MacBook Air Suddenly Running Slow

[LDN_MacUser87]

Hello,

My MacBook air is suddenly running incredibly slowly (having been absolutely fine 24 hours ago). I've run at EtreCheck if anyone can offer a suggestion?

EtreCheck Report
EtreCheckPro version: 6.3.1 (6D012)


Report generated: 2020-08-16 21:39:57


Download EtreCheckPro from https://etrecheck.com


Runtime: 11:46


Performance: Poor


Problem: Computer is too slow


Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.


Poor performance - EtreCheck report shows poor performance. This is unusual.


Heavy CPU usage - Some processes are using an unusually high amount of CPU.


Software performance problems - Software seems to be causing performance problems.


Minor Issues:

These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems or opportunities for improvement.


Low disk space - This machine is running low on free hard drive space.


Clean up - There are orphan files that could be removed.


Unsigned files - There are unsigned software files installed. Apple has said that unsigned software will not run by default in a future version of the operating system.


Runaway user process - A user process is using a large percentage of your CPU.


32-bit Apps - This machine has 32-bits apps will not work on current versions of the operating system.


Hardware Information:

MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017)
MacBook Air Model: MacBookAir7,2
1.80 GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-5350U) CPU: 2-core
8 GB RAM - Not upgradeable
BANK 0/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600
BANK 1/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600
Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 461

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 6000 - VRAM: 1536 MB
Color LCD 1440 x 900

Drives:

disk0 - APPLE SSD SM0128G 121.33 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)
Internal PCI 5.0 GT/s x4 Serial ATA
disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk0s2 [Core Storage Container] 120.47 GB
disk1 - Macintosh HD (Journaled HFS+) 120.11 GB (98.03 GB used)
disk0s3 - Recovery HD (Journaled HFS+) [Recovery] 650 MB

Mounted Volumes:

disk1 - Macintosh HD
120.11 GB (98.03 GB used, 21.82 GB free)
Journaled HFS+
Mount point: /

Network:

Interface en3: iPhone
Interface en0: Wi-Fi
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Interface en2: Bluetooth PAN
Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge

System Software:

macOS Sierra 10.12.6 (16G2136)
Time since boot: About an hour

Security:

Gatekeeper: App Store and identified developers


System Integrity Protection: Enabled



Antivirus software: Apple


Unsigned Files:

Launchd: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.egnyte.egnyteWebEdit.plist
Executable: /Applications/Egnyte WebEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/Egnyte WebEdit
Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

Safari Extension: IBM Aspera Connect

Plugin: /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin

32-bit Applications:

20 32-bit apps

System Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] 14 Apple tasks


[Loaded] 181 Apple tasks


[Running] 91 Apple tasks


System Launch Daemons:

[Not Loaded] 43 Apple tasks


[Loaded] 175 Apple tasks


[Running] 99 Apple tasks


[Other] 2 Apple tasks


Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2019-10-28)


[Other] com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a23d420d.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-08-13)


[Running] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-07-30)


[Running] com.adobe.GC.AGM.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Not Loaded] com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.adobe.ccxprocess.plist (Apple - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2020-03-15)


[Loaded] com.google.keystone.xpcservice.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2020-03-15)


[Loaded] com.microsoft.update.agent.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2020-08-13)


Launch Daemons:

[Loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.adobe.acc.installer.v2.plist (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-07-30)


[Running] com.adobe.agsservice.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-07-25)


[Loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist (Google, Inc. - installed 2020-03-15)


[Loaded] com.microsoft.autoupdate.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2020-08-13)


[Loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist (Microsoft Corporation - installed 2018-01-17)


User Launch Agents:

[Not Loaded] com.adobe.GC.Invoker-1.0.plist (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-15)


[Loaded] com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist (Dropbox, Inc. - installed 2020-06-05)


[Other] com.egnyte.egnyteWebEdit.plist (? 0 - installed 2019-04-26)


User Login Items:

[Loaded] StartUpHelper (Spotify - installed 2020-05-22)
Modern Login Item
/Applications/Spotify.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/StartUpHelper.app

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: 17.012.20098 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-07)
FlashPlayer-10.6: 32.0.0.414 (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-08-12)
AdobePDFViewer: 20.009.20074 (Adobe Systems, Inc. - installed 2020-07-07)
Flash Player: 32.0.0.414 (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-08-12)
Silverlight: 5.1.50901.0 (? - installed 2018-05-17)
AdobeAAMDetect: 3.0.0.0 (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-07-30)

Audio Plug-ins:

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: 5.0.5 (Apple - installed 2019-10-25)
iSightAudio: 7.7.3 (Apple - installed 2019-10-25)
AirPlay: 2.0 (Apple - installed 2019-10-25)
AppleAVBAudio: 506.1 (Apple - installed 2019-10-25)
AppleTimeSyncAudioClock: 1.0 (Apple - installed 2019-10-25)

Safari Extensions:

IBM Aspera Connect (? - installed )


3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player (Adobe Inc. - installed 2020-07-25)

Backup:

Time Machine Not Configured!

