M1 Pro Max - Slow 6 Months in?

[ipedro]

I was impressed with my nearly maxed out MacBookPro M1 Pro Max 32GB. It was the fastest computer I'd ever used and I felt like nothing I could throw at it could slow it down. Truly felt invincible. 6 months in, and I'm getting spinning beachballs everywhere and using my $5000 Mac feels like sludge sometimes.

Anyone else experiencing this? I'm a photographer and graphic designer so on any given day, I have Lightroom, Photoshop and Illustrator running along with a litany of Chrome tabs with Google Workspace apps. That's essentially it. If I want to run FinalCutPro, I usually close everything else. My 2TB SDD is only 25% full.

Yet, my 6 month old Mac feels like a geriatric PC that I'd been using for years.

Add to that the increasingly complained about pops and scratches which make the onboard speakers unusable, and I'm not sure this Mac lives up to early reviews, including my own.

Hoping for a new macOS to smooth things out soon.

 

[theorist9]

Just as an experiment, since your disk is only 25% full, you could create a new partition (back everything up first) (you want to do a new partition rather than a new volume, to keep it completely separate), do a clean install of both the OS and the single app that's giving you the biggest delay, and see how it goes.

If your delays are with routine interaction, i.e., if the machine is less snappy and gives you beachballs, that's hard to meaasure. But if you have longer measurable times (e.g., for an export, or some other process that takes at least several seconds), that would be a good thing to check.

 

[Starfia]

Hmm. No idea about the pops and scratches. At the very least, when things seemed that sluggish, I'd open Activity Monitor, check the "CPU" and "Memory" tabs, and see whether any process appeared to be acting inordinately.

Maybe some hardware component has malfunctioned which results in the super-sluggish performance; that would probably be something to pursue during the warranty period.

 

[acorntoy]

Use mine heavily for encoding and 9 months in encoding times and general use is still as good as day 1.

I'd run a blackmagic SSD test despite the low volume to confirm it hasn't somehow degraded. I run into the beach ball occasionally when im dealing with external drives with slow speeds but never when its internal storage.

 

[ipedro]

Aside from the beachballs, the most noticeable slowdown is in the UI, such as running Mission Control to see open windows. There's a noticeable lag and sometimes they just get stuck mid amimation. Do I have a lot of windows open? Yes, but that shouldn't get in the way of this kind of power. This is real world use. People have windows open.

 

[senttoschool]

Post your activity monitor here. Sorted by CPU. Then post another one sorted by RAM.

 

[senttoschool]

Maybe some hardware component has malfunctioned which results in the super-sluggish performance; that would probably be something to pursue during the warranty period.

Highly doubtful. Any hardware malfunction at the SoC or RAM level would stop the computer from working entirely.

 

[ipedro]

Post your activity monitor here. Sorted by CPU. Then post another one sorted by RAM.

Thank you for having a look.

CPU:

Memory:

 

[xraydoc]

Aside from the beachballs, the most noticeable slowdown is in the UI, such as running Mission Control to see open windows. There's a noticeable lag and sometimes they just get stuck mid amimation. Do I have a lot of windows open? Yes, but that shouldn't get in the way of this kind of power. This is real world use. People have windows open.

Definitely not normal.

Something has happened to your specific machine. Could be a corrupted file somewhere. Could be a misbehaving system extension or something else to do with an application or something else you've installed.

If you can't track down the cause, back up all your documents, nuke and reinstall the OS, and reinstall your apps from original source one by one until you find the culprit. Don't just wipe and reinstall a backup, since that might just recreate the problem.

 

[Rafterman]

Bird?

Bird is the word.

Also, what is all that Google Chrome rendering stuff? Seems excessive, even for Chrome,.

My own maxed out 2019 Intel is still humming. One thing I do like about MacOS is, you can run the same setup for years and you don't generally get system slowdowns.

 

[thenahon]

Thank you for having a look.

CPU: View attachment 2032975

Memory:
View attachment 2032973

Just popping in because I see here that MacRumors.com also uses an unnecessary amount of RAM on your Mac too. 🤔

 

[xraydoc]

Thank you for having a look.

