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Macbook pro bootup very slow

I

iyahya

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 23, 2013
29
0
Hi,

I have Macbook 2009 and nowadays it startup and it takes almost 2 minute to start and it's really killing me

My HD it's not full and i have 4GB memory

even I formatted my laptop the same problem is continuing

Check out my video plz help ( http://youtu.be/0n5vBquvWo0 )

please help
 
Start Disk Utility and do a verify disk and see if it reports any errors.

Also, check in System Preferences in the Startup Disk pane and make sure you have the correct drive selected as the start up drive.

Look in Console log immediately after you start to see if there are any error messages there that look relevant.
 
Last edited:
iyahya said:
Hi,

I have Macbook 2009 and nowadays it startup and it takes almost 2 minute to start and it's really killing me

My HD it's not full and i have 4GB memory

even I formatted my laptop the same problem is continuing

Check out my video plz help ( http://youtu.be/0n5vBquvWo0 )

please help
Click to expand...

As always, I suspect a drive about to die. I would try replacing it.
 
It seems many mac owners neglect to verify permissions & repair them I have known some people to not do it at all (iTunes & iBooks have recently caused a huge amount of permissions that need repairing)
I do it at least once when it is up since I prefer to sleep the computer rather than shut down I shut down once every 7 days and normally run disk utility once in a 7 day period or after installing software or updates.
It is also worth starting with option held down to select the other disk (I can't think what it is called ) this allows you to verify/check the volume for anomalies on the main HDD and if necessary repair it which it may need .
I would also deselect a lot of apps that open at start up this will slow it down especially Mail also if any apps need an internet connection especially a slow connection this may slow down start up.
Another factor is that if you upgraded the OS it may be worth making a bootable copy of that OS so you can erase the HDD and do a clean instal providing you have back up ideally Time Machine.
The last thing to consider is that in computer terms you mac is reaching vintage age and may unfortunately be on its last legs 5 years is a pretty good life in computer terms it may be time to trade it in against a new one if funds permit particularly if it is still working since once it dies it is only good as a paper weight I highly recommend trading in before the worst happens.
 
iyahya said:
Hi,

I have Macbook 2009 and nowadays it startup and it takes almost 2 minute to start and it's really killing me

My HD it's not full and i have 4GB memory

even I formatted my laptop the same problem is continuing

Check out my video plz help ( http://youtu.be/0n5vBquvWo0 )

please help
Click to expand...

2 minutes? Normal, because you're not using an SSD.

Add an SSD and see your boot times go to just 11-15 seconds.

4GB of memory...I'd say it's enough for just Safari with 8 tabs open, Word/Pages, iTunes and Preview.
 
yjchua95 said:
2 minutes? Normal, because you're not using an SSD.

Add an SSD and see your boot times go to just 11-15 seconds.

4GB of memory...I'd say it's enough for just Safari with 8 tabs open, Word/Pages, iTunes and Preview.
Click to expand...

Really i'm talking about 4 GB DDR3 and i used to open programs at the same time like Photoshop , Cinema 4D , Safari and Adobe After effect

how this is not enough

There must be a problem in my macbook pro

i'm seeing the difference in my laptop preforumance and it's really killing me
 
iyahya said:
Really i'm talking about 4 GB DDR3 and i used to open programs at the same time like Photoshop , Cinema 4D , Safari and Adobe After effect

how this is not enough

There must be a problem in my macbook pro

i'm seeing the difference in my laptop preforumance and it's really killing me
Click to expand...

RAM requirements have doubled over time.

In my case, Photoshop usually eats up around 7GB of RAM itself.

Get more in touch with reality. You can't multitask with all those apps open on just 4GB of RAM.

Look at my image attached. With just Safari open and nothing else, almost 8GB of RAM is used up.

And especially if you use Mavericks, 4GB of RAM is plain not enough. Who on earth uses just 4GB of RAM these days anyway?
 

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yjchua95 said:
4GB of memory...I'd say it's enough for just Safari with 8 tabs open, Word/Pages, iTunes and Preview.
Click to expand...

"Just enough?" You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? You can do much more than that on 4GB of RAM. I don't know what is it on this board that makes people think that 4GB of RAM is equivalent to 1GB. OP, sounds like you're experiencing the typical HDD slowdown. An SSD with a clean install would be a world if difference.
 
TheEnthusiast said:
"Just enough?" You have no idea what you're talking about, do you? You can do much more than that on 4GB of RAM. I don't know what is it on this board that makes people think that 4GB of RAM is equivalent to 1GB. OP, sounds like you're experiencing the typical HDD slowdown. An SSD with a clean install would be a world if difference.
Click to expand...

Mister, if you look at my attachment, you'll see that with nothing but Safari, almost 8GB is used up already.
 

