MBP slow - Flash or Graphics Card ?

[yoe91]

Hello guys,
still got my old Mid-2010 MBP but it works perfectly except for the following:
in some cases, it lags. Specific websites, and when there are videos or lots of ads. Or if I load many tabs at once, which still it shouldn't lag like this.
I know Flash Player is an issue for me, and a common one for Mac users - but I was wondering maybe the Graphics Card has sth to do with it now ?

I even just got me a new 16GB RAM (yes, it's possible for Mid-2010 13' MBP's) and of course it helps a lot, just oike upgrading from 4GB to 8GB, but the pb's still there.

I got this:
NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256 MB

What can I possibly do to permanently make my MBP work as smoothly as it rightfully should ??
Thank you.

 

[snaky69]

Define lagging. Is it graphical or does the whole computer freeze up? Is it only during very specific tasks or totally random?

 

[yoe91]

Define lagging. Is it graphical or does the whole computer freeze up? Is it only during very specific tasks or totally random?

hello snaky !
Yes I should've been more specific.
My laptop will heat up tremendously for simple tasks, anytime there are lots of ads or anything Flash/video related (not YouTube for e.g., but other websites). The multicolor ball appears for 5, 10seconds...some times more. The page will load with lots of difficulty, I'll struggle to scroll down it seems like a massive effort for the computer... that sort of thing.
On videos, same thing: out-of-syncness with the time I click to pause and when it actually pauses, tiny little freezes where the audio plays fine but the image freezes a bit before resuming, ESPECIALLY with HD vids. 720p can be fine, but 1080p is just too unstable... that kind of lagging.

I know Flash Player is a big issue here for sure, but I was wondering if firstly that had some kind of permanent fix coz I've tried EVERYTHING, including reinstalling multiple times - and secondly, was wondering if the graphics card had anything to do with it.

 

[tubeexperience]

Do some cleaning

 

[yoe91]

Do some cleaning

Hi there. Done that. Not the issue whatsoever. Unfortunately...would've been great the problem's that simple !

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well firstly do a repair disk in disk utility this may help.

If you are still on the original hard drive I would suggest that it is probably dying 5-6 years is about average for a hard drive. If that's the case back up quick and replace preferably with an SSD.

 

[yoe91]

Well firstly do a repair disk in disk utility this may help.

If you are still on the original hard drive I would suggest that it is probably dying 5-6 years is about average for a hard drive. If that's the case back up quick and replace preferably with an SSD.

Hello.
Changed to a bigger 500GB disk a few years into owning this MBP. Don't think that's it.
It's DEF something with the Graphics card+Flash Player...

 

[duervo]

Check activity monitor and console logs.

 

[snaky69]

Hello.
Changed to a bigger 500GB disk a few years into owning this MBP. Don't think that's it.
It's DEF something with the Graphics card+Flash Player...

Hard drives can fail at any given time, I've had hard drives less than 2 weeks old crap out on me before. I wouldn't necessarily rule it out.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hard drives can fail at any given time, I've had hard drives less than 2 weeks old crap out on me before. I wouldn't necessarily rule it out.

Agreed it certainly sounds like a failing hard drive.

 

[sjh004]

I have the same issue. only I have upgraded my RAM to 4GB as well as putting in a 500GB SSD. It behaves exactly as described. The problems have gotten worse with Yosemite and El Capitan, whether this is due to the systems themselves or just the rise of HD video in that time frame i can not say.

 

[Hellhammer]

I had a 2010 13" MacBook Air before upgrading to the new 2016 MacBook and I share your experience. To be honest, I don't think anything is broken, but your Mac is simply not powerful enough to smoothly run the heavier webpages. My MBA would also stutter whenever I used Facebook or other graphic heavy sites and despite trying multiple OS X versions and browsers there was no fix. The fan would also come on pretty much every time I did some heavier web browsing, which simply suggests that the CPU and GPU are under heavy load.

As a temporary fix, I recommend that you install an adblocker because ads are the worst. I use uBlock in all my machines, which is supposed to be the lightest and one of the most effective blockers around. You may also want to install a flashblocker to make sure flash content doesn't load automatically.

In the end, your Mac is close to six years old now, which is a lifetime in computing, so I would suggest you start looking for a new Mac soon for better user experience.

 

[yoe91]

I had a 2010 13" MacBook Air before upgrading to the new 2016 MacBook and I share your experience. To be honest, I don't think anything is broken, but your Mac is simply not powerful enough to smoothly run the heavier webpages. My MBA would also stutter whenever I used Facebook or other graphic heavy sites and despite trying multiple OS X versions and browsers there was no fix. The fan would also come on pretty much every time I did some heavier web browsing, which simply suggests that the CPU and GPU are under heavy load.

As a temporary fix, I recommend that you install an adblocker because ads are the worst. I use uBlock in all my machines, which is supposed to be the lightest and one of the most effective blockers around. You may also want to install a flashblocker to make sure flash content doesn't load automatically.

In the end, your Mac is close to six years old now, which is a lifetime in computing, so I would suggest you start looking for a new Mac soon for better user experience.

Hah hi there fellow metalhead. Thanks for the replies yall. snaky I get what you're saying about the hard disk but I reckon this was prior to even changing hard disks, I'm just very very skeptical about the *graphics card*...
Hellhammer yeah I did the Flashblock, but it became such an unbelievable hassle I had to stop, but I'll get back to adding some Firefox addons. Thing is I usually experiment a lot, but never find exactly what I want and they usually become detrimental to the overall experience more than beneficial !... but yeah actually, I'll go look some up right now that's a good idea.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Hah hi there fellow metalhead. Thanks for the replies yall. snaky I get what you're saying about the hard disk but I reckon this was prior to even changing hard disks, I'm just very very skeptical about the *graphics card*...
Hellhammer yeah I did the Flashblock, but it became such an unbelievable hassle I had to stop, but I'll get back to adding some Firefox addons. Thing is I usually experiment a lot, but never find exactly what I want and they usually become detrimental to the overall experience more than beneficial !... but yeah actually, I'll go look some up right now that's a good idea.

The graphics cards on the 2010 13 inch is an integrated solution using NVIDIA silicon and system memory, it is unlikely to be that without the whole CPU failing....

 

[yoe91]

If this helps anyone: I did a full cleanup on Firefox. It produced a "Old Firefox Data" folder on the desktop - 250MB.
Only kept the favorites-bar (under the address bar). Much better. Much smoother so far overall. No over-heating/noise, wtvr. Still an issue on ad-loaded sites though.