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Is My MacbookPro Dying?

S

sharkbait006

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I've been noticing the performance on my MBP is getting worse and worse. I have the Early 2008 Edition MBP 2.4 GHZ with 4 GB Ram.

What I've been noticing is when I'm browsing or typing, it will freeze up temporarily and the spinning beachball thing for 2-3 seconds before it starts back up. It's starting to become more frequent. Also, Youtube videos dont play smoothly at all anymore.

Has anyone had issues like this? Is there something I can do to see what the issue is?


At first I thought it was a hard drive issue but I've moved a lot of stuff to my ext hd so now there's 100 GB and still the problem persists. I also notice that my laptop runs hotter and battery life is getting worse.
 
If its freezing up frequently it sounds like a RAM problem, if its just a freeze on a certain application but you can still use others then you dont have enough RAM, but if your whole computer locks up for a few seconds, and not even the mouse will respond, then you have a broken stick of RAM, you should use your warranty / applecare to get this seen to, or buy some new ones online

🙂
 
The computer doesnt freeze. The mouse is moveable but its the spinning wheel thing.

I dont have enough RAM for just browsing? I think 4 GBs is the maximum for this laptop. I dont do graphics work or anything on it. Just browsing, itunes, email, IM, and watch youtube videos.

It's like this after a reboot as well.
 
no one said you do not have enough RAM, but it may be bad. that's what it sounds like to me also. have you tried a restart? that clears out caches and such which can resolve some issues.

good luck
 
I would back up everything and run some hardware tests. If you check Disk Utility, does it mention anything about the SMART status of your HDD?
 
It says my Smart Status is verified.

What hardware tests should I run? Should I be worried about a HD failure or Ram failure?

rychencop said:
no one said you do not have enough RAM, but it may be bad. that's what it sounds like to me also. have you tried a restart? that clears out caches and such which can resolve some issues.

good luck
Click to expand...

How do I clear out the cache?
 
Open up your terminal, and type in this:

ls -l /var/log/*.out

and hit enter. Some lines will come up.

-In the line that says "Daily.out", is the time stamp show today's date?
-In the line that says "Weekly.out", is the time stamp a date in the last week?
-In the line that says "Monthly.out", is the time stamp a date in the last month?


If that answer to any of those questions is no, type in this:

sudo periodic daily monthly weekly

Hit enter. You will be prompted for your admin password. Type it, and hit enter again (you will not see any asterisks or any other symbols for your password, but it is accepting the characters)

Also, type the letter "w" and hit enter, and copy and paste into a post what comes up.
 
20:06 up 4 days, 33 mins, 2 users, load averages: 2.61 2.44 2.34
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
jameschen console - Sun19 4days -
jameschen s000 - 20:04 - w


I don't know what this means??
 
sharkbait006 said:
20:06 up 4 days, 33 mins, 2 users, load averages: 2.61 2.44 2.34
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
jameschen console - Sun19 4days -
jameschen s000 - 20:04 - w


I don't know what this means??
Click to expand...

Were you encoding something when you did that? If you weren't, go to Activity Monitor and rank your processes by CPU. I think you may find the culprit.

Anyway, what you are seeing there, piece:

20:06 - This is the current time of day

up 4 days, 33 mins - This is your uptime, or how long it has been since you last started the machine.

load averages: 2.61 2.44 2.34 - These show the amount of work your CPU was doing on average in the last minute, 5 minutes, and 15 minutes, respectively. 1.00 is one core's worth of work. So a load average of .5, .67 1.0 would mean in the last minute, you used an average of half of one cores available clock cycles, 2/3rds of them on average during the last 5 mins, and all of them on average during the last 15 minutes. Anything above 1.00 means somebody had to wait their turn for the CPU. Of course, you have a dual core, so you can get up to 2.00 before stuff needs to wait in line. You may notice, however, your average for the last minute is 2.61. The last 5 minutes is 2.44, and the last 15 mins is 2.34. Meaning your system has had the hammer down continuously for at least the last 15 minutes. Unless you were busy, I think you have a process you don't know about sucking down your machine.
 
Honestly mine is getting the same way but this is normal for computers.

You use it and install more crap into the OS and it gets sluggish etc.

I'm probably gonna do a full wipe soon and reinstall OSX or maybe do it when Snow Leopard comes out.

A fresh OS install is always heaven.
 
dissdnt said:
Honestly mine is getting the same way but this is normal for computers.

You use it and install more crap into the OS and it gets sluggish etc.

I'm probably gonna do a full wipe soon and reinstall OSX or maybe do it when Snow Leopard comes out.

A fresh OS install is always heaven.
Click to expand...

No, that's just Windows that does that. Despite what some Win-nerds or MS advertising may want you to think, none of the following are considered normal or acceptable behaviors for a modern operating system:

-Fragmentation to the point of needing weekly or monthly cleanup
-Easy infection from viruses/spyware/etc
-"Rotting" or needing to be reinstalled every year or two (or more)
-Needing to be restarted every so often

There are servers that run continuously 24/7 for months at a time, simply because their owners cannot afford to have them down. They do not need regular restarts or reinstalls. It just doesn't happen.
 
