Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

From 4 to 16 GB... still slow

It's not memory. The problem is the HDD.

A big amount of RAM only helps avoiding swap to disk constantly, but sometimes you need to do I/O no matter how much RAM you have. For example, browsing the internet writes a lot of files on disk for caching. If you're editing big image files or big video files, you're benefited by a lot of RAM.
 
I'm now running CCleaner everyday. It works... for a while. If I run CCl then restart, the machine is fast for a while. But 4 or 5 hours, it's a slug.

This is pretty a pretty typical resuls after a few hours
 
You know, if CC cleaner works for a while, it should mean that your HDD should work, in theory. Is your hard drive almost full? It might just be that you just need enough free space.

My wife's Macbook Pro from around the same period with an HDD runs Mavericks just fine--no spinny wheels. And she only has an i5 processor compared to your i7. Obviously, an SSD is faster, but you ought to be able to get along fine without one. I'd vote for either full or failing hard drive, really, or some software problem--have you run maintenance/disk repair software other than the cleaner?

Another obvious thing--if Chrome is acting weirdly, you could try just using Firefox or Safari for a while and see if you run into the same trouble.
 
Last edited:
Since we established that memory is not the problem the next step would be to run blackmagic speedtest.

Also ccleaner is a program that i only know from windows machines.
If you have to run it on a mac, then there is something severly wrong going on.

I strongly suggest:
backup --> verify / repair disc permissions --> boot into recovery --> format disc --> reinstall of OSx
 
SSD will make a ridiculous difference. I remember seeing a video where they said the biggest bottleneck on a computer is the hardrive hence why there are so many machines with terrible performance despite having decent looking specs. I used to run Cubase and a 5400rpm drive would not run it fullstop. It just stuttered along with no timing. Stick a 7200 and it was ok. That was before SSD was affordable but no doubt that would of helped also.

SSD's have come down in price so much now that you really need to get one.
Something else, you may benefit from installing a totally fresh install on the SSD rather than cloning or doing a back up etc as in my experience a fresh install will be faster, then just put the old drive in an enclosure and copy over what you need.

You can install osx straight from Apples servers, you just need to login into your account when prompted.

Oh yeah it was Chrome that finished my Macbook off, coinicidence maybe but when a browser crashes your Macbook theres something not right, i'm done with them for life.
 
Adding an SSD over ram will definitely make a difference. If you were not swapping out to disk, adding ram would have a negligible impact, where as adding an SSD will provide overall improvement
 
simonsi said:
NOT having an SSD alone will make it slow compared to one that does irrespective of the OS version.
Click to expand...

Yes, but by NOT having an SSD and trying to use Mavericks, it will be slower than if he didn't have an SSD and was using any other OS because Mavericks is practically dis-optomized for HDDs.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Yes, but by NOT having an SSD and trying to use Mavericks, it will be slower than if he didn't have an SSD and was using any other OS because Mavericks is practically dis-optomized for HDDs.
Click to expand...

I don't know why people keep saying this. There is no evidence whatsoever this is true. I installed Mavs on my daughter's 2008 Macbook with a 5400RPM drive and it works perfectly. Not one bit slower than Mountain Lion was. There are posts all over the forums from people with the same experience.

These posts with people having trouble after a Mavs install have something else going on. There is no evidence of anything built into Mavericks that would make it any slower than other OS X versions on a platter based drive.
 
Bushwood said:
I'm now running CCleaner everyday. It works... for a while. If I run CCl then restart, the machine is fast for a while. But 4 or 5 hours, it's a slug.

This is pretty a pretty typical resuls after a few hours
[url=http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee47/markspeece/ScreenShot2014-05-15at55932PM.png]Image[/URL]
Click to expand...
As I have pointed it out earlier on this thread, Chrome is the problem. From your screenshoot, 340 MB of Cache from Chrome is excessive from one day browsing and can slow down the internet browsing easily.

On my 2007 MBP, I have Firefox with cache limit set to 100 MB so that the cache cannot go over and also the internet browsing will not slow down as a result of going over 100 MB limit. Mine is 5400rpm HDD and Mavericks runs fine. With Chrome, there's no cache limit to set (Probably could be why Google wants to harvest your data!).
 
Weaselboy said:
I don't know why people keep saying this. There is no evidence whatsoever this is true. I installed Mavs on my daughter's 2008 Macbook with a 5400RPM drive and it works perfectly. Not one bit slower than Mountain Lion was. There are posts all over the forums from people with the same experience.

