I hate my MacBook!!

[Cubytus]

Like a Milf, but older

Here's the specs...

Image

There you are. Too low on RAM, spinning HDD, and running one of the slowest Mac OS X version to date.
1- revert to Mavericks.
2- Install SSD. 120GB models (provided you don't store most of your documents locally) are rather cheap.
3- Upgrade RAM.

Did that on a slightly older MB from 2009: before Yosemite, felt as fast as my daily i7 driver.

Well, you have a sum of mistakes:

1- the last OSX version which performed ok with hard disks was Mountain Lion;

Would you care to elaborate on that? Why would ML be the latest Mac OS X working correctly on a HDD?

 

[motrek]

the 2gb ram is the huge bottleneck of this macbook. no surprise it runs like crap.

money well spent (i confirmed your mb runs 8gb ram):

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/8566DDR3S8GP/
...

Amazon has the same RAM for $69 vs. $97.

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2- 2GB of RAM is ok for Snow Leopard, but it's not acceptable for Mavericks or Yosemite. Apple just allow you to install newer OS to think seriously about buying a new computer.
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This is false. I had a 2010 MBA with 2GB RAM and it ran Mavericks and Yosemite just fine.

Yes, it had an SSD. But it still wasn't swapping (or swapping that much) when doing basic tasks.

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Yes, they can shut down often with the option 'reopen windows when logging back in' disabled and do a few other things to increase general performance but 8GB RAM upgrade & SSD will fix the issues, guaranteed.

First of all, rebooting to increase performance is terrible advice. No technical justification.

Second, there's no guarantee that upgrading RAM and HD as suggested will fix the problems with lagging. We have plenty of threads here started by people with 2014 MBAs complaining about lagging.

1) Even if the issues are related to a corrupted HDD, replacing this with another HDD isn't going to solve the 2GB RAM bottleneck and performance will still be slow when it pages.

You just wrote a whole thing at the top of your post about how you can barely notice swapping on a MBA because it has an SSD, so why is it you're recommending a RAM upgrade instead of an SSD upgrade first??

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There you are. Too low on RAM, spinning HDD, and running one of the slowest Mac OS X version to date.
1- revert to Mavericks.
...

Do we have any actual evidence at all that Yosemite is slower than Mavericks?

I have seen Safari run slower (inexplicable beach balls) but everything else seems exactly as fast on the 3 Macs I've put it on.

 

[Meister]

I doubt it runs Yosemite "perfectly" fine. It runs a "plain" fine at best. When switching tasks, it would swap faster than a HDD, but it would lag more if it had 8GB installed. For most users it can be unnoticeable, and that's why the first upgrade is a SSD, but if you can afford for more RAM, it doesn't hurt.

I agree that an ssd comes first, after we have established it's a spec and not a software problem. And of course more RAM almost never hurts, but it's expensive and a user who only runs apps like office and safari does not need more than 2gb RAM. He will have wasted money.

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For most users, the general advice is 8GB of RAM plus a 250GB SSD. It's not way more expensive than 4GB + 120GB SSD and is more future-proof. When someone says "everything is lagging", "a lot of spinning BBoDs", of course he doesn't need a new GPU. The issue is linked to RAM and I/O.

I actually monitored this lately and the gpu is what seems to be stressed the most. istat shows: 50% gpu used, 20% RAM used and 5 - 20% cpu used for basic tasks on my rmbp 2.4/8/256. This would explain why keeps upgrading the gpu in all its Mac first.

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With 2GB RAM it's going to be paging, no question.

Do you have any sources to back this claim?

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So that's why people make these recommendations -- it's not unhelpful and it's not a knee-jerk reaction. The posters here are very experienced with these issues, and there's only so much you can do when you've got hardware limitations. Other suggestions are simply a waste of time, so people aren't being unhelpful -- they're being succinct.

It would be good if the OP could upgrade the memory, but it's costy and we don't know if it will give any improvements.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

Without even going into some of the comments above. I still need to have some more info:

At what point did your system start lagging?
What apps do you run?

Despite being a bit underspeced, your OS itself should not lag like that.
Before you start upgrading, consider the upgrade order of:

1. Reinstall Mac OS
2. Exchange your hdd for an ssd (you should really do this)
3. If there is some $$$ left upgrade your ram to 4 or 8 gb

You could also bring it into the store and have them do a hardware check.

Hi Meister,

I've been looking at your links earlier to the RAM and SSD. I may very well go that route-- today if there's any CyberMonday deals to be had. Will I lose the content of my HDD? I have it cloned via CCC and Backed up via Time Machine on an external HDD, and I keep my iTunes and iPhoto libraries on a separate external HDD.