Sorry I had a movie playing in the background when I did this.

I redid it:

21:03 up 4 days, 1:31, 2 users, load averages: 2.26 2.32 2.30
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT
jameschen console - Sun19 4days -
jameschen s000 - 21:02 - w

Actually, I'll wait 20 minutes to redo this as the movie just finished.
 
Shocked nobody has recommended repairing permissions yet.

Applications --> Utilities --> Disk Utility

Click the First Aid tab and highlight your drive on the left. Then click Repair Permissions. Do it a couple times and see if anything improves at all. I have a feeling there will be a few repairs made.

--mAc
 
One thing... I just looked at Activity Monitor like you said, and

ATSServer is taking up ~190 of CPU. Not sure what this is or what it's doing but it's only taking up 934 kb Real Memory but 624.85 MB virtual

The next highest is Firefox at ~5-10 CPU

Is this the culprit? I dont even know what ATSServer is...

Here's a screenshot of what's going on...

http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/2867/activitymonitorwe0.jpg

Does anyone know what that server thing is doing?
 
sharkbait006 said:
One thing... I just looked at Activity Monitor like you said, and

ATSServer is taking up ~190 of CPU. Not sure what this is or what it's doing but it's only taking up 934 kb Real Memory but 624.85 MB virtual

The next highest is Firefox at ~5-10 CPU

Is this the culprit? I dont even know what ATSServer is...
Click to expand...

I had heard of this issue previously but don't know a fix off-hand. A little googling found this:

http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-system-mac-software/268123-atsserver.html

Maybe give it a shot? I know that ATS server deals with Fonts and indexing of files for Spotlight. Sorry, somebody else should know more.

--mAc
 
sharkbait006 said:
One thing... I just looked at Activity Monitor like you said, and

ATSServer is taking up ~190 of CPU. Not sure what this is or what it's doing but it's only taking up 934 kb Real Memory but 624.85 MB virtual

The next highest is Firefox at ~5-10 CPU

Is this the culprit? I dont even know what ATSServer is...
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be our culprit. Lots of CPU usage means other stuff is getting bumped out of the way and has to wait. Busy CPU means lots of power, hence the poor battery life, and a lot of that power turned to heat, hence the warm temps. A little Googling for "ATSServer" should help you.
 
Well I'm happy to report after killing that process, things are back to normal. Still not sure why that process was going crazy but now I know it wasn't my hardware failing.

Thanks for everyone's help! This is truly a great community we've got going here at Macrumor. Happy New Years!
 
J the Ninja said:
No, that's just Windows that does that. Despite what some Win-nerds or MS advertising may want you to think, none of the following are considered normal or acceptable behaviors for a modern operating system:

-Fragmentation to the point of needing weekly or monthly cleanup
-Easy infection from viruses/spyware/etc
-"Rotting" or needing to be reinstalled every year or two (or more)
-Needing to be restarted every so often

There are servers that run continuously 24/7 for months at a time, simply because their owners cannot afford to have them down. They do not need regular restarts or reinstalls. It just doesn't happen.
Click to expand...

Sorry but a server and a personal computer are totally different.

Normal computing people are constantly installing/uninstalling software. Start up programs are put in, removed not completely. Programs run in resident memory that you might have thought you removed. etc.

Of course some of this applies only to Windows, like registry entries etc.

OSX isn't a flawless OS. Like ANY other you will see degradation in performance over time.

No one can deny that a fresh OS install isn't considerably more "zippy"
 
dissdnt said:
Sorry but a server and a personal computer are totally different.

Normal computing people are constantly installing/uninstalling software. Start up programs are put in, removed not completely. Programs run in resident memory that you might have thought you removed. etc.

Of course some of this applies only to Windows, like registry entries etc.

OSX isn't a flawless OS. Like ANY other you will see degradation in performance over time.

No one can deny that a fresh OS install isn't considerably more "zippy"
Click to expand...

I am thinking about doing this soon. Is it helpful in any way to restore from a Time Machine backup? Or does that just put all of the same startup programs and stuff back on my Mac that aren't being used?
 
alexbates said:
I am thinking about doing this soon. Is it helpful in any way to restore from a Time Machine backup? Or does that just put all of the same startup programs and stuff back on my Mac that aren't being used?
Click to expand...

Programs, I wouldn't. I'd just install stuff fresh and restore your own personal files.

Again this is just an idea. I've done it a million times on my pc, never tried on a mac.
 
dissdnt said:
Sorry but a server and a personal computer are totally different.

Normal computing people are constantly installing/uninstalling software. Start up programs are put in, removed not completely. Programs run in resident memory that you might have thought you removed. etc.

Of course some of this applies only to Windows, like registry entries etc.

OSX isn't a flawless OS. Like ANY other you will see degradation in performance over time.

No one can deny that a fresh OS install isn't considerably more "zippy"
Click to expand...

Yes, they ARE removed. Either the .app bundle is there or it isn't. Either it's in the startup list, or it isn't. Operating System's don't rot. "I've done it a million times on my pc, never tried on a mac. " -Why doesn't this surprise me? It REALLY isn't necessary. Go look through your process list. Go see if anything is slowing it down.
 
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