Is my new quad i7 too slow?

[Acejam2k]

Nope. Normal, your issue is the 4 GB of RAM....even with 8GB my 17" pro takes a few seconds to load Office....Your speed would be increased if you sell the two 2GB sticks and replace them with two 8 GB modules.

Wrong. RAM doesn't make your computer faster. Increasing memory simply allows you to run more programs at once, and therefore load more temporary data at once.

The OP's issue is 99% due to having a 5400rpm HDD. The difference between 5400 and 7200 rpm is noticeable to me. In addition, since you just got the new machine yesterday, it's possible Spotlight is indexing your entire system. That will certainly slow things down a bit.

There's also a bug in OS X Lion that causes active Time Machine backups to cause a "stutter". The machine will appear frozen for a second or two, and then quickly restore itself. This occurs a few times a minute, but only when Time Machine is actively backing up.

 

[thundersteele]

Thanks again for the reply's so far everyone!

That's my biggest point, as to I didn't see this kind of lag whatsoever in windows opening control panel, switching applications (no matter HOW many apps I had open), opening the standard word processing program (word was almost instant in windows, and I have a core 2 duo 3 year old computer, 4GB ram!)

Just opened pages for the first time after restarting, took about 6 seconds. Again, I can live, just annoying after spending $3000 .

Look, if you're unhappy with the performance of your computer, bring it back and buy a different one. That's your right as a customer.

If you care about application start times, you should have bought a SSD. There's nothing a quad core can do to speed up the HDD. That's not any different on a windows machine as far as I know.

Concerning the Lag you observe I don't know what to say. I had none of that even before upgrading the memory. I have dashboard + 5 desktops and 2-3 application windows open on each of them. There is no slowdown when switching desktops or apps. It's easy to find out whether a lack of memory is slowing you down: open activity monitor and check the Page outs.

 

[theromanone]

Also noticed it takes about 1.5 seconds to close out of any office program. Sometimes, 1.5-2 seconds just to close out of a word document "tab" when having 2 documents open in the program. Sorry but this is ridiculous. I will be updating to the ssd and installing my ram regardless, but I get the feeling something must be wrong with my literally brand-new-manufactured-in-china-7-days-ago laptop.

Spotlight, though it's completely useless as it doesn't show anything in search I don't already have in my dock, has not been indexing at all since two days ago.

Time Machine is completely off, since I already have an external 2tb hard drive to backup to, and at this point haven't figured out how to bypass to need to format my whole disk before using it.

As for the Skyrim issue, the game somehow uses 125%CPU and 925mb real memory (assuming this is ram). Not sure if this is normal, or due to my 4GB ram, but that's probably why there was an issue while it's open, though it seems to have gotten better. Curiously, my system memory still lists 1GB system memory inactive during the game, so I have a quarter of my ram still available.

 

[thundersteele]

Also noticed it takes about 1.5 seconds to close out of any office program. Sometimes, 1.5-2 seconds just to close out of a word document "tab" when having 2 documents open in the program. Sorry but this is ridiculous. I will be updating to the ssd and installing my ram regardless, but I get the feeling something must be wrong with my literally brand-new-manufactured-in-china-7-days-ago laptop.

If you think something is wrong, then why don't you have it checked before modifying it?

As for the Skyrim issue, the game somehow uses 125%CPU and 925mb real memory (assuming this is ram). Not sure if this is normal, or due to my 4GB ram, but that's probably why there was an issue while it's open, though it seems to have gotten better. Curiously, my system memory still lists 1GB system memory inactive during the game, so I have a quarter of my ram still available.

Mhh, I don't know what else would be normal.

Free/inactive RAM numbers are quite meaningless. What is important are the "Page Outs", those tell you whether you are swapping out from RAM to the HDD. Swapping will cripple your system on a slow HDD.

 

[NZed]

Omg you bought the quad core i7? They're so slow! They run slow, they get hot over time and they break easily! How can you buy a quad core i7? OMG!!!!!!

