easy. See below also it is quite likely that an HDD cable will also be needed.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/10378

You can of course boot from an external but you have a 2011 machine with usb 2 making it a pretty damn slow interface for your hard drive, and makes an ssd fairly pointless.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

@Samuelsan2001 Okay. I get what youre saying about USB 2.0 buses being incredibly slow. I agree. The question now is... My parents say they were able to get the thing working, albeit not too well. It doesn't crash as much as it did, and it seems to be in a just...barely...usable...state. Does this mean that after factory resetting the thing, that the drive is still corrupted? Also if I were to go to the apple store, would they a. Charge extra for a new drive b. steal all my data c. flash 10.13 and tell me have a good day d. flash 10.10 LIKE I TOLD THEM TO or e. a combination of those?

Basically, can they repair the drive, or am I better moving this to the display stand in the workshop

(Ironically, I fix computers for people in the school that I go to, and I'm practically the IT guy for the school, but my parents won't let me gut my own machines. How's that for irony?).

 

[elf69]

No they would not be able to repair the drive.

The drive needs replacing with a hdd or ssd.

as your machine out of warranty now it odd why your parents will not allow you to repair/upgrade your own machine.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

@elf69 Idk man
I really dont want to let this thing go
It's out of warranty for sure.
It sat on a shelf "dead" for 3 years
I then took it into apple and they flashed it with OSX 10.11 El Cap
It was terribly slow

I then moved to Sierra
It worked "Somewhat" faster

Then the drive broke
and now im sad

 

[elf69]

I had a 2010 MacBook that was similar and an ssd fixed it and it ran really really well.
almost as fast as my 2012 MacBook Air. but the 2010 MacBook died on me few weeks ago.

your MacBook Pro has thunderbolt so external wise for speed thunderbolt is fastest option without opening it up.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

@Samuelsan2001 Okay. I get what youre saying about USB 2.0 buses being incredibly slow. I agree. The question now is... My parents say they were able to get the thing working, albeit not too well. It doesn't crash as much as it did, and it seems to be in a just...barely...usable...state. Does this mean that after factory resetting the thing, that the drive is still corrupted? Also if I were to go to the apple store, would they a. Charge extra for a new drive b. steal all my data c. flash 10.13 and tell me have a good day d. flash 10.10 LIKE I TOLD THEM TO or e. a combination of those?

Basically, can they repair the drive, or am I better moving this to the display stand in the workshop

(Ironically, I fix computers for people in the school that I go to, and I'm practically the IT guy for the school, but my parents won't let me gut my own machines. How's that for irony?).

They will probably replace the drive it’s more than 5 years old it’s almost certainly dying, you don’t want this. They won’t steal your data (99% of people’s data is fairly worthless) Apple will charge you more to replace a hard drive (if they will do it at all, that model is on the we don’t support anymore list, maybe) than it will cost you to put a killer ssd in there and replace the SATA cable.

Have a chat with the parents explain that it’s a fine machine and that without some work it’s worthless and that for $150 you can make it better than new. Or they can throw it out.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"The scan came back positive for corrupt HDD. What's the best course of action?"

I'll repeat:
Put an SSD into it.
Problems solved.

The internal drive is broken.
It needs to be replaced.
The computer won't run with a broken drive.
That... is all...

 

[treekram]

An internal solution is the best solution, preferably 7200rpm HDD or SSD. You probably can't get 7200rpm in 2-1/2" HDD's with a size larger than 1TB.

If you can't do the internal, you have 3 external options with the 2011 MBP. USB 2 (480Mbps), FireWire 800 (800Mbps) or Thunderbolt 1 (10000Mbps). Thunderbolt only makes sense if you get an SSD - the cheapest one I see when I do a search on Amazon is the Monster Digital 240GB ($150). I have this connected to a 2014 Mini and it has worked well for me over 2 years. If you use a Thunderbolt device, you cannot connect an external monitor via DisplayPort as Thunderbolt and DisplayPort use the same port.

The next fastest option is FireWire 800, which will not keep up with a fast 7200rpm HDD (a couple of my recent 7200 2-1/2" drives do about 90MB/sec). You'd have to get a FireWire 800 enclosure which can house a SATA drive. For example:

https://www.amazon.com/OWC-Mercury-Portable-USB3-0-Enclosure/dp/B00AR9ZYYQ
https://www.amazon.com/Firewire-Enclosure-2-5-inch-Laptop-Bus-powered/dp/B001P1D16I

I have no experience with these enclosures or any Firewire-SATA enclosure so I don't know how well they work.

USB2 is actually quite a bit slower than the speed of typical 2-1/2" HDD's and should be avoided if possible.

As I mentioned in my previous post, if you do a complete surface scan of the disk and it turns out OK, it might be that your HDD just had a hiccup that won't recur. I don't think that's the case, but it's possible. If you can find software that will do this which is free, then you can run it. But the last time I looked, I didn't see anything free (although I only spent a few minutes looking). As I said, I think the HDD is failing and spending a lot of time trying to figure out if that's truly the case is not worth it.

