2009 17" Macbook Pro running slow

[matttb]

I'm having some problems with my 2009 macbook pro, it's a 17" 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. When it first starts, it is very slow and takes a while for the first program to open. I use google chrome and this is also very slow when first opened (about 30seconds for the first page to load), after the first page has loaded it is fine. The other problem was Photoshop CS5 and Bridge CS5 which were both running extremely slow which made them unusable and I went back to CS4.

My hard drive has 79gb free and I have used OnyX to 'clean' everything up but it hasn't really made any difference.

If anyone has any suggestions to get this fixed that would be great, cheers!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I have the same MBP, sans the HDD.
That MBP should run CS5 products quite easily.
Maybe your HDD is dying?
Try AJA System Test to benchmark your HDD speed and report back.

 

[matttb]

Just tried AJA System Test,

File size 128MB
Write Speed : 75 MB/s
Read Speed : 78.1 MB/s

 

[matttb]

Any ideas why it's running so slow? I am considering doing a complete reinstall as I want to upgrade to snow leopard anyway.

 

[masterjames]

I also have a MBP 17" from 2009. It was very sluggish. I read that the 320GB 5400 RPM HDD that was in it was a real dog of a 5400 RPM drive and to replace it. I put in a new 750GB 7200 RPM drive that made it much better. I also upgraded the RAM from Crucial to 8GB. I added the extra RAM because running Windows Vista Ultimate in Parallels ran so slow and slowed everything down. Now, it runs great. Adding a new HDD and RAM is very easy to do yourself. I then purchased the WinTec filemate 48GB SSD drive as an ExpressCard and installed MacOSX to it. Made this the boot drive and wow, it is like having a brand new speed demon for a laptop!

If nothing else, consider replacing the HDD. I use Adobe CS4, but I had not upgraded to CS5, so I cannot elaborate on running CS5.

 

[bubbacaster]

Any ideas why it's running so slow? I am considering doing a complete reinstall as I want to upgrade to snow leopard anyway.

No way to tell without more info. Start up the "Activity Monitor.app" and see what's happening on your system. Pay particular attention to CPU usage and System Memory.

On the CPU Activity Monitor display, click on the 4th column to sort by %CPU used. You'll probably need to click it twice to sort it in descending order, showing highest CPU usage at the top of the list. It'll also show how much Real and Virtual memory each app is using (columns 6 and 8). Look for CPU and memory hogs.

Also look at the System Memory display. If System Memory shows little or no Free memory and a bunch of memory "Page outs" or "Swap used", then you may need more RAM.

 

[Gr80Likes2Boogi]

Whenever my computer starts acting wonky or slow, I repair disk permissions. It may not be the ultimate solution to a slow computer, but it certainly won't hurt anything.

 

[daneoni]

Perhaps it's time to defrag your drive. Also check that your file system contains no errors.

 

[matttb]

This is my activity monitor :



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There is alot of virtual memory used but not very much real memory. I'm starting to think it's my hard drive?