As for your questions, my MacBook has almost always lagged, since it came out of the box. Generally I run no more than 1-2 apps, max of 4-5, at a time. First two always up are Safari and Mail. Then sometimes iPhoto and iTunes (iPhone backing up, syncing, etc.). Occasionally also MS-Word, but usually not if iPhoto or iTunes are open. That's it. My web browsing on Safari lags often, even with nothing else open.

About reinstalling the OS, isn't that done each time I have upgraded OS X? I am hesitant to reload OS only because I don't know what I will be losing (software, files, etc.) by doing so. It isn't as simple as getting a new iPhone and clicking "Restore From Backup."

 

[Meister]

Hi Meister, I've been looking at your links earlier to the RAM and SSD. I may very well go that route-- today if there's any CyberMonday deals to be had.

What links?

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Will I lose the content of my HDD? I have it cloned via CCC and Backed up via Time Machine on an external HDD, and I keep my iTunes and iPhoto libraries on a separate external HDD.

Sounds like you are backed up correctly. You shouldn't lose anything then. You can use the migration assistant, but I would recommend doing as much as possible from scratch if you get an ssd.

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Generally I run no more than 1-2 apps, max of 4-5, at a time. First two always up are Safari and Mail. Then sometimes iPhoto and iTunes (iPhone backing up, syncing, etc.). Occasionally also MS-Word, but usually not if iPhoto or iTunes are open. That's it. My web browsing on Safari lags often, even with nothing else open.

iTunes and iPhoto are quite slow apps from my experience anyway, but if you open this all up at once with 2gb RAM, then it is possible you are running a bit low on memory. Take a screenshot of your memory pressure in the activity monitor and post it here.

Your macbook should never have been slow out of the box. That's weird.

About reinstalling the OS, isn't that done each time I have upgraded OS X? I am hesitant to reload OS only because I don't know what I will be losing (software, files, etc.) by doing so. It isn't as simple as getting a new iPhone and clicking "Restore From Backup."

When I restore my iPad from Backup, it actually never really restores everything. I always lose data, but do not know why

Updating is not really a clean reinstall. I am suggesting this, because I am trying to ascertain what in your MacBooks software configuration is causing the problem. So taking everything out and putting it in piece by piece would locate the problem.

 

[Cubytus]

First of all, rebooting to increase performance is terrible advice. No technical justification.

Agreed, if a reboot fixes anything, it means either of two things: either you're running Windows, or something is awry with your Mac.

Second, there's no guarantee that upgrading RAM and HD as suggested will fix the problems with lagging. We have plenty of threads here started by people with 2014 MBAs complaining about lagging.

Also true. Reverting to Mavericks will fix the lagging.

Do we have any actual evidence at all that Yosemite is slower than Mavericks?

How about a ton of comments in the Yosemite forum?

I agree that an ssd comes first, after we have established it's a spec and not a software problem. And of course more RAM almost never hurts, but it's expensive and a user who only runs apps like office and safari does not need more than 2gb RAM. He will have wasted money.

A RAM upgrade is far less expensive than a SSD upgrade. Surely a SSD will make swapping more bearable, but what about avoiding swapping altogether?

And you are heavily wrong: Safari leaks RAM like there's no tomorrow, so anyone using Safari will definitely need more than 2GB RAM, gosh, even 4GB is often not enough if you do any serious browsing. Note, this also applies to other browsers, but to a lesser extent.

I actually monitored this lately and the gpu is what seems to be stressed the most. istat shows: 50% gpu used, 20% RAM used and 5 - 20% cpu used for basic tasks on my rmbp 2.4/8/256. This would explain why keeps upgrading the gpu in all its Mac first.

Indeed. Driving this big ass Retina screens with the effects-heavy Yosemite surely takes a toll on the GPU.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

Meister,

Sorry, it was CycleDancer that posted the links to which I referred earlier.

Here's the screenshot of the Memory Pressure with Safari, Mail, iTunes, and iPhoto up. Preview was up also.

I'm not sure how to do a reinstall of my OS.

What SSD works best? I assume the more capacity the better?

 

[Meister]

Meister,

Sorry, it was CycleDancer that posted the links to which I referred earlier.

Here's the screenshot of the Memory Pressure with Safari, Mail, iTunes, and iPhoto up. Preview was up also.

I'm not sure how to do a reinstall of my OS.

What SSD works best? I assume the more capacity the better?

Image

That memory pressure does not look good.
I think it is safe to say that you do indeed need a RAM upgrade.

After seeing this I'd recommend:

1. Upgrade RAM (find the memory specs: --> 'about this mac')
2. Put in an ssd

These upgrades might run you around $100 and your macbook should be better than new.

If this works there is no need to reinstall the OS. Sorry. I should've mentioned the activity monitor in the first place.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

That memory pressure does not look good.
I think it is safe to say that you do indeed need a RAM upgrade.