CPU: View attachment 2032975

Memory:
View attachment 2032973

I'm not an expert, but I see a few things:

- It looks like iCloud is using a significant % of CPU time (the process "bird"). Does it show this much activity all the time? If so, something is causing your iCloud documents to continuously sync (or is stuck).

- You've maxed out your physical RAM and you're swapping a ton of stuff to the SSD. If you're in this state, then load a huge project in another heavy app, like Final Cut Pro, you're swapping gigs and gigs back and forth to SSD. 32GB of RAM is great, but it's not going to be enough to keep Photoshop projects, Illustrator projects, tons of Chrome tabs, Final Cut projects and Lightroom projects all loaded up at the same time.

- The Safari extension Honey is using >21% of CPU time on one of the cores! That's completely unacceptable. Dump it.

- Chrome is using more RAM than Illustrator. Yikes.

 

[theorist9]

Normally I'd guess it's RAM usage. I don't have an M1, but whenever the % memory usage got that high on my Intel Macs, I'd see spinning beachballs and UI delays as well. Plus you've got 13 GB of swap, which means it's swapping to disk (though without knowing your uptime I don't know what your swapping rate is). And my normal recommendation would be to close Chrome and see what happens.

BUT: You say you experience that with Final Cut Pro and everything else closed. Can you show us your Memory usage when you're doing that and seeing the delays?

 

[mr_roboto]

Given some of the accumulated CPU times on those processes, I'd say there's a simple solution to your problem: reboot it every 2-3 weeks. It's unfortunate, but issues like memory fragmentation cause macOS to slow down when not rebooted for many months in a row.

 

[ipedro]

Definitely not normal.

Something has happened to your specific machine. Could be a corrupted file somewhere. Could be a misbehaving system extension or something else to do with an application or something else you've installed.

If you can't track down the cause, back up all your documents, nuke and reinstall the OS, and reinstall your apps from original source one by one until you find the culprit. Don't just wipe and reinstall a backup, since that might just recreate the problem.

This is the kind of stuff I used to have to do with my Windows XP machine... in 1999. Ironically, the routine wiping and reinstalling Windows dance was what pushed me to get a Mac.

 

[xraydoc]

This is the kind of stuff I used to have to do with my Windows XP machine... in 1999. Ironically, the routine wiping and reinstalling Windows dance was what pushed me to get a Mac.

It's extremely rare to need to resort to this on macOS. See my other comments based on the Activity Monitor screenshots you posted. But like I said, what's happening to your machine isn't normal -- but it looks like you're pushing some things to the limit, so I'm less concerned about a corruption and find it more likely it's being caused by RAM and CPU limits.

 

[mr_roboto]

This is the kind of stuff I used to have to do with my Windows XP machine... in 1999. Ironically, the routine wiping and reinstalling Windows dance was what pushed me to get a Mac.

Seriously, just reboot it, and do so whenever the computer's feeling a bit slow. If you don't like losing context from quitting and restarting apps, go into Preferences -> General and uncheck "Close windows when quitting an app".

 

[ajergome]

I have exactly this same issue with M1 Pro, 14" 16GB. I feel as though the issue has occurred on a few laptops over the past few years though, and the only thing I can chalk it up to is just having too many windows open. Everyone has a dozen apps open these days, but I'll almost always open a new tab, terminal window, finder window instead of using an existing one (when you hit F3/exposé do you get the sense that's a lot of windows?) so I think that having too many windows/tabs etc is what might make my usage different than typical maybe?

The symptoms I have are:
1) WindowServer & kernel_task almost always being in the top 2 processes for memory/CPU
2) Quick Look stops working after a while (hitting space on an image/video just shows the icon large instead of a preview of the image/video), and I have to relaunch Finder to fix that
3) machine gradually just becomes frustratingly sluggish and needs a reboot
4) I also have the pops and crackles which is maddening, I'm not 100% convinced it's related to CPU busyness but it's possible. It's happening while I'm typing this.

I'm also hoping for an improvement w/ M2Pro, definitely going for 32GB RAM and hoping Ventura makes a big difference too. @ipedro if you do find a solution, I'd love to hear about it. I might also try the clean install but I swear this happened on my last MacBook too, and this M1 Pro was a clean install.