Sarcasm intended

 

[bill-p]

Also noticed it takes about 1.5 seconds to close out of any office program. Sometimes, 1.5-2 seconds just to close out of a word document "tab" when having 2 documents open in the program. Sorry but this is ridiculous. I will be updating to the ssd and installing my ram regardless, but I get the feeling something must be wrong with my literally brand-new-manufactured-in-china-7-days-ago laptop.

Spotlight, though it's completely useless as it doesn't show anything in search I don't already have in my dock, has not been indexing at all since two days ago.

Time Machine is completely off, since I already have an external 2tb hard drive to backup to, and at this point haven't figured out how to bypass to need to format my whole disk before using it.

As for the Skyrim issue, the game somehow uses 125%CPU and 925mb real memory (assuming this is ram). Not sure if this is normal, or due to my 4GB ram, but that's probably why there was an issue while it's open, though it seems to have gotten better. Curiously, my system memory still lists 1GB system memory inactive during the game, so I have a quarter of my ram still available.

I think you are just nitpicking the launch speed of your applications. Granted, you should expect more from a $3000 computer, but for what it's worth, I believe we are talking about a few seconds difference here. If it bothers you that much, I think SSD is definitely the route to take, and it'll show you a dramatic difference. Alternatively, you could get a hybrid HDD/SSD drive (Seagate Momentus XT) and it'll be a good tradeoff in-between after a while.

Also Skyrim Cider port under Mac has horrible performance. In fact, pretty much anything that runs under Cider has horrible performance. If you want to game and get good performance, go Bootcamp. That's the only way.

And if you decide to go Bootcamp, install 64-bit Windows 7. 32-bit has a bug in Bootcamp that limits available RAM to little bit more than 2GB regardless of how many you put in.

 

[noiceT]

I have an Apple installed SSD and 8GB Ram with the 2.2GHz quad core i7 in my 15" MBP. If I blink I will miss iTunes/Microsoft Office etc opening on my machine so it takes about one second or less to open them. I agree about the SSD making a huge difference. Perhaps you can look forward to upgrading your machine later on.

Have the exact same setup as RKO. As he said, the machine is WICKED fast. Get an 8GB Crucial ram - $30-40 (always fluctuates). Dirt cheap, good quality. Throw in a SATA 3 SSD and you're good. If you're concerned about space, get data doubler from OWC that you can switch out your optical drive and put your existing 750gb there. You're optical will then be an external.

 

[iforbes]

Have the exact same setup as RKO. As he said, the machine is WICKED fast. Get an 8GB Crucial ram - $30-40 (always fluctuates). Dirt cheap, good quality. Throw in a SATA 3 SSD and you're good. If you're concerned about space, get data doubler from OWC that you can switch out your optical drive and put your existing 750gb there. You're optical will then be an external.

But everyone is missing the point...the OP isn't look for blazing-don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it load times. He is just concerned that it should not take 4+ seconds to open System Preferences....5400 HDD, 7200 HDD...SSD...doesn't matter....it should not take that long to open.

SSD is lovely, but not required to open programs in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Mikesus]

Have you thought about looking at the activity monitor?

See what is running under all processes...

 

[noiceT]

But everyone is missing the point...the OP isn't look for blazing-don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it load times. He is just concerned that it should not take 4+ seconds to open System Preferences....5400 HDD, 7200 HDD...SSD...doesn't matter....it should not take that long to open.

SSD is lovely, but not required to open programs in a reasonable amount of time.

What do you mean? Opening Photoshop on a 5400 HD vs. an SSD is going to be a lot slower.

 

[iforbes]

What do you mean? Opening Photoshop on a 5400 HD vs. an SSD is going to be a lot slower.

Right...it's going to be slower. Everyone gets that. The issue is that it should not take 4 seconds to open System Preferences no matter what type of disc (HDD or SSD) it's on. The OP isn't saying that he wants every application to open the split second he clicks on it, rather he is saying that it should not take multiple seconds for little things (like system preferences, spotlight, etc) to open. That is the issue and SSD is not the answer (or is a band-aid at best).

