Hello all.
I've watched my mother use this Macbook Pro Mid-2009 (2.8GHz with 8GB ram upgrade - Crucial) for a year now with Mac OS X Lion. Being more tech-savvy than she is, I've been shuddering at the many issues it's had over the past year.
First off, I understand that there have been many posting about high CPU usage and temperatures on this and other MacBooks with Lion, however this MacBook seems to be behaving differently, because Spotlight is not indexing and CPU temperature is still ridiculously high, plus 4 out of the 8 GB of ram are in use with everything closed (that could be).
About half a year ago, I used a separate user on her Mac, and let me explain what I dealt with:
These issues mainly occurred when I was logged into a separate account, while my mother was still logged in. My mother's account acted fine if I logged out. If I was logged in, and then my mother switched users to hers without logging me out, she would also have these issues.
To get an idea of my RAM concerns, I did a test. I closed everything that could be closed by normal means (not Force-Quitting processes), and this is what I got (See attachment for Activity Monitor log):
4GB was still in use. Most notably, Finder was using about 200MB, kernel_task was using 700+MB, some process named "AntiVirus" using 175MB (I hope this is MacKeeper's AV process. If not, something's wrong here...), DashboardClient using 100+MB, MacKeeper Helper using 200+MB, mds and mdworker using total 200+MB (no CPU usage), and WindowServer using 100MB.
Thankfully the Mac was idling at 2 to 5% CPU usage at that point, and idles at about 50 degrees celsius. However, with programs open, CPU temperatures get up to 80 and 90+ degrees celsius. The MacBook is not powering off, so I understand that this might be safe, but performance is still not what I'm expecting from a Mac.
If someone could check my process list, just to see if there is something suspicious (namely "AntiVirus" among any other possible candidates), I would highly appreciate it.
I am of the understanding that my mother upgraded (a.k.a. not a fresh install) from Mac OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion, and I have heard that installing Lion fresh can resolve these kinds of issues. Please let me know if this can help, as my mother is willing to try this.
As always, thanks in advance for any information you can provide to this matter.
I've watched my mother use this Macbook Pro Mid-2009 (2.8GHz with 8GB ram upgrade - Crucial) for a year now with Mac OS X Lion. Being more tech-savvy than she is, I've been shuddering at the many issues it's had over the past year.
First off, I understand that there have been many posting about high CPU usage and temperatures on this and other MacBooks with Lion, however this MacBook seems to be behaving differently, because Spotlight is not indexing and CPU temperature is still ridiculously high, plus 4 out of the 8 GB of ram are in use with everything closed (that could be).
About half a year ago, I used a separate user on her Mac, and let me explain what I dealt with:
- Constant CPU overload (every program froze)
- Excessive RAM usage (this still occurs on my mother's account, see below)
- High temperatures (still occurs, see below)
- Overall laggy performance opening applications
These issues mainly occurred when I was logged into a separate account, while my mother was still logged in. My mother's account acted fine if I logged out. If I was logged in, and then my mother switched users to hers without logging me out, she would also have these issues.
To get an idea of my RAM concerns, I did a test. I closed everything that could be closed by normal means (not Force-Quitting processes), and this is what I got (See attachment for Activity Monitor log):
4GB was still in use. Most notably, Finder was using about 200MB, kernel_task was using 700+MB, some process named "AntiVirus" using 175MB (I hope this is MacKeeper's AV process. If not, something's wrong here...), DashboardClient using 100+MB, MacKeeper Helper using 200+MB, mds and mdworker using total 200+MB (no CPU usage), and WindowServer using 100MB.
Thankfully the Mac was idling at 2 to 5% CPU usage at that point, and idles at about 50 degrees celsius. However, with programs open, CPU temperatures get up to 80 and 90+ degrees celsius. The MacBook is not powering off, so I understand that this might be safe, but performance is still not what I'm expecting from a Mac.
If someone could check my process list, just to see if there is something suspicious (namely "AntiVirus" among any other possible candidates), I would highly appreciate it.
I am of the understanding that my mother upgraded (a.k.a. not a fresh install) from Mac OS X Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion, and I have heard that installing Lion fresh can resolve these kinds of issues. Please let me know if this can help, as my mother is willing to try this.
As always, thanks in advance for any information you can provide to this matter.
