Macbook getting painfully slow

[makismagoo99]

I have a late 2006 MacBook (the one in my signature). It's running the latest issue of Snow Leopard (10.6.4). I have upgraded the factory RAM from 1GB to 2GB, and the factory HDD from 120 GB with a 320 GB hard drive.

Lately, all my apps are taking forever to launch. Firefox took 27 bounces before stopping, and then another 10 seconds or so before the window actually appeared. VirtualBox used to be snappy and responsive, but now it's so slow I actually boot up my 8-year old Dell if I need to use Windows. It never used to be this slow. I'm constantly getting beachballs...even simply quitting Firefox seems to be too much work.

Just for kicks, I popped in the factory hard drive and WOW everything felt so much smoother. As far as I can tell, the only things that are different between that hard drive and my current one are that (1) the old one is running Leopard (10.5.6), and (2) I have created a secondary account on the newer setup for my fianceé.

My two best guesses at this point are:
1. Issue with the new hard drive?
2. MacBook is slightly underpowered for running Snow Leopard?

Anyone have any other ideas of what might be causing the slowness? Any remedies I can try?

Thanks!

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

Sounds like your hard drive is about to die. Make sure everything is backed up! If it's still under the manufacturer's warranty, try to get it replaced.

 

[raysfan81]

Sounds like your hard drive is about to die. Make sure everything is backed up! If it's still under the manufacturer's warranty, try to get it replaced.

It may be dying but before you replace it you could maybe try repairing permissions and running the maintenance scripts.

 

[makismagoo99]

It may be dying but before you replace it you could maybe try repairing permissions and running the maintenance scripts.

What maintenance scripts are you referring to? I will check and see if the HDD is still under warranty; I just replaced it less than a year ago.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

Download OnyX, install it, and run the repair permissions and maintenance scripts under the "Automation" tab.

 

[makismagoo99]

Download OnyX, install it, and run the repair permissions and maintenance scripts under the "Automation" tab.

Just out of curiosity, what do these scripts do?

 

[makismagoo99]

Sounds like your hard drive is about to die. Make sure everything is backed up! If it's still under the manufacturer's warranty, try to get it replaced.

How can you tell if the hard drive's about to die? It's not clicking or anything, which is what I thought was the most common tell-tale sign.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

How can you tell if the hard drive's about to die? It's not clicking or anything, which is what I thought was the most common tell-tale sign.

Because everything is taking forever and when you plug the older (and slower) drive in, everything is fast again. Have you tried repairing permissions and running the maintenance scripts?

 

[makismagoo99]

Because everything is taking forever and when you plug the older (and slower) drive in, everything is fast again. Have you tried repairing permissions and running the maintenance scripts?

I did repair permissions and run the maintenance scripts. Repairing permissions found/fixed A LOT of errors. It could all be in my head, but it seems to have made a slight difference.