Macbook Taking 3mins To Log In

[JsR]

Hello all.

Looking for some help. I purchased an Macbook from Apple Oct 2009 and never had any issues at all, I then purchased myself a 27' iMac and gave the Macbook to my sister.

Recently she has been saying how it is taking forever to load. About 2 weeks ago I wiped it as a new Macbook, when I turned it back on, iTunes asked if it could update the Lion software (I had already installed Lion on release on both machines) and it was fine for a few days, then it started not detecting wifi. Took it to Apple, they had to replace the Airport card which is done and every things working.

I mentioned how it was taking for ever to load and they said as I only had 2GB of Ram, to buy 4GB ram to increase the speed as Lion is known to slow MacBooks down a little, so I purchased it, it came this morning and it has installed.

It's taking (and yes I timed it ) 2 minutes and 34 seconds to get to simply enter my password on user log in. As mentioned previously, I have completely wiped everything off it - the only thing it has installed is Microsoft Office - it has no music/pictures/internet files anything on it.

I did previously try to use the CD that was in the Macbook box to downgrade back to Leopard as I seem to have only had issues since Lion, however the disk wouldn't work.

Does anyone have any suggestions at all? I don't mind if it has to be wiped again as it has nothing on it, everything has been backed up on a external hard drive. I'm just really unsure what to do Even when the password in entered, for about 5mins even trying to open 'System Preferences' takes about 30/40 seconds.

If this is any help, my About This Mac Info is:
Processor: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4GB 1067 MHz DDR3

I would appreciate any help at all!

 

[GGJstudios]

Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Then look to see what may be consuming system resources.

Also, check the following suggestions, especially the first 3.

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

Also check to see if Spotlight is indexing by looking at the Menu Bar icon:

(not indexing)

(indexing)

 

[JsR]

Thanks for the reply!

Ok the CPU says that the top ones are:-

mdworker
mdworker32
mds
WindowServer
kernel_task

Also the spot light is indexing.

Any resolution? (I apologise I am not very technically minded, so please bare with me)

EDIT:

Also the steps that you provided me with, checked all the first three and nothing is appearing. Nothing in log in, nothing in launch agents.

 

[Naimfan]

That sounds like it could be the hard drive failing. If you can, try a different (external) hard drive and see if that fixes it. If so, you'll need to replace the hard drive (which isn't very difficult).

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for the reply!

Ok the CPU says that the top ones are:-

mdworker
mdworker32
mds
WindowServer
kernel_task

Also the spot light is indexing.

Any resolution? (I apologise I am not very technically minded, so please bare with me)

EDIT:

Also the steps that you provided me with, checked all the first three and nothing is appearing. Nothing in log in, nothing in launch agents.

Spotlight is indexing your drive, as evidenced by the Menu Bar icon and the mdworker and mds processes. It will consume system resources until it's finished. Just let Spotlight finish the initial indexing process, after which your performance will improve. Once the initial index is built, updating it will take very little resources. Nothing is wrong with your drive or system.

That sounds like it could be the hard drive failing.

Not likely. See above.

 

[JsR]

That sounds like it could be the hard drive failing. If you can, try a different (external) hard drive and see if that fixes it. If so, you'll need to replace the hard drive (which isn't very difficult).

Thanks for the reply. Do you know roughly how much it costs?
The thing that is annoying is I explained all of this to Apple when I went in for an appointment, I told them everything and I even let them see that nothing was on it as well as how long it took to load and they never once mentioned that at all, all they told me to do was add the max amount of ram of 4GB which I have done

----------

Spotlight is indexing your drive, as evidenced by the Menu Bar icon and the mdworker and mds processes. It will consume system resources until it's finished. Just let Spotlight finish the initial indexing process, after which your performance will improve. Once the initial index is built, updating it will take very little resources. Nothing is wrong with your drive or system.


Not likely. See above.

Thanks GGJ.
(And I apologise for being so thick here) but I still am unsure as to what I must to do enable a quicker log in.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks GGJ.
(And I apologise for being so thick here) but I still am unsure as to what I must to do enable a quicker log in.

Wait until Spotlight finishes indexing the drive, which can take from several minutes to a few hours. After it's finished, your system performance will improve without you doing anything.

