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2010 MBP 15" beachballing and slow

S

strawbale

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2011
395
190
French Pyrenees
A friend of mine with a 2010 MBP 15" (http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...5-2.4-aluminum-15-mid-2010-unibody-specs.html) asked me for help. She described the problems she having with as follows:
"The big prob is the beachball and then the crashing when working in word, the general beach-balling opening and closing files and loading of web pages (less so) and the slow playing of Netflix..."
I've asked her to check Activity Monitor (Swap etc.), but no reply yet.
She's running 10.11.6, which on my 2007 MBP with (also) 4GB RAM is quite a bit slower than on, say, 10.6 - especially opening Word/Excel.
Would upping the RAM to 8GB and swapping the spinning disk for a cheap SSD help her out (assuming the rest of the MBP is still OK)?
Any other suggestions?
 
strawbale said:
A friend of mine with a 2010 MBP 15" (http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...5-2.4-aluminum-15-mid-2010-unibody-specs.html) asked me for help. She described the problems she having with as follows:
"The big prob is the beachball and then the crashing when working in word, the general beach-balling opening and closing files and loading of web pages (less so) and the slow playing of Netflix..."
I've asked her to check Activity Monitor (Swap etc.), but no reply yet.
She's running 10.11.6, which on my 2007 MBP with (also) 4GB RAM is quite a bit slower than on, say, 10.6 - especially opening Word/Excel.
Would upping the RAM to 8GB and swapping the spinning disk for a cheap SSD help her out (assuming the rest of the MBP is still OK)?
Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

It’s probably a dying hard drive and/or a flaky HDD cable. yes an SSD will make a huge difference probably more than the extra ram to be honest. But if you are opening it up anyway the why not stick some more RAM in too. If changing the HDD to an SSD then a new SATA cable is under $20 so it may be worth ordering at the same time as they break notoriously often when changing drives over.

Other than that it’s always worth running a disk verify and repair in disk utility as this may well fix any issues without any cost but will not upgrade the machine in any way for modern apps and OSes.
 
I agree with what Samuelsan2001 has posted.

Also, check her percentage of available space on her hard drive as that can cause issues with background processes. 15% or more free space is not an official number but is generally accepted.

If that's not the issue have her create and log into a new User Account to see if the problems go away. If so, that would point to a problem that only occurs in her account and not a system-wide issue.
 
I use a MBP 2010 as my only computer.

Adding a Samsung SSD made it feel as fast as modern laptops. I have the Samsung 850 EVO.

I have 6GB of RAM on Sierra and have no problems even with big programming tasks with lots of stuff open (including a virtual machine using 2GB RAM). Or logic pro music projects. I used to have 8GB but one RAM stick broke so now I run 4+2 mismatched and notice no performance difference.

So I would recommend that she reinstalls the OS first (she probably has years of old crap running), and if it is still slow then buying an SSD is highly recommended. I do not think more RAM will help with her basic needs.
[doublepost=1505998527][/doublepost]PS: If she watches a lot of YouTube, the MBP 2010 will be helped by installing this script: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-reduce-youtube-cpu-usage-by-2-4x.1997973/

I wrote that code to solve the fact that YouTube’s high-FPS videos were hanging and freezing a lot.
 
Last edited:
I would do both things recommended above: change the sata hard drive cable and swap out the mechanical for an SSD.

Since you have the machine open, you could also replace the DVD drive with a hard drive caddy and use the existing mechanical drive to expand the amount of internal storage.
 
Put a small SSD into it.

Cheap.
Fast.
Easy.
Much improved performance.

ANY SSD will do, buy the cheapest you can find.
I'd recommend Sandisk Plus or Crucial.
Be sure to buy and use THE RIGHT TOOLS.
See fixit.com for how to do it.
 
@ All the above posters: thanks a lot for all your advice, really appreciated!
As I'm a few countries away from where she lives, I'll first try to have her diagnose the MBP/problem a bit more, before advising her to go see a reliable Mac repair place near her.
PS: HD used less than 50%
 
My Mid 2010 13" MacBook Pro is having a lot of spinning beach balls lately. In January I upgraded it with a 480GB SSD, 16GB RAM and a new battery, it seemed fine and like a new machine. But now that beach ball is driving me nuts. Hard drive cable the cause, maybe?
 
Resist said:
My Mid 2010 13" MacBook Pro is having a lot of spinning beach balls lately. In January I upgraded it with a 480GB SSD, 16GB RAM and a new battery, it seemed fine and like a new machine. But now that beach ball is driving me nuts. Hard drive cable the cause, maybe?
Click to expand...
I'm inclined to believe it's the drive cable.
 
I don't recall the 2010 models as having much trouble with the drive cable.
Again, it's almost certainly the drive itself.
SSD replacement is what the doctor orders... ;)
 
I had to replace the hard drive cable in a 2009 and 2010 15" MBP. In both cases, the MBP would, at random times, not find the ssd drive when waking from sleep or a cold boot.
 
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