Need some advice please

[Levi's]

I purchased my macbook pro in mid 2012, and had been a long time windows user, but I admit i'm learning more every day. I don't get a chance to use it as much as I would like, and like reading your forum when the opportunity presents itself.

My Macbook Pro came preloaded with Mountain Lion, and as each new OS was released, I've tried them, so i'm using Yosemite now. Specs on my Mac book are

My Macbook has slowed down significantly since I made the purchase. My hard drive is 750Gig, and I have it boot camped and running Windows 7 on a partition of 250GB. Simply put, I have a business program which is solely windows supported, along with a large quantity of photo's that the program uses. I figured with the 750GB hard drive, 250GB would always be sufficient. I've looked at my activity monitor, and see this at an Idle, with the Macrumors forum running, and the activity monitor running.

Would it be a safe assumption to feel like I need to upgrade my memory from 8GB to 16GB?

Recently, I had to download another browser, "Google Chrome" which I close when I'm not using, and the reason for it is in Safari, running Yosemite, when I go into like my banking account, and the web site asks for me to enter an answer to a question, I get about 2 letters entered into the box, and my system freezes solid, with a color wheel spinning forever..... So I close the program, and go to the same web site from Google, and the problem ceases, and I can actually complete banking transactions.

I feel the slowness to my MacBook Pro is probably associated with memory, and guessing Yosemite maybe playing a part in the color wheel spinning in secure areas, as I didn't have that problem when using Mountain Lion, or Maverics. I'm just not really sure, But I feel that I'm in the right place to ask the question, and get some answers. I more than welcome any ideas, advice, & suggestions that you are willing to share. If you need more information, please feel free to ask, I'll answer as soon as possible. Thank You.

And hopefully I'm posting this question in the right place.....

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well from that graphic your memory is fine, 8GB seems like more than enough for your use case.

Your CPU however seems to be overburdened with some process running in the background, this may be a legacy print driver, a bug in your yosemite update, some incompatible software etc etc etc.


Firstly check what is using your CPU under processes in the activity monitor and stop that program. Then report back here. macrumours and activity monitor shouldn't be using 60% of your CPU (but equally that shouldn't be slowing you down).

If this is mainly a safari issue the try installing click to flash and ad block and see how it runs then.

Lastly Yosemite really dislikes HDD drives, an SSD will speed this computer up considerably better than new.

 

[Levi's]

I took a snap shot of my cpu usage, hopefully this helps. Thank You for your quick response.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Well thats a dual core (100% per core) machine and the top three processes are using 200% of your CPU whatever they are (I don't recognise them) they are basically using all your machines resources it's why it's so slow. Try updating them they may need an update for yosemite...

update: looked it up it is a timemachine backup thing going on. go into time machine and turn it off. and see how that works

It looks like mds is spotlight indexing of whatever time machine is doing.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

This is apples fix as far as I can tell.


https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201149

 

[Samuelsan2001]

This fix worked for others in the past with a similar issue from another thread.




seajack0
macrumors newbie
Feb 28, 2011
#8
Disable Local Snapshots

1. I have found that this is tied to the new "local snapshot" feature of time machine, which is enabled regardless of whether or not you use TimeMachine.

System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, Deselect Create Local Snapshots, restart. Fixed the problem for me!

 

[Levi's]

This is apples fix as far as I can tell.


https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201149

I followed this link, through system settings > user/group accounts > Login > and at this point, after unlocking the system to make changes, I never seen a place to edit to continue the path. On the top ribbon, was an edit, but nothing in that menu to allow me to continue, I'm thinking that link may have changed for Yosemite.

 

[Levi's]

after reading your reply's, and also using "Google" I found that "mtmd" is definitely associated with my Time Capsule. I entered into the time Casule, and turned it off, Finally the "mtmd" cpu usage went away. If i'm not mistaken, when I installed Time Capsule, it backs my system up once an hour, or something like that, anyway, I followed the recomendations on how to set it up, and haven't thought about the time capsule backup running causing the lag in the speed. After turning off time Capsule, My MacBook Pro definitely got some pep back in it's step.... When I get some more time, I will see if I can identify a way for time Capsule to do 1 backup a day, rather than what its doing now.

I did order from "Crucial".com the crucial 16MB memory upgrade, however my hard drive is 750GB, and Crucial offers the SSD in 500GB and 1 TB, hahaha, The 1 TB is definitely the drive of choice to upgrade my 750 to, However, I've never opened my case the first time to look at the battery, memory slots, or even have a clue how bad it would be to change the hard drive, or what steps I would have to do, to back up what I have now, and reinstall it on the new drive. Of course in backing up what I have now, I'm sure I would have to repartition the the drive, reinstall windows 7 etc... etc... Luckily for me, Apple made a mistake with my Apple TV when in bricked up from their update, and not only sent me a new one, but due to their mistake sent me a 1TB portable hard Drive, which plugs into my USB port. So I'm guessing, I'll have to use Carbon Copy or the other one I read talk about, back a booting copy up to my portable hard drive, Then reinstall it on the new drive when I decide to change it, probably withing the next month since it's almost $500. I'm thinking between the memory upgrade and the 1TB SSD drive upgrades, I should be pretty much good to go then, But then need to figure out the best opperating system for my MacBook, which i'm seeing lots of problems with Yosemite, and I just dont have the time to sit and tinker with it, I need fast and reliable, and on the go, Thats why I purchased the MacBook Pro, and up until Yosemite have really enjoyed it.

