Mountain Lion and beach balls

[tedesco24]

I bought my MacBook Pro back in mid-2010. It's got 4gb ram, a 2.53ghz processor, and I'm using 150 of 500gb of hard drive storage.
About 2 weeks ago I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Since then I've seen more spinning beach balls in those 2 weeks than I did in the previous two years. I've read about ML slowing down performance and this is very frustrating. What can I do to get back to my original performance, where apps opened in a flash and web pages loaded instantly? Does it make a difference if I did a clean install of Mountain Lion vs upgrading? By no means am I an IT guy so if we could keep it simple, that would be great. Thank you.

 

[GGJstudios]

If you're having performance issues, this may help:

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

At a time when you're getting beach balls, follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the "% CPU" column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

You would probably benefit from an upgrade to 8 GB RAM.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

 

[richnyc]

You would probably benefit from an upgrade to 8 GB RAM.

and SSD upgrade, too I don't even know what "beach ball" is

 

[simsaladimbamba]

and SSD upgrade, too I don't even know what "beach ball" is

The system can still lock up with an SSD and plenty of RAM. It just happened earlier today with me and my second try at an updated ML install, which led me to cold reboot the Mac and me booting into SL again to delete the ****** ML. Apple, why the FAQ?

 

[Cave Man]

About 2 weeks ago I upgraded to Mountain Lion. Since then I've seen more spinning beach balls in those 2 weeks than I did in the previous two years. I've read about ML slowing down performance and this is very frustrating. What can I do to get back to my original performance, where apps opened in a flash and web pages loaded instantly? Does it make a difference if I did a clean install of Mountain Lion vs upgrading? By no means am I an IT guy so if we could keep it simple, that would be great. Thank you.

I consider myself a "power user" of OS X and your impressions match mine. Mountain Lion is junk - I have no idea who at Apple decided to release beta software as an operating system, but whomever it is should be fired. Heck, maybe he already has.

I have been using Macs since 1992 and it is extremely frustrating to have to deal with not just spinning beach balls on a regular basis, but software that abruptly quits, a system that is totally clunky with the iOS integration (the source of most Lion and Mountain Lion problems, I suspect), and the removal of features. Just today I've dealt with two problems on my 2012 Mini - Mail with a beach ball forcing three forced quits (repair of disk permissions didn't fix it, so I had to reboot to get Mail to work again) and the Mini somehow losing pairing with my Magic Mouse. It seems every day I have to deal with some kind of OS-related crap. I wish Apple would have just stuck with Snow Leopard. It was the best Apple OS ever made. It's been downhill ever since.

 

[WillFisher]

I have a 2.4ghz 2010 machine, I recently upgraded to 8GB Ram, it made all the difference, believe me.
Next stop is an SSD, then it'll be absolutely awesome!

 

[tedesco24]

Open Activity Monitor and go to the System Memory* tab and look for Page Outs and Swap used and report back.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

* Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor​

You would probably benefit from an upgrade to 8 GB RAM.

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

Here is my screen shot....what's the diagnosis, give it to me straight

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Here is my screen shot....what's the diagnosis, give it to me straight

Depending how long after a fresh boot this has been taken, it seems, you do not need additional RAM.

Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then sort by CPU to show you the process(es) slowing down your Mac or speeding up your fan(s) or causing more heat.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

 

[tedesco24]

Depending how long after a fresh boot this has been taken, it seems, you do not need additional RAM.

Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then sort by CPU to show you the process(es) slowing down your Mac or speeding up your fan(s) or causing more heat.

Using Activity Monitor to show you CPU and RAM usage​

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

I seldom turn off my machine. When not in use, I put it in sleep mode. Having said that, around noon today I did a restart and haven't been on it since.
Thanks for your help...