After seeing this I'd recommend:

1. Upgrade RAM (find the memory specs: --> 'about this mac')
2. Put in an ssd

These upgrades might run you around $100 and your macbook should be better than new.

If this works there is no need to reinstall the OS. Sorry. I should've mentioned the activity monitor in the first place.

Thanks Meister!!!! That's pretty good news, and certainly a stop-gap measure well worth trying before deciding on the rumored mid-2015 12-inch MBA. Would you have suggestions on brand of memory and SSD? CycleDancer's OWC links looked pretty good, if they're reputable and not overpriced.

 

[Meister]

Thanks Meister!!!! That's pretty good news, and certainly a stop-gap measure well worth trying before deciding on the rumored mid-2015 12-inch MBA. Would you have suggestions on brand of memory and SSD? CycleDancer's OWC links looked pretty good, if they're reputable and not overpriced.

RAM is RAM. Get what's cheapest.
Any ssd will work for you. Crucial gives the best bang for the buck and Samsung gives the best performance, but I doubt you'll notice any difference. I would personally buy either crucial, samsung or maybe sandisk.

 

[cycledance]

Thanks Meister!!!! That's pretty good news, and certainly a stop-gap measure well worth trying before deciding on the rumored mid-2015 12-inch MBA. Would you have suggestions on brand of memory and SSD? CycleDancer's OWC links looked pretty good, if they're reputable and not overpriced.

yea it doesn't matter where u get the ram from. this was actually just to show u the specific kind of ram u need.

and my name isn't cycledancer.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

...and my name isn't cycledancer.

No disrespect intended. I'm lucky I was only one letter off, when I first glanced at it, I thought it said "Clydesdale" and I almost started typing that a couple times...

 

[motrek]

...
How about a ton of comments in the Yosemite forum?
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Re: Yosemite being slow.

I haven't been watching the Yosemite forum but there have been a ton of people complaining about it on the MBA forum. But again, I think people are conflating the OS performance with Preview and Safari.

It does sound like there's a bug with Preview that causes it to grind to a halt when working with PDFs. I haven't seen this personally. Maybe it was already fixed in the most recent update. I have seen problems with Safari where it will beachball for seemingly no reason. (CPU usage low, memory usage low, network responsive, etc., but still beachballing.)

If you don't use Safari then I argue that Yosemite is basically as performant as Mavericks. Personally I use Chrome.

It amazes me how many people get on these forums and complain "OMG my computer is so slow LOLZ" and what they really mean is that Safari is really slow and if they just switched to Chrome it would solve all their problems. But they seem to think that since they own a Mac they can/should only run Apple software, or something.

 

[Meister]

Re: Yosemite being slow.

I haven't been watching the Yosemite forum but there have been a ton of people complaining about it on the MBA forum. But again, I think people are conflating the OS performance with Preview and Safari.

It does sound like there's a bug with Preview that causes it to grind to a halt when working with PDFs. I haven't seen this personally. Maybe it was already fixed in the most recent update. I have seen problems with Safari where it will beachball for seemingly no reason. (CPU usage low, memory usage low, network responsive, etc., but still beachballing.)

If you don't use Safari then I argue that Yosemite is basically as performant as Mavericks. Personally I use Chrome.

It amazes me how many people get on these forums and complain "OMG my computer is so slow LOLZ" and what they really mean is that Safari is really slow and if they just switched to Chrome it would solve all their problems. But they seem to think that since they own a Mac they can/should only run Apple software, or something.

My experience was the exact opposite. Safari in Yosemite is like greased lightning!
I've noticed a slight overall sluggishness in Yosemite on all systems, but Safari is just awesome!

I've had terrible experiences with chrome myself, that I have written about on here before.

I guess the bottom line is that you have to find whatever works for you.

 

[Cubytus]

But again, I think people are conflating the OS performance with Preview and Safari.

i.e. two of the most commonly used applications.

It does sound like there's a bug with Preview that causes it to grind to a halt when working with PDFs. I haven't seen this personally. Maybe it was already fixed in the most recent update. I have seen problems with Safari where it will beachball for seemingly no reason. (CPU usage low, memory usage low, network responsive, etc., but still beachballing.)

Indeed, not having perfect compatibility with Preview is a cause for concern in itself. On another system, I would have said this beachballing to be due to overusage of swap space, but I also regularly experience it using Firefox on my MBP (Snow Leopard). It's rather non-specific: reasonable CPU usage (although FF was never kind on it with my usual configurations), reasonable RAM usage, no disk activity.

It amazes me how many people get on these forums and complain "OMG my computer is so slow LOLZ" and what they really mean is that Safari is really slow and if they just switched to Chrome it would solve all their problems. But they seem to think that since they own a Mac they can/should only run Apple software, or something.