 

[acorntoy]

This is the kind of stuff I used to have to do with my Windows XP machine... in 1999. Ironically, the routine wiping and reinstalling Windows dance was what pushed me to get a Mac.

You do not have nearly enough RAM. It might be the same thing you've been doing since 1999 but the sizes and complexity are different.

 

[exoticSpice]

Thank you for having a look.

CPU: View attachment 2032975

Memory:
View attachment 2032973

You are using 13GB of swap, that is what is causing the slow down. Basically the 32GB RAM you have now is not enough. The Memory pressure is also yellow, it's best if it was green.

 

[dieselm]

That's not normal. You have plenty of memory installed.

Your browser and extensions are consuming an insane amount of memory. I "only" have 16GB and it takes me having hundreds of tabs open before it gets that bad. It's causing your computer to swap and that's the issue.

Try running with your browser with all the extensions off and see if the problem is better. If so, add them back one by one until it's a problem again.

May be a memory leak in one of the extensions or something you installed. I'd start with the Honey extension.

 

[Malus120]

Thank you for having a look.

CPU: View attachment 2032975

Memory:
View attachment 2032973

I'm not an expert, but I see a few things:

- It looks like iCloud is using a significant % of CPU time (the process "bird"). Does it show this much activity all the time? If so, something is causing your iCloud documents to continuously sync (or is stuck).

- You've maxed out your physical RAM and you're swapping a ton of stuff to the SSD. If you're in this state, then load a huge project in another heavy app, like Final Cut Pro, you're swapping gigs and gigs back and forth to SSD. 32GB of RAM is great, but it's not going to be enough to keep Photoshop projects, Illustrator projects, tons of Chrome tabs, Final Cut projects and Lightroom projects all loaded up at the same time.

- The Safari extension Honey is using >21% of CPU time on one of the cores! That's completely unacceptable. Dump it.

- Chrome is using more RAM than Illustrator. Yikes.

This comment pretty much nails it. You're clearly overtaxing the memory subsystem (memory pressure is yellow in this screenshot, probably is hitting red when/if you open something heavy on top.)

Despite what the "Apple Silicon 8GB mafia" would have you believe, its actually quite easy to bring even 16GB-32GB machines to their knees when you combine heavy use with no (active) memory management. I know its not what you want to hear but you need to reevaluate the way you use your machine if you want it to feel like it did when you got it.

My advice (piggybacking on what has already been said) would be to:
1. Ditch Chrome entirely if possible. If not migrate as much as you can to Safari and figure out what web pages/activities are causing the Chrome GPU helper and Google Chrome Renderer(s) to go wild and use ~10GB of ram (1/3 of your total system memory!)
2. Figure out what "Extension Web Content" is, and if possible ditch that too if possible.
3. Close MacRumors or have less MacRumors tabs open. This applies to other sites as well. Many, many websites these days are absolute ram hogs.
4. Figure out what's triggering "bird" (Probably an iCloud/iCloud Drive issue,) and Kernel Task (a bit more difficult) and resolve these issues so they're not burning CPU cycles.
5. The Finder has a memory leak (not your fault obviously.) Periodically force quit it to get some RAM back.
6. Try to keep your memory pressure green when not working with heavy apps. This will take some experimentation, practice and discipline but if you can get the combination right you'll be in much better shape.

These machines are powerful but they're still limited by the physical limits of ram and storage like anything else. I guerantee you if you learn to manage your ram you're experience will improve a lot.
I know it sucks to do and feels like you shouldn't have to do it on a machine this expensive but... that's just the way it is.

 

[ipedro]

Seriously, just reboot it, and do so whenever the computer's feeling a bit slow. If you don't like losing context from quitting and restarting apps, go into Preferences -> General and uncheck "Close windows when quitting an app".

I wish it were that easy. Unlike my desktop iMac that ran for months without a reboot, my MacBookPro gets rebooted almost daily because I run out of battery before getting home. The last time I rebooted was this morning. It booted up into sludge within minutes.

