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Macbook: too slow even with upgrade

C

canhoto

macrumors member
Original poster
Mar 10, 2011
40
0
Hi.

When I bought my Macbook (late 2006 model, 2.0 Ghz) I just needed 17 seconds from the moment I pushed the power button until the moment it was ready to work, with desktop and finder ready.

Now it takes more than one minute!

It's true that, at the time, I had Tiger running on it, now it has Snow Leopard.
But it is also true that I upgraded memory: from the included 1 GB to the 2,5 GB RAM that it has now. It surely became faster when I upgraded the memory (I notice that specially on opening applications and finder windows).

But on startup it takes too much time; it takes a lot of time with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel thing (after the logo and the spinning wheel disappear, it's quite fast).

Even when opening applications it's still too slow. Opening Firefox for the first time after starting up, for instance, takes almost 40 secs. While my wife's Macbook, with less RAM (2 GB) and a processor just slightly faster (2,16 Ghz) takes only 11 secs!

Even my old (although upgraded) Power Mac Sawtooth (running 10.5.8) is must faster on startup.

I ran Onyx and - guess what - it became worse...

Any ideas?
 
canhoto said:
Hi.

When I bought my Macbook (late 2006 model, 2.0 Ghz) I just needed 17 seconds from the moment I pushed the power button until the moment it was ready to work, with desktop and finder ready.

Now it takes more than one minute!

It's true that, at the time, I had Tiger running on it, now it has Snow Leopard.
But it is also true that I upgraded memory: from the included 1 GB to the 2,5 GB RAM that it has now. It surely became faster when I upgraded the memory (I notice that specially on opening applications and finder windows).

But on startup it takes too much time; it takes a lot of time with the Apple logo and the spinning wheel thing (after the logo and the spinning wheel disappear, it's quite fast).

Even when opening applications it's still too slow. Opening Firefox for the first time after starting up, for instance, takes almost 40 secs. While my wife's Macbook, with less RAM (2 GB) and a processor just slightly faster (2,16 Ghz) takes only 11 secs!

Even my old (although upgraded) Power Mac Sawtooth (running 10.5.8) is must faster on startup.

I ran Onyx and - guess what - it became worse...

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Try using a new harddrive maybe your current one is failing and/or check the smart status in onyx
 
Boot up time is longer with more RAM as the Power On Self Test has to test more memory.

I don't recall my old MacBook ever taking 17 seconds to boot up - that's SSD fast! On my old MacBook running Leopard I'd see around 45 seconds on the rare occasions that I needed to reboot.

And yes, backup and maybe invest in a new HDD.
 
Chundles said:
Boot up time is longer with more RAM as the Power On Self Test has to test more memory.

I don't recall my old MacBook ever taking 17 seconds to boot up - that's SSD fast! On my old MacBook running Leopard I'd see around 45 seconds on the rare occasions that I needed to reboot.

And yes, backup and maybe invest in a new HDD.
Click to expand...

But it took only 17 seconds! I know because I was astonished with the speed and I easured it. 40 seconds is about the speed of my wife's MB startup. She has a 5,1 model, whith a bus speed of 1,07 Ghz (against my 667 Mhz) and a Geforce 9400 M 256 MB VRAM, againt my Intel Graphicas card with only 64 MB VRAM.

Surprisingly, when I run Geekbench I have good rates, above the average for my model.

Another thing that is too slow to open is the Dashboard widgets applications. Much slower than on my Sawtooth and very much slower than on y wife's MB.
 
After reinstalling Mac OS and cleaning up a little bit, it now takes about 45 secs to boot up, and 11 secs to open Firefox. It's much better.

Anyway, I'm considering replacing the HD (maybe for a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 250 GB).
 
According to OWC, it can support up to 4 GB, although using just 3 GB. It's a Core 2 Duo, not a Core Duo. The "About this mac" reports 2.5 Ghz.

I really had 17 secs when I bought it. It was all clean and new. Sorry. But apparently it's not normal.
 
Ah I remember Tiger. Good OS that was. 17 seconds does seem like an abnormally fast boot time though. Even when I first got my machine it was booting in like 30~40seconds. Now it takes over a minute.
 
Good news

So...

After reinstalling Mac OS (using the Time Machine backup) and resetting the PRAM, I now have 45-50 secs to boot up, which apparently is the rule. My wife's MB (which I consider to be a fast computer) needs 45 secs also.

As for Firefox first time opening, I first had 13 secs against her 8 secs. Then I tried a very simple thing (duh): turn off most of the extensions I have on it (I have many, my wife has just one or two). Then (after restarting the computer, of course) I had 6 secs for first time opening... I won!:D

I also checked the S.M.A.R.T. status of the HD, and it appears to be ok.

Anyway, I consider upgrading to a hybrid drive (the pure SSD's are too expensive) when upgrading to a bigger HD one of these days.
 
My MB would take a little longer to boot up after a few years and long to shut down. Maybe 10 seconds longer than usual. This was a Leopard build with the SL upgrade.

I bought a new 7200RPM 320GB, I had a 120GB 5400 RPM stock drive and did a clean install of Snow Leopard in January.

It still boots up fast and shuts down in about 4 seconds. It boots up faster than when I first got it, heh.
 
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