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Yeah, I was about to change my post. You definitely have no idea what you're talking about. Based on that screenshot, only 1.8 GB was total was in use by ALL apps, i.e App Memory. The total in use is not the actual, but it accounts for things like cache, etc. That means the more memory installed, the more that would be displayed as "used" by the Activity monitor. You should probably do a Google search about this. But, even think logically about it; you don't really think that Safari alone would drive real memory usage close to 8GB, do you? I can't even imagine how many flash-based tabs that would have to be open.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oaUJPZKNc
 
TheEnthusiast said:
Yeah, I was about to change my post. You definitely have no idea what you're talking about. Based on that screenshot, only 1.8 GB was total was in use by ALL apps, i.e App Memory. The total in use is not the actual, but it accounts for things like cache, etc. That means the more memory installed, the more that would be displayed as "used" by the Activity monitor. You should probably do a Google search about this. But, even think logically about it; you don't really think that Safari alone would drive real memory usage close to 8GB, do you? I can't even imagine how many flash-based tabs that would have to be open.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6oaUJPZKNc
Click to expand...

There's all the background processes and daemons too I'm aware of that.

What about this then? If this were replicated on the OP's MBP, he wouldn't have much free RAM left.

And if I have Photoshop open, processing RAW images and working on an 18MP image, that alone would take up memory too.
 

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This is my final post regarding this. I trust that you will use Google to properly educate yourself about this topic. Background tasks do not take up a significant amount of memory, otherwise the OS would be very inefficient. The only background process that dynamically uses more RAM, in comparison to the others, is kernel_task, and even that doesn't use a lot of RAM. Not sure if you saw the video I posted or not, but that guy is running more programs, and desktops spaces, than you are, without any "filler" programs, and still had a very responsive machine. How much RAM OP would have left is besides the point because it's hard to say obviously. Again, the OS makes use of the amount of RAM installed, real and in cache included. If you want to sit there and believe that you are using over 10 GB of RAM or that you need 16GB of RAM, then by all means do so, but don't spread your poor advice when all OP really needs is a SSD.
 
yjchua95 said:
Sooner or later the OP will need more RAM anyway. So why not do it now rather than later?
Click to expand...

Why do I even bother? There is no guarantee of that or when that will even be is anyone's best guess. For all we know OP, could say forget the '09 Macbook and purchase a newer model, OS's could get even more efficient, who knows!

Since I didn't suggest a solution.

OP, get the SSD. My personal recommendation is one made by Samsung, since I can vouch for their quality, but other manufacturers make excellent drives as well; Intel, Crucial, Sandisk come to mind. Size combined with cost may be a factor. One of the cheapest is the 128GB size, which is my base recommendation. It sounds like you may need more storage however, so I recommend a 256GB. Only go 512GB if you are absolutely sure that you will need 512GB. The difference in speed, versus a HDD, will be night and day.
 
TheEnthusiast said:
Why do I even bother? There is no guarantee of that or when that will even be is anyone's best guess. For all we know OP, could say forget the '09 Macbook and purchase a newer model, OS's could get even more efficient, who knows!

Since I didn't suggest a solution.

OP, get the SSD. My personal recommendation is one made by Samsung, since I can vouch for their quality, but other manufacturers make excellent drives as well; Intel, Crucial, Sandisk come to mind. Size combined with cost may be a factor. One of the cheapest is the 128GB size, which is my base recommendation. It sounds like you may need more storage however, so I recommend a 256GB. Only go 512GB if you are absolutely sure that you will need 512GB. The difference in speed, versus a HDD, will be night and day.
Click to expand...

By the way on this one, go for either the Evo (cheaper) or Pro (higher IOPS, lasts longer, but also more expensive).

For regular usage the Evo should be fine.

You can keep all your libraries and projects offshore in external storage, so 256GB may do, unless, you intend to keep everything in your Mac.
 
I think what i'm experiencing is HDD shutdown if i'm not wrong.
i'm planning on getting a new laptop

thanx a lot for your help and concern about my situation
 
You aren't necessarily experiencing an hard drive problem. It's possible that you are but that doesn't mean that's the case.

As another poster stated, check and verify your permissions on the drive. You may also want to read and try the following:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Another thing to try is an SMC reset which has symptoms and instructions in the following:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

If none of that clears up the problem, open up the console window and see if there are any failures loading any modules. Check the system self diagnostics and make sure that something hasn't failed in the system, like a blue tooth card, airport card, etc. etc.

If none of that shows anything, you could look at possible hard drive problem descriptions at the following:

http://www.scsc-online.com/Bad Hard Drive Signs and Symptoms.html

I personally would suspect that something is bad in the boot sequence, as in the launchd daemon can't find something and it's going through a series of retries before finally giving up.
 
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