 

[thekev]

That sounds like it could be the hard drive failing. If you can, try a different (external) hard drive and see if that fixes it. If so, you'll need to replace the hard drive (which isn't very difficult).

This is quite common when spotlight is indexing. It can tie up a laptop HDD for quite some time.

Thanks for the reply. Do you know roughly how much it costs?
The thing that is annoying is I explained all of this to Apple when I went in for an appointment, I told them everything and I even let them see that nothing was on it as well as how long it took to load and they never once mentioned that at all, all they told me to do was add the max amount of ram of 4GB which I have done

----------



Thanks GGJ.
(And I apologise for being so thick here) but I still am unsure as to what I must to do enable a quicker log in.

It doesn't sound like a failing drive. It's clearly indexing. Disk warrior helps a bit if you already own it. I don't suggest spending $100 on it. It cleans up scattered directories, so if you already own a copy from whatever mac, then run it. Otherwise just give it some time. If you wish to halt such issues, you can always drag your drive to privacy. Dragging your system folders to the privacy tab should be fine given that you should not need to search them for specific files. If you're using any program that makes use of a scratch disk function, make sure the drive or directories assigned to this function are dragged into the privacy tab of spotlight.

 

[GGJstudios]

Dragging your system folders to the privacy tab should be fine given that you should not need to search them for specific files.

... except when completely uninstalling applications. I recommend you don't exclude anything from indexing. All it takes is a bit of patience, to allow the indexing process to complete.

 

[Naimfan]

Spotlight is indexing your drive, as evidenced by the Menu Bar icon and the mdworker and mds processes. It will consume system resources until it's finished. Just let Spotlight finish the initial indexing process, after which your performance will improve. Once the initial index is built, updating it will take very little resources. Nothing is wrong with your drive or system.


Not likely. See above.

The only times I've seen a Mac take that long to log in is when the drive is failing. It should not take 2 minutes and 34 seconds to simply log in. And with as little on his drive as there is (just the OS, standard Mac apps, and Office), it shouldn't take it very long to index.

While it may not be the hard drive, in my experience that's the most likely problem, especially given the other problems JsR listed initially. The fact that it worked fine for a while (a few days) also argues against it merely being a Spotlight issue.

JsR - The easiest solution is to let it run until it is done indexing. Once it is, log out and log back in to see if it is any faster. If so, problem resolved. If not, at that point it probably is the hard drive failing. A replacement drive (in the US) can run anywhere from $50 to $200 depending on size, brand, and speed.

 

[thekev]

... except when completely uninstalling applications. I recommend you don't exclude anything from indexing. All it takes is a bit of patience, to allow the indexing process to complete.

I suggested the scratch file thing because of the long recurring bug of it trying to index while scratch data is being written. Point taken on completely uninstalling applications though . It's still less irritating than Windows with the pesky registry.

 

[GGJstudios]

It's still less irritating than Windows with the pesky registry.

You should wash your mouth out with soap! I'm surprised MR forum software doesn't automatically replace that word with asterisks!

 

[JsR]

Thank you everyone for the help.

[Update]
I did follow everyones advice and tried everything, even spent additional hours online and then downgraded the OS to Leopard to see if that made a difference. It didn't. I made an appointment and went to Apple yesterday and explained everything and they used an external HD and said it was the HD that had failed.

As it was out of warranty I asked for a price and they said £165 for a 250GB HD to be installed. After I explained that I paid £60 for an airport card and £40 for 4GB of RAM which Apple told me would fix the issue, the manager said that as he felt I'd been severely mis-led as I had asked them to check HD previously, that they would do it free of charge, as well as install iLife '11 and Office For Mac which was very nice of them.

I am off to pick up my Macbook now with all repairs done for free, so fingers crossed it is solved.

Thanks to everyone for the help, much appreciated

Holly

 

[GGJstudios]

I am off to pick up my Macbook now with all repairs done for free, so fingers crossed it is solved.

I'm glad you got it worked out!

 

[Naimfan]

I made an appointment and went to Apple yesterday and explained everything and they used an external HD and said it was the HD that had failed.


Thanks to everyone for the help, much appreciated

Holly

Glad you got it sorted!

Nothing is wrong with your drive or system.


Not likely. See above.

Ahem . . .

You were saying?