Extremely slow MacBook pro,, help!!

[lx93]

Hey folks. I have a MacBook Pro 17 inches (early 2009) with 2.8 GHz C2D and 4GB RAM on it. My OS is 10.6.4 and have all the latest updates installed.**I have used this computer for 10 months and now it becomes so slow. I did all the stuffs that may help to speed it up(repair disk permission, repair disk, uninstall unnecessary softwares, only one user account, get rid of startup items), but none of them seems to work. I even went to the genius bar, but the genius there said there is nothing they can do. They suggested me to upgrade the memory to 8 gig. It will cost me at least 300 bucks to do that! Don't want to invest that much on a old MacBook Pro. But the thing is, I have a lot of friends using MacBook that has only 1 or 2 gig memory but their computers are still way faster than mine. They can open a lot of programs at the same time but I cannot. If I do, the computer gonna be really sluggish, and sometimes crash. I also don't think it is the problem of the free space on my hard drive since I have a 500GB hard drive and 80GB free space on it.

Can anyone help me to figure out some possible reasons for my slow Mac? And some tips for me to speed it up? I have already tried to reinstall the system and restore it using time machine backup, but it didn't help too much. Thank you!*

 

[Corndog5595]

All computers have this problem, whether its running Windows or OS X: They can only go so long before they have to be reformatted. I recommend doing a clean restore of Snow Leopard or simply restoring from a time machine backup.

Before you try this though, I recommend running OnyX (google it).

 

[Mike Macintosh]

I also agree with Corndog5595, back up your most important files and clean install Snow Leopard, chances are you will fix whatever is causing your machine to be sluggish.

 

[lx93]

I also agree with Corndog5595, back up your most important files and clean install Snow Leopard, chances are you will fix whatever is causing your machine to be sluggish.

thanks for your suggestions! so what u mean is do a clean install and not to use time machine to restore the system?

 

[guitargoddsjm]

thanks for your suggestions! so what u mean is do a clean install and not to use time machine to restore the system?

They mean:

1. Take note of your important programs and files
2. Completely erase your hard drive
3. Install Snow Leopard
4. This is the important part: DON'T restore from time machine
5. Manually add your programs and files back

 

[TopHatPlus]

They mean:

1. Take note of your important programs and files
2. Completely erase your hard drive
3. Install Snow Leopard
4. This is the important part: DON'T restore from time machine
5. Manually add your programs and files back

this, you fill find a world of difference!!! 4 gb of ram should NOT be an issues its more then enough ram, and although your hard drive is getting pretty full it should not hamper it, i suggest a clean start over and having a nice back up.

 

[TZRaceR6]

You are down to 16% free space on a 500GB hard drive and wonder why your system seems slow?
Download the free trial version of Mackeeper and you'll probably be able to free up 3-10GB's of space (at least).
How many icon's do you have on your desktop?
How many shareware/freeware apps do you have installed that you never use? Get rid of the garbage?

If you still plan to do a fresh reinstall, may be worth it to take a look at upgrading the hard drive to an SSD and use your 500GB as an external extra drive to store pics/video's/whatever (or go the optibay route). Nothing will make your computer faster, than installing an SSD. Unless your friends have SSD's, your computer will be much, much faster. 16 second boot times and less than 2 seconds to load any app. (i.e. google earth loads in 1 bounce)

Just some thoughts for ya.