How can it be so hard to understand that people may not want to give in to Google's imperialist policy?

 

[rei101]

I have a 17" Mac Book Pro from early 2008, is the one I am using to type right now and I have it installed 6GB of ram that is actually super cheap and SSD drive. No beach balls.

The processor is 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo.

But still... just add ram to your computer, the beach ball is because is pulling data from the very slow drive all the time. 2GB of ram is nothing.

Do the upgrades yourself and you will have a brand new computer! trust me.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

Ok Guys, order placed. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks again for all your time and input.

 

[motrek]

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How can it be so hard to understand that people may not want to give in to Google's imperialist policy?

Huh? I have no idea what Google's "imperialist policy" is and I don't know how I'm "giving in to it" by using their free web browser.

You could also use Firefox if you want to be all hippy about things, although in my experience it's not as responsive.

 

[MacTCE]

2GB RAM. lol.

Dude upgrade it to 8GB, upgrade HDD to SSD. It'll be a new laptop.

Doing this will make it feel like a brand new machine.

 

[Cubytus]

Huh? I have no idea what Google's "imperialist policy" is and I don't know how I'm "giving in to it" by using their free web browser.

You could also use Firefox if you want to be all hippy about things, although in my experience it's not as responsive.

Seems you really need to read some material about Google, then.

And I don't understand how using Firefox means going "hippy".

 

[joshlalonde]

Seems you really need to read some material about Google, then.

And I don't understand how using Firefox means going "hippy".

Pft, both of you are quite mistaken.
Safari is the best browser on the Mac. Chrome eats battery with its buggy memory leaks, and Firefox is dying. I don't really care about Firefox, tbh. It's not even worth mentioning.

Well, that's my opinion. Well, not really. Chrome is buggy and Firefox is dying.
Chrome, however, would be the better browser if it worked. But it causes my computer to slow down while I'm running it, so..

 

[motrek]

Seems you really need to read some material about Google, then.
...

That's a pretty sad argument, essentially, "go argue my point for me."

If you don't want to give your personal information to Google, I can understand. But Chrome doesn't do that--or at least it doesn't do that after you've configured the default search engine to be something else, so you aren't uploading your partial search queries for the purposes of autocompletion. Easy.

I have not had problems with Chrome memory leaks etc.

 

[Cubytus]

That's a pretty sad argument, essentially, "go argue my point for me."

If you don't want to give your personal information to Google, I can understand. But Chrome doesn't do that--or at least it doesn't do that after you've configured the default search engine to be something else, so you aren't uploading your partial search queries for the purposes of autocompletion. Easy.

I have not had problems with Chrome memory leaks etc.

Not rally, but the case against Google is so heavy that I am not really willing to annoy others about it as well. These are basically well-known truth.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I have a 2009 Macbook, too. Your problem is the RAM. The base config is just 2gb of RAM, and Mavericks works best with 4gb of RAM and an SSD.

If you upgrade your RAM to 4gb, and replace the hard drive with an SSD, the laptop will feel like a new machine. You can probably pull it off for around $150.

Apple isn't that great at keeping their OS optimized, instead relying on newer hardware to keep their OS running smooth. Update your mac, and you'll be good to go.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Amazon has the same RAM for $69 vs. $97.

First of all, rebooting to increase performance is terrible advice. No technical justification.

Second, there's no guarantee that upgrading RAM and HD as suggested will fix the problems with lagging. We have plenty of threads here started by people with 2014 MBAs complaining about lagging.

It's not terrible advice. Shutting down clears the applications in RAM. With a bottleneck of 2GB or when there's a memory leak on OS X it helps. Shutting down is much better than putting the computer into sleep. Don't be so condescending when it's blatantly obvious you think you know more than you do.

You just wrote a whole thing at the top of your post about how you can barely notice swapping on a MBA because it has an SSD, so why is it you're recommending a RAM upgrade instead of an SSD upgrade first??

Because 2GB RAM is a huge bottleneck and an SSD won't be able to increase how many applications can load into the RAM -- it'll only compensate for a performance loss when paging to the hard-drive.

I agree that an ssd comes first, after we have established it's a spec and not a software problem. And of course more RAM almost never hurts, but it's expensive and a user who only runs apps like office and safari does not need more than 2gb RAM. He will have wasted money.

Hogwash. OS X will always utilise as much memory as it can. 8GB will make a massively positive impact.

Do you have any sources to back this claim?

Common knowledge, experience - anybody who's worked in the industry with Macs knows this to be fact. Nobody would think upgrading the RAM from 2GB to 8GB on a Mac is a bad idea.

It would be good if the OP could upgrade the memory, but it's costy and we don't know if it will give any improvements.

It's not costly and again -- they've only got 2GB RAM. It will make improvements. Why is everybody being so obtuse?