Performance:

System Load: 1.90 (1 min ago) 4.49 (5 min ago) 7.82 (15 min ago)
Nominal I/O speed: 2.20 MB/s
File system: 120.75 seconds (timed out)
Write speed: 206 MB/s
Read speed: 482 MB/s

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)


Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (13) 115.65 % (Google, Inc.)


EtreCheckPro 62.08 % (Etresoft, Inc.)


Google Chrome 54.84 % (Google, Inc.)


system_profiler (2) 47.02 % (Apple)


Google Chrome Helper (GPU) 43.22 % (Google, Inc.)


Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:

Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)


Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (14) 1.41 GB (Google, Inc.)


kernel_task 796 MB (Apple)


EtreCheckPro 542 MB (Etresoft, Inc.)


Adobe CEF Helper (Renderer) (4) 382 MB (Adobe Inc.)


mdworker (6) 293 MB (Apple)


Top Processes Snapshot by Network Use:

Process Input / Output (Source - Location)


mDNSResponder 196 KB / 40 KB (Apple)


netbiosd 10 KB / 3 KB (Apple)


apsd 8 KB / 5 KB (Apple)


ntpd 288 B / 576 B (Apple)


SystemUIServer 0 B / 192 B (Apple)


Top Processes Snapshot by Energy Use:

Process (count) Energy (0-100) (Source - Location)


Google Chrome 16 (Google, Inc.)


Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (14) 16 (Google, Inc.)


WindowServer 11 (Apple)


system_profiler (2) 9 (Apple)


Google Chrome Helper (GPU) 7 (Google, Inc.)


Virtual Memory Information:

Physical RAM: 8 GB


Free RAM: 275 MB


Used RAM: 4.46 GB


Cached files: 3.27 GB


Available RAM: 3.54 GB


Swap Used: 0 B


Software Installs (past 30 days):

Install Date Name (Version)


2020-07-24 MRTConfigData (1.64)


2020-08-07 XProtectPlistConfigData (2128)


2020-08-12 Adobe Flash Player (32.0.0.414)


2020-08-13 Zoom (5.2.42634.0805)


2020-08-13 ARMDC Agent Installer (1.0.0)


2020-08-13 Microsoft AutoUpdate (4.26.20081000)


2020-08-16 Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (20.012.20041) (20.012.20041)


Clean up:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.egnyte.egnyteWebEdit.plist
/Applications/Egnyte WebEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/Egnyte WebEdit
Executable not found

Diagnostics Information (past 7-30 days):



End of report

 

[satcomer]

Google Crome is Well Known resource hog especially in Mac OS! Remove the Google Crome stuff and try one of chromium browsers and they are more modern!

 

[mick2]

Look at Activity Monitor for apps / processes that are consuming large amounts of CPU or memory. Report back here if there are any you dont recognise or that shouldnt be using significant CPU but are.

 

[James_C]

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)

Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (13) 115.65 % (Google, Inc.)

Google Chrome 54.84 % (Google, Inc.)

As @satcomer said your main problem appears to be Google Chrome. Unfortunately not the best browser choice for Mac OS as its a known resource hog. Make sure you are using the latest version of Chrome if you need to use it.

You are running low on hard disk space, but 20GB free should be ok.

Runaway user process - A user process is using a large percentage of your CPU.

This may be Chrome causing this - However run Activity Monitor as suggested by @mick2 ( Use Spotlight to find and run) and click on the CPU tab. Click the %CPU column to sort the list to find the problem process.

As you said that it was ok a day ago a restart may resolve the problem.

I would also use Disk Utility to check the hard disk as you may have some issues that need to be fixed - A guide can be found here.

 

[chabig]

You're running several unnecessary pieces of software. All of these are obsolete, unsupported, or both. Uninstall them:

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI
AdobePDFViewer
Flash Player
Silverlight

 

[mattmacpro]

Another thing to think about: heat. One of my coworkers was complaining that builds were taking almost 2 hours instead of 20 minutes. The culprit was the heat wave that hit. No AC (not common here) meant his thin laptop just couldn’t stay cool enough to run fast.

If it is unusually hot where you are and you don’t have air conditioning, that could be at least part of your problem, and is definitely something that will vary day to day.

 

[hobowankenobi]

As mentioned, Chrome and Chrome Helper are the primary culprits. Kill these and see how it runs.