NOTE: For a ballpark figure, I usually divide Mbps (million bit) numbers by 10 to get a MBps (million byte) number.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

Okay.... That's interesting
I've done a bit of tinkering around on my machine, removing things that shouldn't be there, resetting settings to factory defaults, etc. Now, some applications load quickly, while "taking breaks" in between tasks (code for freezing). I see the beach ball quite a bit as a result. Other applications take minutes to launch, but never hiccup. Any cause of this? Also any time I try to get data off of the drive, it slows down considerably and the finder takes forever to find just ONE file.

For reference, I shrunk my "used space" of the drive down from 288 to 120GB

What could be the cause of this issue?
As you said, if Apple replaces my drive, will they put another 5400RPM into it, an SSD, a fusion drive, a combination of the two? Should I get an SSD and bring it to them to put in? @Fishrrman If you were to read the rest of the posts in this thread, I have a strict "NO INTERNAL MOD" policy in my household. I would like an SSD in there just as much as you would. However, some of us have to deal with more obstacles, such as house rules.

Okay, back to the focus. What would apple do? and how could I work to remedy the problem as of right now? For reference, I have: The laptop itself, an OSX snow leopard disk, the ORIGINAL PACKAGING (In pristine condition, too, I might add), PC building tools (Basic screwdrivers, etc), a working PMacG5 should I need to burn another disk, and the power cable.

 

[treekram]

All 2011 MacBook Pro models are now considered "Vintage and obsolete" and as such, there is no hardware service available from Apple.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

If an Apple-authorized service provider is acceptable, you can find one at:
https://locate.apple.com/pr/en/

My guess is you would be charged $50 or less to put in a HDD or SSD from one of these providers (a guess on my part). Add in the cost of the HDD or SSD.

As I've mentioned before, the likely cause of your issue is an old and failing HDD. The best way to find out is by running a program which will test each sector of the HDD to see if there are any issues (Disk Utility doesn't do this). If this is not something you want to or can do, it may help to either do a clean install or copy all the files, re-format the HDD and then copy back the files. In either case, you would need an external HDD that's at least 500GB and a lot of patience because of the USB2 lack of speed. If you already have a Time Machine backup, that would also suffice, but would probably be even slower.

Since you have a working MBP, one thing you can do is download "Blackmagic Disk Speed Test" from the App Store or some other benchmark utility and see what kind of speed you're getting from your HDD. Something about 70MB/sec would be typical.

EDIT: If you have only 4GB RAM in the MBP and go the authorized service provider route, you should probably get 8GB. Insufficient RAM could be causing some of the beach-balling and could have helped to trigger the HDD issue (I'm not saying lack of RAM caused the issue, however).

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Okay.... That's interesting
I've done a bit of tinkering around on my machine, removing things that shouldn't be there, resetting settings to factory defaults, etc. Now, some applications load quickly, while "taking breaks" in between tasks (code for freezing). I see the beach ball quite a bit as a result. Other applications take minutes to launch, but never hiccup. Any cause of this? Also any time I try to get data off of the drive, it slows down considerably and the finder takes forever to find just ONE file.

For reference, I shrunk my "used space" of the drive down from 288 to 120GB

What could be the cause of this issue?
As you said, if Apple replaces my drive, will they put another 5400RPM into it, an SSD, a fusion drive, a combination of the two? Should I get an SSD and bring it to them to put in? @Fishrrman If you were to read the rest of the posts in this thread, I have a strict "NO INTERNAL MOD" policy in my household. I would like an SSD in there just as much as you would. However, some of us have to deal with more obstacles, such as house rules.

Okay, back to the focus. What would apple do? and how could I work to remedy the problem as of right now? For reference, I have: The laptop itself, an OSX snow leopard disk, the ORIGINAL PACKAGING (In pristine condition, too, I might add), PC building tools (Basic screwdrivers, etc), a working PMacG5 should I need to burn another disk, and the power cable.

Your drive is still a dying by the sounds of it, you have just deleted some stuff and made it run a little easier by reducing processes. Do a back up now of anything you want to keep.

You can pay any third party computer engineer to put in an ssd of your choice, of course, it is a 10 minute job, however apple will not do this for you. Apple would replace the drive with what the computer came with and charge you hundreds of dollars for the privelege, a poor choice all round when an ssd is cheap and so much better these days.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

Okay. Sounds good. There's pretty much NOTHING on my drive anymore, all of my files have been moved off and transferred to my PMacG5. What could possibly be taking 120GB? It's totally empty. Just Office 16 and Onedrive

 

[elf69]

what is in your bin?

empty it if stuff in it.
what in one drive?
it syncs to local folder I think.

 

[Mac03ForLife]

I emptied out ALL FILES. Nothing is in the trash, Onedrive syncs locally, but I removed it. All data is off of the computer except office and firefox

 

[jerryk]

If you are going to mess around with the drive, take everyone's advice and replace the cable. Those have a history of failing after they get old and brittle.

And in your search for what is taking up space, start with About Mac | Storage if you want. If find that only semi-useful.

What I do is in the Finder you can have it summarize the size of each folder. In Finder go to Finder View | Show View Options. When the dialog comes up select "Calculate all sizes". Now you can see the total size for all files under a folder. Note, this will make take a moment when you go to a a folder since it has to add up the file sizes. So don't forget to uncheck "Calculate all sizes" when you are done with your cleanup.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

You could try turning time machine off and rebooting it may be a load of local time machine backups they can be a pig to find.