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Does this look right?

AzDesertTroll

AzDesertTroll

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 12, 2011
53
0
Show Low, Az
I have an early 2011 MBP 15 8GB Ram, 500GB HD@7200 2 GHz Intel Core i7. the last over the course of the last 40-60 days I have noticed that I am getting the beach ball more and more and things are coming to a serious slow down on the my system. I also noticed that it doesn't seem like my fans are as active as they used to be. Since I am not a "power user" I just kind of wrote it off as I am not pushing the system that hard so they are just not spinning up, plus where I have the computer set up now it is closer to the A/C unit and I keep my room on the chilly side. Anyways, as the problems got worse I started searching this site for possible problems / solutions. I also opened the case and cleaned out a bunch of dirt and dust bunnies.

While searching heat and fan issues I noticed a lot of people recommending iStat Pro so I downloaded it. Here is what it shows me. For reference temps are in Fahrenheit. Also these numbers were observed after the computer had been sitting idle for over 30 min and went up slightly while posting this info.

HD: Macintosh 83
CPU 97
CPU Heatsink 85
Enclosure Base 77
Enclosure Base 2 77
Enclosure Base 3 76
GPU 88
Heatsink B 88
Mem Controller 85
Mem Module A1 135

Right Fan 2004
Left Fan 1997

My concerns are:
1. Should there be an additional Mem Module? The computer came with two 4MB memory cards

2. Is the temp of 135 high?

3. Could any of this be the cause of the beach ball / system slow down issues?

Additionally, I have looked at the Activity Monitor during times of problems and when there is no problems....it looks pretty much the same. Nothing seems to be obviously eating up resources. It usually shows no Page Outs or Swaps used.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
I don't have a clue about those F temps, but as I understand it mem module A1 is the i7 on-die controller and mem controller is what the controller on the RAM strip reports. Could be wrong about that though. All I can tell you is that one is twice as high as the other on my early 2011 i7. Like you, I don't push it that hard and I like room temps not to be too hot and I never see the beachball. Could your hard drive be on its way out? Have you tried running fsck -fy in single user mode?
 
Last edited:
AzDesertTroll said:
What is that..and how do I do it?

At this point I am open to just about any DIY suggestions that might solve the issue.
Click to expand...

It's a file system check and repair. About the same as starting up from an external drive and running a repair disk from disk utility. It may be a long shot but I always run it when there are problems that I can't find an explanation for. Reboot the computer and as you hear the boing press and hold command+S. Wait for the text to stop scrolling and then type fsck -fy and press enter.

Wait till it's done. When it says 'the volume appears to be OK' type reboot and hit enter. When it says the 'volume was modified' run the command again, until it reports that the volume is OK.
 
Converted to Celsius and current as of this update

HD: Macintosh ~29
CPU ~37
CPU Heatsink ~31
Enclosure Base ~26
Enclosure Base 2 ~26
Enclosure Base 3 ~24
GPU ~32
Heatsink B ~30
Mem Controller ~28
Mem Module A1 ~59

Right Fan ~2000
Left Fan ~2003

Thanks in advance for any help / advise / suggestions.

----------
chambone said:
It's a file system check and repair. About the same as starting up from an external drive and running a repair disk from disk utility. It may be a long shot but I always run it when there are problems that I can't find an explanation for. Reboot the computer and as you hear the boing press and hold command+S. Wait for the text to stop scrolling and then type fsck -fy and press enter.

Wait till it's done. When it says 'the volume appears to be OK' type reboot and hit enter. When it says the 'volume was modified' run the command again, until it reports that the volume is OK.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I will try that right now.
 
AzDesertTroll said:
Converted to Celsius and current as of this update

HD: Macintosh ~29
CPU ~37
CPU Heatsink ~31
Enclosure Base ~26
Enclosure Base 2 ~26
Enclosure Base 3 ~24
GPU ~32
Heatsink B ~30
Mem Controller ~28
Mem Module A1 ~59

Right Fan ~2000
Left Fan ~2003

Thanks in advance for any help / advise / suggestions.
Click to expand...

Normal and even on the colder side.
 
AzDesertTroll said:
Converted to Celsius and current as of this update

HD: Macintosh ~29
CPU ~37
CPU Heatsink ~31
Enclosure Base ~26
Enclosure Base 2 ~26
Enclosure Base 3 ~24
GPU ~32
Heatsink B ~30
Mem Controller ~28
Mem Module A1 ~59

Right Fan ~2000
Left Fan ~2003

Thanks in advance for any help / advise / suggestions.
Click to expand...
As stated before, the temperatures are FINE.

Those Macs in their heat - a sine of over-heating? - a short story by Mister GGJstudios
 
AzDesertTroll said:
What is that..and how do I do it?

At this point I am open to just about any DIY suggestions that might solve the issue.
Click to expand...

What issue??? :confused:

If you're worried about the temperatures, which you seem to be as you keep bringing lists of them up in newer posts, don't be. They are perfectly fine. There is no issue that's being caused by your temperatures, and the temperatures are not the cause of any issue.

Your spinning beach balls are caused by a completely different thing that is unrelated to your system temperatures. Continuing to suggest that the beach balls are being caused by your temperatures, or vice versa, is just going to cause further confusion for you and/or anyone that would try to help you. So, ignore your temperatures, because they are fine. Instead focus on what could be causing the beach balls to happen.
 
duervo said:
What issue??? :confused:

If you're worried about the temperatures, which you seem to be as you keep bringing lists of them up in newer posts, don't be. They are perfectly fine. There is no issue that's being caused by your temperatures, and the temperatures are not the cause of any issue.

