Early 2011 MBP extremely slow/laggy

[Arko2]

Early 2011 MBP 15", i7 2.0, 16GB RAM, newly installed 256GB SSD with fresh install of High Sierra. It runs like garbage. The cursor skips all over the place, it beachballs constantly, applications take forever to start, the computer itself takes way too long to boot, dropdown menus probably take about 5 seconds to open after clicking, etc. It is pathetically slow and unusable. I believe my old Core Duo iMac was faster.

Several things to note:
(Edit) Putting the computer fully to sleep and bringing it back up causes it to operate like I would expect it to. It becomes fast and responsive, for about 2 minutes, then instantly snaps into terrible performance again. There is a very noticeable transition. I have no idea why this happens.

This is exactly what it was doing before I put an SSD in it. I just thought it was the fault of the slow hard drive.

The OS install took FOREVER, roughly 7 hours! It was behaving exactly as described during install and while in recovery.

The battery is completely shot, does not hold a single percent of charge and will turn off the second I unplug it. I have already ordered a new one. Is the laptop throttling itself to prevent overloading the power supply?

 

[CoastalOR]

Lack of battery power will definitely automatically throttle your CPU. You might also need a new internal SATA cable to your SSD. Degradation of the old drive SATA cable is a known problem.

Your symptoms do not currently indicate a problem with your dGPU (AMD Radeon), but that is also a known problem with the 2011 15" & 17" MBPs. Search for "Radeongate".

 

[mightyjabba]

I've experienced this exact symptom before a couple of times. Once was on a 2011 MacBook Air that I had inadvertently installed a 2010 model's battery into. (Who knew that the battery would make such a huge difference?) The other was a 2010 13" MBP that will periodically have this issue for no apparent reason. I've never been able to track the cause down. I thought at first it was a bad trackpad, because there is actually a sensor in the trackpad that can go bad and cause this kind of symptom (and you will get these symptoms if you try and run the machine with no trackpad connected at all). And while replacing the trackpad did seem to help, it still happens sometimes, apparently randomly. I wonder now about the SATA cable mentioned above.

In short, I believe your Mac is throttling your CPU because it thinks it is overheating, but it's actually a bad sensor somewhere. It's also possible that it's just the battery and replacing it will fix it. I know MBPs do throttle if running with no battery, but when I tried it, I found it to be semi-usable -- not this slow-as-molasses stuff you're describing.

 

[Arko2]

I've experienced this exact symptom before a couple of times. Once was on a 2011 MacBook Air that I had inadvertently installed a 2010 model's battery into. (Who knew that the battery would make such a huge difference?) The other was a 2010 13" MBP that will periodically have this issue for no apparent reason. I've never been able to track the cause down. I thought at first it was a bad trackpad, because there is actually a sensor in the trackpad that can go bad and cause this kind of symptom (and you will get these symptoms if you try and run the machine with no trackpad connected at all). And while replacing the trackpad did seem to help, it still happens sometimes, apparently randomly. I wonder now about the SATA cable mentioned above.

In short, I believe your Mac is throttling your CPU because it thinks it is overheating, but it's actually a bad sensor somewhere. It's also possible that it's just the battery and replacing it will fix it. I know MBPs do throttle if running with no battery, but when I tried it, I found it to be semi-usable -- not this slow-as-molasses stuff you're describing.

I'll toss the new battery in when it gets here. If that doesn't fix it, guess I'll start poking into the possibility of a bad temp sensor, bad trackpad or thereabouts.

Lack of battery power will definitely automatically throttle your CPU. You might also need a new internal SATA cable to your SSD. Degradation of the old drive SATA cable is a known problem.

Your symptoms do not currently indicate a problem with your dGPU (AMD Radeon), but that is also a known problem with the 2011 15" & 17" MBPs. Search for "Radeongate".

The SATA connector actually may have been a solid suspicion, but identical symptoms occur when it's running utilities off of the macOS install CD. As for the Radeon failure, I don't believe it's (hoping it isn't) a related issue, but I'm still preparing myself for that to die soon lol. Haven't witnessed any strange graphical artifacting. I have another MBP just like this one with a dead dGPU, still working on getting that one switched to the iGPU.

 

[fishmoose]

My 2011 15” MBP also got extremely slow when the battery failed. I had the exact same issues in fact. I never got around to changing the battery so don’t know if it‘ll help.

 

[CoastalOR]

I'll toss the new battery in when it gets here. If that doesn't fix it, guess I'll start poking into the possibility of a bad temp sensor, bad trackpad or thereabouts.


The SATA connector actually may have been a solid suspicion, but identical symptoms occur when it's running utilities off of the macOS install CD. As for the Radeon failure, I don't believe it's (hoping it isn't) a related issue, but I'm still preparing myself for that to die soon lol. Haven't witnessed any strange graphical artifacting. I have another MBP just like this one with a dead dGPU, still working on getting that one switched to the iGPU.

Putting in a replacement battery is definetely the best first thing to try. I had a neighbor that had a 2008 MBP that was running very slow and the battery was shot. I ordered them a new battery from OWC that fixed the problem for them since the CPU was not throttled.

 

[Arko2]

Great news!


Just tossed the new battery in, that fixed it immediately. It is now extremely fast and responsive! I appreciate the help and suggestions!