I have a 2009 MBP 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. Maxed out RAM ( 8G ), Samsung 860 EVO 500Gb and OWC Mercury Electra 3G 240 Gb SSD respectively. I have my OS ( Yosemite ) running off the Mercury and use the Samsung as storage. Neither of which are even half way full. Back when I had 2 Mercury Electras the MBP used to be relatively peppy but one of them burnt out and I made a couple swaps and now the laptop is super sluggish and if I have more than a couple tabs open it takes for ever for things to load. Is my computer just outdated at this point? Or is there something I can do for this thing to run a little better? I use Clean my Mac and sort out crap I don't need pretty regularly. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
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2009 MBP is so slow...
- Thread starter JesusLizard
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I would first try running a tool such Onyx and run some of the maintenance scripts. It also worth checking Activity Monitor for any processes which might be hogging system resources. If this doesn't help a clean install of Yosemite could worth a try.
However your machine is 10 years old is probably due for replacement.
However your machine is 10 years old is probably due for replacement.
This isn’t an answer, sorry, but I used a 2009 laptop with SSD for a while and it was still very slow so sounds like you’ve been lucky. You don’t say how these SSDs are connected (is there room for two internally?) but is it something to do with the connector used (e.g. SATA) and one connection slowing down the other? This is only a half-formed thought so I may be completely off track.
The OWC just replaced the HDD. The Samsung I pulled out the optical drive.
But actually, I just deleted a bunch of crap from my download folder and emptied the trash and seems to have taken a load off the RAM.
But actually, I just deleted a bunch of crap from my download folder and emptied the trash and seems to have taken a load off the RAM.
Your 10 year old computer is slow?
Kidding!
If you have another SSD lying around, I'd say connect it and install a fresh version of MacOS. If it's still slow, then yeah, your computer is a bit too old/slow, even though you have an OK amount of RAM.
If it's not slow after the fresh install, then its your software installation.
Checking with a fresh install is much better than any cleanup software.
Kidding!
If you have another SSD lying around, I'd say connect it and install a fresh version of MacOS. If it's still slow, then yeah, your computer is a bit too old/slow, even though you have an OK amount of RAM.
If it's not slow after the fresh install, then its your software installation.
Checking with a fresh install is much better than any cleanup software.
Are those daily, weekly and monthly maintenance scripts still necessary/recommended in 2019?
Bad SATA cable? This was the generation with the ribbons prone to dying and leading to slow SSD's wasn't it?
Yes. I run them every few months with Onyx and it helps.
Yeah. I’ve replaced quite a few of these for family members.
Hmm so maybe my problem wasn't quite solved just by deleting download files etc. @loybond, you'd've been surprised how snappy this old MBP was the first time I had dual SSD's in here. For some reason I want to say it has something to do with the way I have it configured now with the OS being on one drive and storage on the other. I used to move files manually to the second drive but now I have files moved to my other SSD by Symbolic Link and that's somehow not configured optimally, or something..
If this were me, I would try 1) logging in as another user; 2) using a disk performance checker like Blackmagic or AJA; 3) Use Activity Monitor to see if anything is hogging CPU or memory; 4) install an OS on the Samsung and boot from that;
I would just say that you do need to learn a lot on how to run "lean and mean" in general. This forum has a lot of resources.
I am running the latest Mojave on my late 2008 unibody MacBook and my mid-2012 MacBook Pro side by side and there is zero performance difference in day to day use. In fact, late 2008 unibody is my main machine and mid-2012 is Handbraking 24/7 my large DVD collection.
And I am sure that there are people who will say that their mid-2012 is "very slow". Statements like that really don't mean anything.
I looked into this a bit and found this article, which states that the OS runs these scripts periodically. It even gives a Terminal command to see when was the last time they were run. In my case, they were all run within the past week or so.
Do I Need to Run Mac OS X Maintenance Scripts Occasionally?
Onyx gives a LOT more helpful options than simply running maintenance scripts, which is why I use it. But yes, if you leave the system alone, macOS will run those scripts itself.
I've got the same machine in 17", same specs & SSD, that I use for a traveler, and I'm continually surprised at how fast it is, and how it manages to simultaneously run a Win10 VM with those resources cut in half, and drive Parametric 3d Modelling software, rendering orbits in real time, etc... But, over the last year or so, I too have found safari to run quite slowly. I don't know what the hell Safari is doing, but apparently loading web pages is somewhow more resource-intensive than all that heavy graphics work.
i still have a 2009 13“ running with a ssd an maxed out ram running sometimes. it‘s... o.k., but usually I use my quite faster ipad.
another thing apart from bad sata-cables could be the os install. iirc, yosemite was quite a s***-show. try a clean install, and maybe some other OS. naturally it is going to fly under snow leopard, but even newer OSs than yosemite could be faster. also, did you enable trim for your ssds?
another thing apart from bad sata-cables could be the os install. iirc, yosemite was quite a s***-show. try a clean install, and maybe some other OS. naturally it is going to fly under snow leopard, but even newer OSs than yosemite could be faster. also, did you enable trim for your ssds?
It looks like the cache takes up almost half of the 8gigs of RAM I have available. I tried getting rid of em but most of I couldn’t cause they’re “being used” ...
Also appreciate all the feedback so far. I haven’t gotten around but I’m gonna give all these things a shot. Definitely will try a reinstall and try not to update anything.
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Yeah, so start is acceptably fast, opening apps is normal but it seems like I have more than a few windows open and say Netflix is one, the Video and Audio won’t sync up.. Maybe what I describe as slow is more specific to Safari..
Also appreciate all the feedback so far. I haven’t gotten around but I’m gonna give all these things a shot. Definitely will try a reinstall and try not to update anything.
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Yeah, so start is acceptably fast, opening apps is normal but it seems like I have more than a few windows open and say Netflix is one, the Video and Audio won’t sync up.. Maybe what I describe as slow is more specific to Safari..
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my early 2015 got slow when the fan burned out. replaced it and it got fast again. Check with macs fan control to see if the fan is running. I also did a clean install of osx and it got much faster.
Core 2 Duo can still hold up, I have a MBP 13" Mid-2010 that I used as a daily till August of last year. I recently pulled it out and it still worked fine. It has a Sandisk z400s 240gb SSD and 6gb(2gb+4gb) of ram, so its not maxed either.
A reinstall definitely helps. I also was running High Sierra which is even more advanced than Yosemite. My recommendation would be to try out El Capitan, as Yosemite was the start of MacOS's overhaul.
Also OP, what browser are you using? I use Safari as my main, performance is fine with a few tabs.
Lastly, you have TRIM enabled on these SSDs right? I know , when swapping out SSDs, I would often forget to enable it.
I'm using Safari as my main. I was under the impression that TRIM was enabled automatically but in fact it was not! I just enabled it. Let's see what that does. Thanks!
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@iModFrenzy I don't wanna get too excited too soon but it seems like pages are loading way quicker plus it definitely free'd up some RAM space ( got rid of some of the cache that was hogging up memory ). Still gonna try and run ONYX etc. see what it's all about.
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downloaded Fan control. Fan is running. Thx
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Alright fellows! I'm gonna say that was it! ( TRIM enable ) pages are loading in milliseconds just like it used to. RAM floats around just under 4Gigs available ( had Spotify, Activity monitor, 3 tabs one of em Netflix ) and it seems like it's flying. Thanks for all your suggestions!!
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