 

[Furifo]

As others have said, you problems lie with your HDD. A 5400rpm is a huge bottleneck to virtually any system nowadays.

 

[noiceT]

Right...it's going to be slower. Everyone gets that. The issue is that it should not take 4 seconds to open System Preferences no matter what type of disc (HDD or SSD) it's on. The OP isn't saying that he wants every application to open the split second he clicks on it, rather he is saying that it should not take multiple seconds for little things (like system preferences, spotlight, etc) to open. That is the issue and SSD is not the answer (or is a band-aid at best).

Well then, what is left really...? I think that's the issue, because all the other possible culprits have been crossed out already, i.e. spotlight indexing, etc.

Best for the OP to take the machine into an apple store, compare straight up with a demo computer to show the problem.

Maybe last resort is to run disk warrior? See if that helps.

 

[iforbes]

Well then, what is left really...? I think that's the issue, because all the other possible culprits have been crossed out already, i.e. spotlight indexing, etc.

Best for the OP to take the machine into an apple store, compare straight up with a demo computer to show the problem.

Maybe last resort is to run disk warrior? See if that helps.

I think you hit the nail on the head!

 

[theromanone]

thanks, will take it to the mac store probably to check things out just in case.

..AND for some reason I can't pinch to zoom in safari as of five seconds ago. Works (stutters while doing it) in Chrome, but has completely stopped in Safari, and Word, Excel..

Officially reached my pissed off point. But I appreciate the patience with everyone trying to figure this out

Also another lame/weird slowdown. Clicking my name on the sign-in screen takes at least 1 second to actually show a password entry box. Again, don't care in the long run, but it doesn't seem right.

 

[theromanone]

SOLVED!...or is it?

Welp, restarted my computer for the first time since.... actually ever. It's had the lid closed and all since I first got it now 3 days ago, but only restarted after I installed the basic initial lion osx updates.

Now:
Word opens instantaneously, along with everything mentioned. iTunes takes about one second to open (the first time after restart!), two finger zooming is fine, spotlight is impeccable, everything seems to be solved!

Whew, thats a relief.

**On that note, how often do I need to actually restart, or is this dependent only on if I install a bunch of programs that can clog up the system without restart?

 

[gullySn0wCat]

You could have had a problem with programs leaking RAM. If your compter gets slow all of a sudden again, you will know what the culprit is.

 

[theromanone]

You could have had a problem with programs leaking RAM. If your compter gets slow all of a sudden again, you will know what the culprit is.

Yeah I feel a bit stupid, oh well. But how would I check for Ram leaking, or maybe what programs seem to contribute to page outs most often?

 

[gullySn0wCat]

It's not really that simple. I would say cider ports would be a likely culprit. Just restart once a day or whenever it's slow and you should be OK

 

[theromanone]

Sounds easy enough for me.
Thanks again guys for the help!

 

[thundersteele]

Sounds easy enough for me.
Thanks again guys for the help!

Oh well... good luck with your MBP in the future

 

[theromanone]

Maybe I spoke too soon and that there is something wrong.. at least some kind of memory sink it seems:

After only using safari, for a 5-ish hours, maybe 4-5 short 2 minute youtube videos along the way in the middle and I think i installed hyper dock from the app store, experiencing a very very slight but apparent slow down. The activity monitor as is (again, only safari is opened, and has been open, haven't done any gaming or even word processing):

Free: 1.71 GB
Wired: 815.7 MB
Active: 1.21 GB
Inactive: 282.1 MB
Used: 2.28 GB

VM Size: 179.31 GB
Page ins: 822.7 MB
Page outs: 157.3 MB
Swap used: 24.4 MB

 

[davidlv]

Welp, restarted my computer for the first time since.... actually ever. It's had the lid closed and all since I first got it now 3 days ago, but only restarted after I installed the basic initial lion osx updates.