These posts with people having trouble after a Mavs install have something else going on. There is no evidence of anything built into Mavericks that would make it any slower than other OS X versions on a platter based drive.
Click to expand...

I'm not ready to call Apple malevolent, but it's definitely happening. I noticed on my Macbook, that it was dog slow for months after a clean install. However, this past week or two it's seemed faster. I haven't changed anything about my usage or even installed any updates, but it's faster.
 
I deleted Chrome and reinstalled it a couple week ago. Didn't seem to do anything. So, I just trashed it. I'll stick with Safari.

Thanks guys!
 
yjchua95 said:
Why not just get an SSD for an overall speed increase?
Click to expand...

Because he is almost certainly having either some software or (possibly) hardware problem--he probably doesn't need to buy one. I'm not even sure if he's run Disk Utility. He could start with Meister's advice, above, too. I am currently writing this from my wife's Macbook with an HDD running Mavericks quite happily.
 
Three more things you can do, to determine if the issue is software related:

- boot into safe mode and see how your mac performs
- make a new user account and see how your mac performs under that account
- reset Pram: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
 
Meister said:
In 99% of all cases increasing beyond 4gb of ram will not increase speed. Why should it?
Its just a pointless 150$ upgrade then.
Click to expand...
its amazing how you can deduce he wasted $150

All it takes is a browser to be open for a day of even casual usage, word and and mail.app open to exhaust 4gigs of ram.
 
Count Blah said:
All it takes is a browser to be open for a day of even casual usage, word and and mail.app open to exhaust 4gigs of ram.
Click to expand...
:confused: I am not sure what you mean.
Internet surfing does not exhaust 4gigs of ram, neither does word and certainly not the mail.app.
Neither does multitasking all of them together.

I have 4gigs and an hdd. I multitask and I never have run out of ram once. Not even close.
The OP posted his memory pressure and it was very low.
So, yes. I can wonderously deduce that this expensive update was nonsense.

Please post high memory pressure caused by safari, mail and word.
 
Last edited:
Meister said:
:confused: I am not sure what you mean.
Internet surfing does not exhaust 4gigs of ram, neither does word and certainly not the mail.app.
Neither does multitasking all of them together.

I have 4gigs and an hdd. I multitask and I never have run out of ram once. Not even close.
The OP posted his memory pressure and it was very low.
So, yes. I can wonderously deduce that this expensive update was nonsense.

Please post high memory pressure caused by safari, mail and word.
Click to expand...

My apologies for not seeing this being mavericks. I read the 1st couple of posts and pieced together that a machine,that is actually user serviceable(the best kind), might be using an older version of the OS. Looking at your post didn't clue me in on the rest.

I would be happy to post screen shots of a days worth of browsing, and very little else running, causing beach balls like crazy on an older version of the OS.
 
Last edited:
By the way, here's another thing the OP could do (unless Chrome really was the big problem--though a lot of people use it).

Since I'm guessing that the OP is not the kind of person who is that comfortable doing diagnostics...take it back to the Apple store and find a better "genius" than the one who told you you needed extra RAM! They should be able to figure out what is wrong with your system, and they owe you one after making you buy something you didn't need. And don't let them sell you an SSD--make them figure out the problem.
 
Well, I'm no "Genius" but, I'd say you guys (those saying to kill Chrome) nailed it. I did not buy a new SD drive. I just ditched Chrome. My laptop has been a $*@#ing rocket ever since. I do miss Chrome - just like it more than Safari... well, except for the whole killing my computer part.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the patience and advice.
 
Bushwood said:
Well, I'm no "Genius" but, I'd say you guys (those saying to kill Chrome) nailed it. I did not buy a new SD drive. I just ditched Chrome. My laptop has been a $*@#ing rocket ever since. I do miss Chrome - just like it more than Safari... well, except for the whole killing my computer part.

Thanks guys! I appreciate the patience and advice.
Click to expand...

I'd recommend Firefox as well.

Oh and if you really like Chrome, try using Epic Browser. It uses the Chromium engine, but stripped of all Google parts that track and spy on you :)
 
yjchua95 said:
I'd recommend Firefox as well.

Oh and if you really like Chrome, try using Epic Browser. It uses the Chromium engine, but stripped of all Google parts that track and spy on you :)
Click to expand...

Does Epic kill your battery like Chrome does, or is it more like Safari in this regard?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back