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Is there a way to see what is running on my Mac?
- Thread starter JAYGEE
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My MacBook hard drive keeps doing that ticking noise, as if it is doing something big, like having a big app open, when it isn't.
Have you followed the advice above? (The graphic version from the utilities folder is probably nicer!) Are you getting slow loading speeds, or is it just the noise? If you're still under Applecare, it may be best to take it into a store.
Audible noise from a hard drive means: Make sure that your Time Machine backup is up-to-date. If you don't have an external drive, buy one right now.
It does get slow, when it does that, as the apps seem to lag slightly. I only got the yearly Applecare, when I bought the MacBook, but it ran out in July
I have followed the above advice, but I can't see anything out of the ordinary
Don't worry, I do back up. I think I will have to buy some Applecare, as this Macbook hasn't seemed right since I got it, but I have had it over a year, so I can't take it back now.
If you haven't bought AppleCare for your MacBook and you've had it more than a year, it's too late. You can only buy AppleCare before the end of the 1-year warranty.
term
Try going to the terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type in this command- (ps -aucx)
Do not put the parenthesis in. That will give you a better idea of what is running... I'm not really sure if it's any help but it could give you a clue as to what's running.
Try going to the terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type in this command- (ps -aucx)
Do not put the parenthesis in. That will give you a better idea of what is running... I'm not really sure if it's any help but it could give you a clue as to what's running.
Duff-Man says...yes, as suggested try the free smart status utility - it could tell you something. Also - can you tell us a bit more about your Macbook - like especially how much ram you have. If the sound you hear is just normal disk read/write sounds then it is also possible that it is the sound of the OS "paging" and adding some extra ram could alleviate that....oh yeah!
How much free space do you have remaining on your hard drive? Your Mac uses hard drive space as virtual memory (in addition to RAM) to help speed things along. If you only have 2GB of RAM, but your programs/processes require 4GB, then your computer will use 2GB or so of hard drive space to meet the requirements.
When free space gets too low, and your virtual memory needs exceed your available hard drive space, your computer has to do a ton of writing and re-writing to your hard drive in order to utilize what little space it has.
As a rule of thumb, you should try to keep 10% of your have drive free at all times. I'm not sure if the rule applies to ever growing capacities (do you need 100GB free on a 1TB drive?) but it's a pretty good target.
When free space gets too low, and your virtual memory needs exceed your available hard drive space, your computer has to do a ton of writing and re-writing to your hard drive in order to utilize what little space it has.
As a rule of thumb, you should try to keep 10% of your have drive free at all times. I'm not sure if the rule applies to ever growing capacities (do you need 100GB free on a 1TB drive?) but it's a pretty good target.
Just because SMART does not detect anything doesn't mean that the hard disk is healthy. Many things can happen which SMART will not detect.
On the other I've had very weird clicking noises since I installed a new hdd in my MBP and that was 8 months ago. It sounds like when the head spins to parking position. Happens around 10 times a day, but it hasn't done any harm so far.
Constant activity might be related to scheduled tasks running in the background. OSX runs certain cron jobs daily, weekly and monthly. If there are absolutely no breaks between the clicks you described I'd start to wonder.
Since it's quite easy to exchange hard drives on a MB you can always replace the current one with a bigger and cheaper new one. Carbon Copy Cloner and an external USB or Firewire casing will make it really easy to transfer everything. Or if you have two Macs you could boot one in target disk mode to copy everything over...
On the other I've had very weird clicking noises since I installed a new hdd in my MBP and that was 8 months ago. It sounds like when the head spins to parking position. Happens around 10 times a day, but it hasn't done any harm so far.
Constant activity might be related to scheduled tasks running in the background. OSX runs certain cron jobs daily, weekly and monthly. If there are absolutely no breaks between the clicks you described I'd start to wonder.
Since it's quite easy to exchange hard drives on a MB you can always replace the current one with a bigger and cheaper new one. Carbon Copy Cloner and an external USB or Firewire casing will make it really easy to transfer everything. Or if you have two Macs you could boot one in target disk mode to copy everything over...