My MacBook Pro is running EXTREMELY slow. It just started yesterday and I am not sure why. My boyfriends little sister has been on it a lot lately and downloading an ungodly amount of junk. I go through and delete everything she has downloaded once I get my laptop back, but now it is just ridiculously slow. I know my macbook is old, but is pretty much in fantastic condition. Anyone know how I can get it running faster? I was under the impression that I didn't need a Virus blocker, or whatever those are called. Could I have a Virus?
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Running super slow
- Thread starter mcooke
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Open Activity Monitor and select All Processes and then either sort by Real Mem to show you the process(es) using up your RAM or/and sort by CPU to show you the processes slowing down your Mac.
Performance Tips For Mac OS X
As for "virus blocker", they are called "Anti Virus (AV)" applications, but most people don't need them.
Currently there are zero viruses affecting Mac OS X in public circulation, but there are other kinds of malware existing, that can infect your Mac.
To learn more about malware in Mac OS X and what steps can be taken to protect yourself, read the following F.A.Q.:
Performance Tips For Mac OS X
As for "virus blocker", they are called "Anti Virus (AV)" applications, but most people don't need them.
Currently there are zero viruses affecting Mac OS X in public circulation, but there are other kinds of malware existing, that can infect your Mac.
To learn more about malware in Mac OS X and what steps can be taken to protect yourself, read the following F.A.Q.:
Turns on at normal speed, turns off at normal speed. But if I click, scroll, drag, type, or even look at my screen I get the rainbow wheel. I know it means its loading, but should it take me 5 minutes to open Safari or my Mail?
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Anti Virus! I just couldn't think of the name. & thats what I thought, have been told that a virus for a Mac can exist but they are so complex and hard to write that it is near impossible.
Not knowing, what exact MBP you have, you might have a failing HDD. Do you make backups? If not, and you value your data, it may be time to do so.
Just because no virus has been written yet in the past ten years for Mac OS X, doesn't mean, it can't, but it still seems quite hard to do so.
I haven't done a backup in awhile, but I have everything I really need already backed up.
And I downloaded ClamXav from the App store, its still scanning my computer for malware & whatever else it scans for. As of right now it has come up with 6 infections called Heuristics.Phishing.Email.SpoofedDomain, I'm guessing this is just spam email?
I also went to the link that you sent me before to read the F.A.Q, and it was saying a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand, and they stated that I need to be careful when deleting these files because I can mess up my MacBook if I delete something that isn't suppose to be deleted... So now I am sorta afraid to delete the files they were saying to delete...
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a) Look around to find a 2 gig stick to replace one of your 1 gigs. More ram is always better, especially running a later version of the OS. (Technically it can take two 2 gig sticks, but can only use 3.33 gigs, though it will show 4.)
Not the easiest thing to do with the preunibody models, but doable with good instructions and some patience.
b) How much hard drive space do you have on your drive? If it's getting full, that can slow your system down quite a bit.
c) Another possibility is to get the largest 7200 rpm or hybrid drive you can to replace your stock drive if you haven't done so already. Having that model, a 08 unibody MBP and a 08 aluminum uni macbook, I could tell a noticeable performance difference between the stock drives and faster aftermarket ones at that time.
Again, not easy to do, but possibly worth it.
Not the easiest thing to do with the preunibody models, but doable with good instructions and some patience.
b) How much hard drive space do you have on your drive? If it's getting full, that can slow your system down quite a bit.
c) Another possibility is to get the largest 7200 rpm or hybrid drive you can to replace your stock drive if you haven't done so already. Having that model, a 08 unibody MBP and a 08 aluminum uni macbook, I could tell a noticeable performance difference between the stock drives and faster aftermarket ones at that time.
Again, not easy to do, but possibly worth it.
I have 43 GB left on my hard drive, and about 116GB used (i think was the amount could be off by a GB or two..)
And am I running a later version of OS? I thought I was pretty up to date......
Try using Disk Utility to repair your disk/disk permissions. It is always better to do this from the Recovery HD.
http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/08/repair-boot-disk-mac-os-x-disk-utilit/
http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/
http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/08/repair-boot-disk-mac-os-x-disk-utilit/
http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/15/repair-user-permissions-in-mac-os-x-lion/