After I got my new Mac mini and used it for a day or so, I ran the Repair Permissions function in Disk Utility (in the Applications/Utilities folder) and it put up a long list of repairs. Must have been the various updates that caused that. Now it only finds one or two, which is normal I assume.
Might try that too. Some installers, notably Adobe's Flash Player, are infamous for messing up on the permissions, so you might run that after installing such updates, otherwise it is not usually necessary.
The suggestion above to run Disk Warrior is also good advice, even if there is nothing wrong with your HD, DW optimizes the directory before it replaces it, which can give you a slight speed up for a while. And it is good practice to run DW periodically just as preventive maintenance (I run it once every month or two between jobs, as you have to boot up from an external disk or the very slow DVD in order to run it on the internal drive). In any case DW is considered one of if not the best utilities of its kind and I believe it is a good investment well worth the cash outlay.

 

[theSeb]

But everyone is missing the point...the OP isn't look for blazing-don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it load times. He is just concerned that it should not take 4+ seconds to open System Preferences....5400 HDD, 7200 HDD...SSD...doesn't matter....it should not take that long to open.

SSD is lovely, but not required to open programs in a reasonable amount of time.

Of course it matters. A 5400 RPM HDD is very slow and that is the problem. The CPU is not the issue here.

Imagine if you put wheel barrow tyres on a Ferrari. It wouldn't be very fast.

----------

Maybe I spoke too soon and that there is something wrong.. at least some kind of memory sink it seems:

After only using safari, for a 5-ish hours, maybe 4-5 short 2 minute youtube videos along the way in the middle and I think i installed hyper dock from the app store, experiencing a very very slight but apparent slow down. The activity monitor as is (again, only safari is opened, and has been open, haven't done any gaming or even word processing):

Free: 1.71 GB
Wired: 815.7 MB
Active: 1.21 GB
Inactive: 282.1 MB
Used: 2.28 GB

VM Size: 179.31 GB
Page ins: 822.7 MB
Page outs: 157.3 MB
Swap used: 24.4 MB

What brought you to this conclusion?

 

[thekev]

Also noticed it takes about 1.5 seconds to close out of any office program. Sometimes, 1.5-2 seconds just to close out of a word document "tab" when having 2 documents open in the program. Sorry but this is ridiculous. I will be updating to the ssd and installing my ram regardless, but I get the feeling something must be wrong with my literally brand-new-manufactured-in-china-7-days-ago laptop.

Spotlight, though it's completely useless as it doesn't show anything in search I don't already have in my dock, has not been indexing at all since two days ago.

Time Machine is completely off, since I already have an external 2tb hard drive to backup to, and at this point haven't figured out how to bypass to need to format my whole disk before using it.

As for the Skyrim issue, the game somehow uses 125%CPU and 925mb real memory (assuming this is ram). Not sure if this is normal, or due to my 4GB ram, but that's probably why there was an issue while it's open, though it seems to have gotten better. Curiously, my system memory still lists 1GB system memory inactive during the game, so I have a quarter of my ram still available.

Skyrim isn't really intended to run via Cider. It's simply not optimized for this. Macs under OSX aren't amazing for gaming in general. Regarding its cpu use, you're using a quad core machine, so it should cap out at 400% or 800% via hyperthreading. Loading times are typically bottlenecked by the hard drive. There are a few things that can help there, but laptop drives are not known for their speed (aside from SSDs). Your computer does have to work to keep some ram free at all times, but overall I doubt that's the issue with your current usage patterns.

You "might" benefit from going to 8, but it doesn't sound like 16 would do much for you. 8GB is roughly $45 from a third party. It will not necessarily solve your gaming issues. Aside from the hard drive itself, spotlight can bog things down a bit at times. It is responsible for indexing to allow for quick file searches. I suggest that you at least add non user files to privacy in your system preferences as it will smooth things out a bit, and you shouldn't have to search those files anyway.