Your spinning beach balls are caused by a completely different thing that is unrelated to your system temperatures. Continuing to suggest that the beach balls are being caused by your temperatures, or vice versa, is just going to cause further confusion for you and/or anyone that would try to help you. So, ignore your temperatures, because they are fine. Instead focus on what could be causing the beach balls to happen.
Click to expand...

My original question had several parts to it. I get it that the temps are not the problem, which I only now know because I asked and several people kindly shared the info. I posted the temps in the OP and once again after I changed the temperature rating scale to celsius because forgive me I didn't know that was the common language of the computer world.

The other part to my question were related to should there be more than Mem Module A1 since there are two memory sticks / cards and I am pretty sure that was was answered as well.

The beach ball part was just asking if the above could be causing it.:confused:

----------
chambone said:
It's a file system check and repair. About the same as starting up from an external drive and running a repair disk from disk utility. It may be a long shot but I always run it when there are problems that I can't find an explanation for. Reboot the computer and as you hear the boing press and hold command+S. Wait for the text to stop scrolling and then type fsck -fy and press enter.

Wait till it's done. When it says 'the volume appears to be OK' type reboot and hit enter. When it says the 'volume was modified' run the command again, until it reports that the volume is OK.
Click to expand...

I tried this and it ran through all the checks (seemed like at least 3 pages scrolled by with a bunch of computer stuff that doesn't make sense to me) and told me everything was OK.


Thank you for your time.
 
AzDesertTroll said:
My original question had several parts to it. I get it that the temps are not the problem, which I only now know because I asked and several people kindly shared the info. I posted the temps in the OP and once again after I changed the temperature rating scale to celsius because forgive me I didn't know that was the common language of the computer world.

The other part to my question were related to should there be more than Mem Module A1 since there are two memory sticks / cards and I am pretty sure that was was answered as well.

The beach ball part was just asking if the above could be causing it.:confused:
Click to expand...


Beach balls can be caused by software issues, lack of available physical memory (you have 8GB so while it's possible, I doubt that's your cause, unless you have a ton of apps open, or some piece of software has memory management issues,) corrupt permissions or filesystem on your HDD, or a failing HDD (or a combination of one or more of those.)

The least complicated to check would be filesystem issues. To do that, boot your system into Recovery mode and run Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair disk. Then, reboot normally and see if the beach balls go away. If they don't, then you could have a drive that's showing early signs of possible failure, or it could be a software issue.
 
duervo said:
The least complicated to check would be filesystem issues. To do that, boot your system into Recovery mode and run Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair disk. Then, reboot normally and see if the beach balls go away. If they don't, then you could have a drive that's showing early signs of possible failure, or it could be a software issue.
Click to expand...

I will try that right now, thanks for the tips and your time.
 
You could also look in Console log and see if a particular program is spamming it. There have been some reported issues with spotlight indexing getting stuck and spamming the console log with sandbox errors. Search for lsbox in the search bar and mdworker. If there's any issue, you'll have pages of the same error log repeating.
 
gwang73 said:
You could also look in Console log and see if a particular program is spamming it. There have been some reported issues with spotlight indexing getting stuck and spamming the console log with sandbox errors. Search for lsbox in the search bar and mdworker. If there's any issue, you'll have pages of the same error log repeating.
Click to expand...

Okay I did as suggested:
mdworker resulted in 92 different messages
lsbox resulted in 9 different messages

But since I am not a computer guy I don't know what any of them mean or what I should do with them. If I had hair I would pull it out....lol

Thanks for trying though, the more I hang out on this forum the more I learn.
 
Does this look right?

Its normal. If there was a problem in this instance, there would literally be hundreds log errors.

There has to be a rogue program using up either CPU processing time or memory. Check the Activity Monitor again and click on the CPU and Real Memory columns to sort by those. Also make sure you have it set to show 'All Processes'.

Shot in the dark, but if your hard drive is full, that will also cause slowdowns.
 
I hope these come through...I am trying to attach screen shots of the Activity Monitor
 

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Everything looks fine here too. Strange that you're getting beach balls. Try fully quitting some applications, like iPhoto and see if that helps.

I assume that you're running all the latest updates from Apple?

As a shot in the dark, try resetting PRAM and SMC. Also try rebooting into safe-mode and then restart normally.
 
gwang73 said:
Everything looks fine here too. Strange that you're getting beach balls. Try fully quitting some applications, like iPhoto and see if that helps.

I assume that you're running all the latest updates from Apple?

As a shot in the dark, try resetting PRAM and SMC. Also try rebooting into safe-mode and then restart normally.
Click to expand...

I have reset PRAM & SMC I will try the rebooting into Safe then normal.

Shot in the dark question...I want to say this computer shipped with 10.7.2 and as the OS upgrades / updates came out I have installed them and I am now at 10.8.3 could that have anything to do with the slow down? I have seen some other post where the topic is discussed but it seems like the argument usually gets split 50/50 on if that is a problem or not. Just wondering. If that IS the case would a bump in RAM solve my issue? I was toying with the idea of bumping to 16GB when I get back home in two weeks anyways.
 
It shouldn't be an issue. However, there's no harm in trying to re-install OS X ML 10.8.3, except for about 30 minutes of your time, depending on how fast your internet is.

To re-install the OS, hold down CMD-R while power on and it should throw the computer into auto recovery mode. You won't lose any data doing it this way.

Also, it doesn't seems like you're using all your 8GB RAM, so upgrading to 16GB won't help.
 
I will try the reinstall but I will have to wait until next weekend, where I am in the world right now the internet is slow and unreliable. I really do appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out.
 
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