Slow Macbook Pro

[friedymeister69]

I have a macbook pro 2.4ghz core 2 duo w/ 4gb ram.

Ever since I installed Leopard, the dock shutters and, randomly, the cpu goes to 100% usage and the fans go to max speed.

My prior install of Leopard messed up my computer as well... Finder would lock up when I click on an icon (it would try to preview it and lock up).

Does anyone have any advice to fix these problems? Thanks in advance.

 

[friedymeister69]

anyone?

 

[skyrider007]

Do permission repair in disk utility and download onyx to clean up your caches and run system maintenance.

also try rebooting your MBP

 

[scienide09]

What kind of install did you use when you intalled Leopard?

 

[mb2696]

look at activity monitor (in utilities)...sort by cpu column to see which process(es) are causing the 100%

 

[friedymeister69]

Right now, without having used the dock in a while, the dock is using between 1% and about 25% cpu usage.

The last time the fans started speeding up, I noticed that mdworker was using a crap load of cpu. Anyone know what that is?

Also, i used a standard install, except I removed all the extra printer drivers and languages.

 

[lavrishevo]

Mdworker is Meta Data importer associated with spotlight. It goes to work when file structure changes which is about all the time.

You should not be having these problems though. I am running Leopard on the older core duo MBP 2.16 non SR with only 2 gigs of ram and it runs great. I do use Onyx every two weeks or so which helps. If nothing else works try a fresh install again without disabling anything and run all you system updates before installing apps.

 

[KingYaba]

Spotlight index?

 

[friedymeister69]

I am now starting to think that it is so slow because of all my drives. The macbook Pro has an internal 160gb hard drive, and I have 2x 500gb Seagate External Hard drives, one which is used for Time Machine; I am using about 800gb of the external drives.

 

[lavrishevo]

Yeah that is your problem. Your MBP is trying to index all the time. Maybe this will work?

Disabling Spotlight

1. Launch Terminal and type the following: sudo nano /etc/hostconfig
2. Navigate using the arrow keys down the following entry: SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
3. Change SPOTLIGHT=-YES- to SPOTLIGHT=-NO-
4. Save /etc/hostconfig by hitting Control-O and the return key, next hit Control-X to exit the nano editor
5. Next, you’ll want to disable the index by typing the following in the Terminal:
mdutil -i off /
6. And to erase the current Spotlight index, type: mdutil -E /
7. That’s pretty much it, on your next reboot, Spotlight will be completely disabled.

Re-Enable Spotlight

1. If you want to enable Spotlight again, follow the same steps as above, but change SPOTLIGHT=-NO- to SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
2. and then type mdutil -i on / in the Terminal
3. Reboot, and Spotlight is back as usual

 

[friedymeister69]

that would explain the constant external hard drive usage, but it doesn't explain why the dock uses so much cpu when idle, it goes up to about 24% every few seconds.