I'm on my second 13" MBP i5 2011. The first one I mistakenly feared had heating issues. Upon returning it within the 14-day window, I discovered the first could not be such an anomaly, as the replacement became just as toasty under similar load. For a while, I have suspected the replacement is not as snappy as the first one. It may sound like nitpicking, but certain applications take a jump or two more to open and the stacks don't emerge from the dock with as much aplomb. Currently, I have a 172 MB PSD file open but minimized and the whole system is sluggish and not quite as responsive. It sometimes lags even when switching from one tab on Firefox to the next. The dictionary app which usually pops open takes a few hops and my iTunes tracks skip at times. Is this normal? Does this sound an issue that could be sorted out by an SSD?
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Laggy i5 2011 MBP
- Thread starter AppleGoat
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Could be any number of things. Lack of RAM, spotlight indexing the drive, rogue process eating away your ressources, etc.
There probably wasn't a heating problem with your first MBP, they all run hot and are designed to do so, if it's not shutting down due to the heat, you're good to go.
Open up activity monitor, display all processes and sort by processor usage. Also show us the pie graph of the memory with the page ins and outs, we'll go from there.
+1 for spotlight indexing, especially if you immediately dumped everything from your old computer onto the new one. I'm curious as to what's eating that much RAM. It looks like you have a few of the CS5 apps open.
Thanks all. Would this also be remedied by swapping out the HDD for an SSD?
I get a lot of progress bars in Photoshop, maybe the scale of what I'm working with. My computer is slow as molasses right now. It's taking a while just to write this message.
Given that my computer usually throws up 5900 Geekbench scores, does that exculpate the processor and memory. Or could my machine still be a lemon?
Just out of interest, how exactly did you think your computer was a lemon and not as fast as other identical machines?
Well it took a few more hops on the dock for some apps to open. However, the only thing wrong here is most likely the user. I think an SSD will help keep the beach balls at bay though.
I just did a little experiment at work. I pitted my MBP against an older iMac (circa '06/'07) 2.0ghz, 6 GB of RAM. I disconnected the iMac from Ethernet so both computers were wirelessly connected to the server. Well, my MBP trounced the the older iMac in copying a 780 MB file from the server to the desktop. It said it would take about 40 minutes for the iMac to complete the task, then I pulled it off with my MBP and it did it in 5 minutes. Not sure how processor-intensive this task is. Perhaps, my MBP has a better wireless connection. The aging Power Mac G5 in the office would have needed 26 hours to complete the operation.
That little test you did, where both were connected wirelessly, was basically a test on their wireless connection: The MBP can connect at about 4 or 5 times the speed. It wasn't really a test of a processor or HDD.
As for whether an SSD will help, it will, but only to a certain extent. Apps will load a lot faster, large files will open a lot faster and it will help to a small extent with the page filing. However, you will most likely still feel some lag/delay when doing normal tasks, like switching tabs in Firefox or switching between already running programs.
If you are frequently working on large PS files (among other things), you will probably get more benefit out of getting 8GB of RAM. As RAM is so cheap these days, it would be silly not to give it a try before opting to go the SSD route.
That's just my opinion anyway, others might disagree.
As for whether an SSD will help, it will, but only to a certain extent. Apps will load a lot faster, large files will open a lot faster and it will help to a small extent with the page filing. However, you will most likely still feel some lag/delay when doing normal tasks, like switching tabs in Firefox or switching between already running programs.
If you are frequently working on large PS files (among other things), you will probably get more benefit out of getting 8GB of RAM. As RAM is so cheap these days, it would be silly not to give it a try before opting to go the SSD route.
That's just my opinion anyway, others might disagree.
Looks like you're paging out quite a bit which would indicate you're running out of RAM often.
Upgrading to 8Gb could be an improvement for you.
Correct, if you were talking full speed under heavy load, there's a remote possibility that thermal limits could cause throttling prematurely but an i5 at 2.3Ghz is an i5 at 2.3Ghz, its not like an old Fiat where they make 120HP more or less depending on how hungover the mechanic was, its a set clockspeed.
Like previously mentioned, this isn,t a car where power may vary from one engine to another.
They all perform the same.
Ok, well that is good to know. Don't mean to beat this issue to death. Do you guys often take advantage of the cool OS X feature (Snow Leopard onward?) and select a file (be it on the desktop or wherever) and press space bar to launch a preview. Well, on my MBP, if the file is many megs, it takes a while for the preview to load. I get the spinning, "Flash-looking" wheel for several seconds. Well, I was just on one of the older C2D iMacs and there was no such spinning well when I went to preview large items -- the preview was fashioned out immediately. Any idea why?