 

[ipedro]

1) WindowServer & kernel_task almost always being in the top 2 processes for memory/CPU
2) Quick Look stops working after a while (hitting space on an image/video just shows the icon large instead of a preview of the image/video), and I have to relaunch Finder to fix that
3) machine gradually just becomes frustratingly sluggish and needs a reboot
4) I also have the pops and crackles which is maddening, I'm not 100% convinced it's related to CPU busyness but it's possible. It's happening while I'm typing this.

These are exactly my symptoms, verbatim. All the way down to Quick Look just showing an icon instead of a preview. I'm glad I'm not alone – though I'm sorry for your poor machine performance.

Do you use Chrome @ajergome? I use Google Chat and Drive on my Mac, both are Chrome based.

I'm not an expert, but I see a few things:

- It looks like iCloud is using a significant % of CPU time (the process "bird"). Does it show this much activity all the time? If so, something is causing your iCloud documents to continuously sync (or is stuck).

- You've maxed out your physical RAM and you're swapping a ton of stuff to the SSD. If you're in this state, then load a huge project in another heavy app, like Final Cut Pro, you're swapping gigs and gigs back and forth to SSD. 32GB of RAM is great, but it's not going to be enough to keep Photoshop projects, Illustrator projects, tons of Chrome tabs, Final Cut projects and Lightroom projects all loaded up at the same time.

- The Safari extension Honey is using >21% of CPU time on one of the cores! That's completely unacceptable. Dump it.

- Chrome is using more RAM than Illustrator. Yikes.

This comment pretty much nails it. You're clearly overtaxing the memory subsystem (memory pressure is yellow in this screenshot, probably is hitting red when/if you open something heavy on top.)

Despite what the "Apple Silicon 8GB mafia" would have you believe, its actually quite easy to bring even 16GB-32GB machines to their knees when you combine heavy use with no (active) memory management. I know its not what you want to hear but you need to reevaluate the way you use your machine if you want it to feel like it did when you got it.

My advice (piggybacking on what has already been said) would be to:
1. Ditch Chrome entirely if possible. If not migrate as much as you can to Safari and figure out what web pages/activities are causing the Chrome GPU helper and Google Chrome Renderer(s) to go wild and use ~10GB of ram (1/3 of your total system memory!)
2. Figure out what "Extension Web Content" is, and if possible ditch that too if possible.
3. Close MacRumors or have less MacRumors tabs open. This applies to other sites as well. Many, many websites these days are absolute ram hogs.
4. Figure out what's triggering "bird" (Probably an iCloud/iCloud Drive issue,) and Kernel Task (a bit more difficult) and resolve these issues so they're not burning CPU cycles.
5. The Finder has a memory leak (not your fault obviously.) Periodically force quit it to get some RAM back.
6. Try to keep your memory pressure green when not working with heavy apps. This will take some experimentation, practice and discipline but if you can get the combination right you'll be in much better shape.

These machines are powerful but they're still limited by the physical limits of ram and storage like anything else. I guerantee you if you learn to manage your ram you're experience will improve a lot.
I know it sucks to do and feels like you shouldn't have to do it on a machine this expensive but... that's just the way it is.

Thanks for the advice.

I've killed Honey (though it's a great extension that has repeatedly saved me money on online shopping).

Unfortunately, Chrome is mandatory for my work. I prefer Safari but we use Google Workspace and I practically live in Google Apps that only work full featured in Chrome.

Overall, with the tips from the folks in this thread, I'm fairly certain the culprit is all the browser windows. That's kind of surprising given the heavy video and graphics rendering this machine is (was?) capable of, websites are bringing it to its knees.

I guess I have to have better window and tab discipline, and make better use of Tab Groups and Reading List. I'll spend some time sorting out my windows and will report back either way if my problem was resolved with fewer windows.

 

[singularity0993]

Thank you for having a look.

CPU: View attachment 2032975

Memory:
View attachment 2032973

79.5% kernel_task? Looks like your CPU is overheating and throttling.

If kernel_task is using a large percentage of your Mac CPU - Apple Support

One of the functions of the kernel task process is to help manage the temperature of your CPU.

support.apple.com

M1 SoCs generally shouldn’t overheat like this. You should investigate why.