One last question, I have the extended warranty on my MacBook Pro, set to expire in 2016 I believe, I have noticed the battery stays charged about 2 hours max, so I know I'm due a new battery, But will the RAM and SSD upgrade, void the warranty?

One last thing, My MacBook Pro came with OSX Mountain Lion, and I never had a CD/DVD in the box of the opperating system, Will I need to order that also if it's stored on the hard drive, or is it stored in a ROM chip inside perhaps?

Thanks Very Much, and Again for your time and efforts in replying.

 

[Meister]

8gb ram is already overkill for you. get an ssd.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

after reading your reply's, and also using "Google" I found that "mtmd" is definitely associated with my Time Capsule. I entered into the time Casule, and turned it off, Finally the "mtmd" cpu usage went away. If i'm not mistaken, when I installed Time Capsule, it backs my system up once an hour, or something like that, anyway, I followed the recomendations on how to set it up, and haven't thought about the time capsule backup running causing the lag in the speed. After turning off time Capsule, My MacBook Pro definitely got some pep back in it's step.... When I get some more time, I will see if I can identify a way for time Capsule to do 1 backup a day, rather than what its doing now.

I did order from "Crucial".com the crucial 16MB memory upgrade, however my hard drive is 750GB, and Crucial offers the SSD in 500GB and 1 TB, hahaha, The 1 TB is definitely the drive of choice to upgrade my 750 to, However, I've never opened my case the first time to look at the battery, memory slots, or even have a clue how bad it would be to change the hard drive, or what steps I would have to do, to back up what I have now, and reinstall it on the new drive. Of course in backing up what I have now, I'm sure I would have to repartition the the drive, reinstall windows 7 etc... etc... Luckily for me, Apple made a mistake with my Apple TV when in bricked up from their update, and not only sent me a new one, but due to their mistake sent me a 1TB portable hard Drive, which plugs into my USB port. So I'm guessing, I'll have to use Carbon Copy or the other one I read talk about, back a booting copy up to my portable hard drive, Then reinstall it on the new drive when I decide to change it, probably withing the next month since it's almost $500. I'm thinking between the memory upgrade and the 1TB SSD drive upgrades, I should be pretty much good to go then, But then need to figure out the best opperating system for my MacBook, which i'm seeing lots of problems with Yosemite, and I just dont have the time to sit and tinker with it, I need fast and reliable, and on the go, Thats why I purchased the MacBook Pro, and up until Yosemite have really enjoyed it.

One last question, I have the extended warranty on my MacBook Pro, set to expire in 2016 I believe, I have noticed the battery stays charged about 2 hours max, so I know I'm due a new battery, But will the RAM and SSD upgrade, void the warranty?

One last thing, My MacBook Pro came with OSX Mountain Lion, and I never had a CD/DVD in the box of the opperating system, Will I need to order that also if it's stored on the hard drive, or is it stored in a ROM chip inside perhaps?

Thanks Very Much, and Again for your time and efforts in replying.

Well with your CPU running like that it'll really impact battery life, it may well get better now. Under your battery in the system report it'll tell you when the battery needs changing. If it still gets 80% or more of the original design capacity apple won't change it....

The RAM and HDD are user replacable on your mac so no worries with warranty although if sending into apple please make sure they know about it and have it on the paperwork they have been known to go missing in action and replaced with a ****** old HDD. It's very a very easy physical job if you can use a screwdriver thats about it (I did this in a 2010 MBP and it took me a whole 15 minutes). ifixit.com has detailed guides on what to do. The two partitions is a bummer for copying you'll have to look up the best way to do that, 2 separate partitions on your external may be needed.

Mountain lion can be downloaded straight from the internet: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH11273?locale=en_GB

But you can just restore from your copy, you can put the original hard drive in a caddy and restore from that there are many ways to do it all easy. The apple website has detailed guides of all the different methods, and you tube videos will talk you through everything step by step.

Time machine can still be used, just turn it on use it then turn it off.

Yosemite is still the best OS out there despite the bugs (this bug has been happening to people since mountain lion) and El capitan will be out in a couple of months and initial reports are very promising indeed, for stability usability and bug free computing (hooray lag gone on retina macs).

To be honest you don't need the RAM I'd return it, that was never your problem you have way more than enough, the SSD is the best upgrade anyone can have by a mile, it'll boot in 10 seconds and apps will open instantly...

Lastly before you replace anything try and reinstall OSX, following this guide it may fix all your problems....