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Okay, what's wrong with my MBP (slow)?

S

Sal Collaziano

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 7, 2007
331
24
Royal Palm Beach, FL
My MBP is only a few months old.. For the past week or so, things are moving very slowly.. For example, if I right click (I'm an ex-Windows user) on a desktop icon and the menu pops up, it takes a second or two for my mouse to catch up as I'm hovering over options..

While I'm typing this message, from time to time, I see no text - but it'll eventually appear on the screen and then follow along just fine.. It happened just now..

I do usually have lots of windows opened.. Chrome, Firefox, Outlook - maybe Dreamweaver or Photoshop.. But I've closed all that down - and I'm still experiencing the issue.. It just happened again..

Any ideas?
 
Don't know how new you are to Mac, so I don't mean to be condescending but...

When you close windows do you just click the red cross? That doesn't actually close the programme. If lots of icons in the dock have blue dots underneath that means they are still open and could be using lots of RAM.

Go into activity monitor (in finder, applications, utilities), what does the RAM and processor usage show?
 
specs of your machine?

what is your usage showing?(use istat pro if your not already or activity montior)

there is likely something running that you are not aware of so we need some more info to help.
 
iStudentUK said:
Don't know how new you are to Mac, so I don't mean to be condescending but...

When you close windows do you just click the red cross? That doesn't actually close the programme. If lots of icons in the dock have blue dots underneath that means they are still open and could be using lots of RAM.

Go into activity monitor (in finder, applications, utilities), what does the RAM and processor usage show?
Click to expand...

I've been using Macs for a few years now. Loving it, of course.. I do know how to properly "Quit" a program.. CPU usage seems low.. At the moment I only have Firefox opened so maybe that's why.. But I'd like to see how this works.. As I'm writing this message - okay - there - it happened again.. But still, CPU usage still seems low.. Memory as well - with Firefox taking up about 950mb...

ZombieZakk said:
specs of your machine?

what is your usage showing?(use istat pro if your not already or activity montior)

there is likely something running that you are not aware of so we need some more info to help.
Click to expand...

17" MBP, 2.53GHz, 1 processor, 2 cores, L2 Cache 256kb, L3 Cache 3mb, Memory 8GB...
 
Sal Collaziano said:
I've been using Macs for a few years now. Loving it, of course.. I do know how to properly "Quit" a program.. CPU usage seems low.. At the moment I only have Firefox opened so maybe that's why.. But I'd like to see how this works.. As I'm writing this message - okay - there - it happened again.. But still, CPU usage still seems low.. Memory as well - with Firefox taking up about 950mb...
Click to expand...

Ok, sorry. Thought you new mac may be your first.

Firefox taking up 950MB is a lot... any reason why it is that high? I'm using Safari now and it is taking up about 350MB. However, you have 8GB of RAM so that should be more than enough to type in firefox!

If you close everything you can and use something really basic like TextEdit is it ok?

I had a problem in Pages where I had two jpegs on the page and typing was slow despite RAM and CPU usage being quite low. Similar thing when flash was on a website.
 
iStudentUK said:
Firefox taking up 950MB is a lot...
Click to expand...
That isnt a lot for Firefox. For whatever reason, on both Mac and Windows, Firefox is a memory hog. I would advise the OP to try Safari or Chrome to see if he sees any improvement in system performance.
Aside from that I would like to know the eventual answer to this problem. I havn't experienced it, but I support a few Mac users at work and this sounds like the kind of thing that would pop up.
 
Might want to try disk utility and check your hard drive. Mine was acting up in my mac mini server and it just died out of the blue. It is only about 15 months old (unusual to die so soon), but it is covered under Apple Care. Mine started out with issues of the same nature, and I was finally able to diagnose it, but it was to late as it failed shortly after. Bad sectors and corruption on the drive can cause these issues.
 
try using disk utility to very disk, verify permissions and repair permissions.

What size hard drive and how much is free?
 
iStudentUK said:
Ok, sorry. Thought you new mac may be your first.

Firefox taking up 950MB is a lot... any reason why it is that high? I'm using Safari now and it is taking up about 350MB. However, you have 8GB of RAM so that should be more than enough to type in firefox!

If you close everything you can and use something really basic like TextEdit is it ok?

I had a problem in Pages where I had two jpegs on the page and typing was slow despite RAM and CPU usage being quite low. Similar thing when flash was on a website.
Click to expand...

The issue happens with TextEdit and Chrome as well.. I use both browsers simultaneously all the time..

kappaknight said:
When was the last time you rebooted? How filled up is your hard drive?
Click to expand...

Probably a day or two ago. I never used to have the need to reboot but I've been doing that lately hoping it will help whatever the problem is..

squeakr said:
Might want to try disk utility and check your hard drive. Mine was acting up in my mac mini server and it just died out of the blue. It is only about 15 months old (unusual to die so soon), but it is covered under Apple Care. Mine started out with issues of the same nature, and I was finally able to diagnose it, but it was to late as it failed shortly after. Bad sectors and corruption on the drive can cause these issues.
Click to expand...

ZombieZakk said:
try using disk utility to very disk, verify permissions and repair permissions.

What size hard drive and how much is free?
Click to expand...

As suggested, I will use Disk Utility to verify the disk (which was okay) and permissions right now. I'll report back shortly.

I have over 200 gigs available/free on my hard drive. 500 gb total.
 
I had tons of "Permissions Differ" messages but one warning:

Warning: SUID file "System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent" has been modified and will not be repaired.

It's repairing everything else right now.. I'll report back...
 
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