MBP Underperforming.

[josephcohen]

Well recently, my MBP has been really underperforming. Things take longer on my Macbook, then on my 10yr old machine with 512mb of ram and openbox. Also, firefox, has been going extremely slow, and crashing. I'm not using beta, and I have opened it in safe mode, and it still crashes.

I know there must be something wrong. Both my brother and some of his friends with macs have also been experiencing stuff slowing down. So the first thing, I though it might be is that there is an update, or something like that. So I updated, but no go. It's still slow. And just the other day, I got to see this for the first time.

just wonderful. Here are my specs.

Although I would rather not, I am considering backing up my entire hard drive and doing a clean install of snow leapord. Is this a good idea? And here is the activity monitor. I don't have a lot of experience troubleshooting leapord so I don't know if anything is out of place here.

So what are your thoughts? All these problems aren't helping the buyers remorse I had when I bought this mac.

 

[BlueRevolution]

First off, I'd start by running Apple Hardware Test from the restore disks that came with your computer. Is it still under warranty?

 

[alienapp]

1) Repair permission using disk utility

2) Consider uninstalling some software you are not using. (Why are you using both firefox and safari at the same time?)

3) Go to the energy saver option and switch gaphics to high performance.

4) Go to spolight in the preferance pane to disable some folders that you don't want indexed. I.e bootcamp partitions.

5) Try to not sync with too many email accounts at one time if you are using Mail. Instead try forwarding to one address and syncing to that account instead.

 

[josephcohen]

First off, I'd start by running Apple Hardware Test from the restore disks that came with your computer. Is it still under warranty?

I don't think I got any discs with my mac.

1) Repair permission using disk utility

2) Consider uninstalling some software you are not using. (Why are you using both firefox and safari at the same time?)

3) Go to the energy saver option and switch gaphics to high performance.

4) Go to spolight in the preferance pane to disable some folders that you don't want indexed. I.e bootcamp partitions.

5) Try to not sync with too many email accounts at one time if you are using Mail. Instead try forwarding to one address and syncing to that account instead.

The thing is, I shouldn't have to do those things. It's not windows. I already have fixed permissions though. And I'm using both because firefox was so slow.

This mac is very new btw. Only a couple months.

 

[BlueRevolution]

I don't think I got any discs with my mac.

Yes you did, unless you bought it used from someone disreputable. Check the packaging.

The thing is, I shouldn't have to do those things. It's not windows. I already have fixed permissions though. And I'm using both because firefox was so slow.

Any computer will slow down if you throw too much at it. Still, respectfully, alienapp's suggestions mostly sound like so much snake oil. Kernel panics are usually a sign of a hardware fault.

 

[colourfastt]

1) Repair permission using disk utility

2) Consider uninstalling some software you are not using. (Why are you using both firefox and safari at the same time?)

3) Go to the energy saver option and switch gaphics to high performance.

4) Go to spolight in the preferance pane to disable some folders that you don't want indexed. I.e bootcamp partitions.

5) Try to not sync with too many email accounts at one time if you are using Mail. Instead try forwarding to one address and syncing to that account instead.

Some of us the browsers for different things; in my case I have Flock open for forum reading and Facebook while running Firefox for porn and Chrome and Safari open for general browsing. Most people I know use one browser for everything, but I don't like having my browsing history in the pull down being mixed and mashed.

 

[Dan73]

I'd say its a hardware problem.

 

[EndlessMac]

My guess is that it seems like your hard drive is dying. I had a coworker who once got that same restart dialog window and her hard drive was indeed failing. Backup all your data as soon as you can and take your computer to an Apple store. If it's still under warranty then they should service it for free.

 

[josephcohen]

Oi. What a pain. 🙁 I will back up. I wonder if it's due to the fact that every time I touch it, there is an electric shock. If this were a pc, I would open it up and check for loose connections, but I paid a lot of money for this, and I'm not gonna screw around with it. 😀

 

[BlueRevolution]

My guess is that it seems like your hard drive is dying.

You're jumping to conclusions. Kernel panics happen for all kinds of reasons: bad memory, bad logic board, bad hard drive, improperly connected cables, poor-quality power source, corrupted system files...

However, making/updating a backup is never a bad idea.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Uhm.. Unless you were playing a couple videos with Firefox at the time, it really shouldn't be using >100% CPU.

 

[EndlessMac]

You're jumping to conclusions. Kernel panics happen for all kinds of reasons: bad memory, bad logic board, bad hard drive, improperly connected cables, poor-quality power source, corrupted system files...

Did I not say it was a guess and did I not say to take it to Apple to get it diagnosed properly? Also I didn't say to definitely replace the hard drive. I know that it could be other causes but with the limited information it's kind of hard to make an accurate diagnostic.

 

[josephcohen]

FYI, the kernel panic happened when I selected about 20 images on an SD card, and Command+deleted them. And when I rebooted 4 of them were still on the SD card. It was really odd.

 

[Mumford]

FYI, the kernel panic happened when I selected about 20 images on an SD card, and Command+deleted them. And when I rebooted 4 of them were still on the SD card. It was really odd.

Is it safe to wipe out that SD card? If so, do a secure erase of it in Disk Utility to see if you can force another crash. The card could just be faulty.