Sluggish MBP

[BlueCollarBelle]

My MacBook Pro has been gradually slowing down. It is several years old and I figured this was a natural consequense of time and use. However, when I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion things came to a near standstill. Battery life also bottomed out. I have reset the PRAM and SMC. The odd glitches in the fan and backlight seem to have disappeared but my system is still running slowly. The verdict is still out on the battery life. I'm a first time poster so I'm sure I'm missing some system info you may need to help me figure out the issue. Just let me know what else is needed and I'll post it. Thanks in advance!
All system info was gathered with nothing running (that I could see) except finder and Activity Monitor.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

 

[GGJstudios]

All system info was gathered with nothing running (that I could see) except finder and Activity Monitor.

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Also, click on the System Memory tab at the bottom. Then take a screen shot, scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot and post them.

 

[Ohrstrom]

Im sure its listed among the tips in the links you recieved but more memory is definitely a good idea. When you have page outs your Ram has run dry, alot of people say 2GB is on the low side of Lion, that I cant say but my 09' Mbp certainly chunked down the extra Ram I gave it and certainly picked up the pace a bit.

Another solution alot of people have been praising is replacing the Hard Drive with a SSD Drive, which is a newer technology with faster read/write and alot faster access times. Making alot of the standard function behave much more rapidly. This however is a more costly thing, whats positive is that you can take that drive with you if you get a new computer and just stick the old one back in your old machine again.

 

[BlueCollarBelle]

Performance Tips For Mac OS X

Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Also, click on the System Memory tab at the bottom. Then take a screen shot, scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot and post them.

Thanks for the quick response! I have already followed the majority of the performance tips, I will fix the few I haven't tried yet. Attached is the new screenshot.
Also, I get a serious delay when taking a screenshot. That may be an issue for another time, though.
It would help if I posted the view you asked for, wouldn't it? Sorry.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for the quick response! I have already followed the majority of the performance tips, I will fix the few I haven't tried yet. Attached is the new screenshot.
Also, I get a serious delay when taking a screenshot. That may be an issue for another time, though.

Please re-read my instructions and post screen shots again.

 

[BlueCollarBelle]

Im sure its listed among the tips in the links you recieved but more memory is definitely a good idea. When you have page outs your Ram has run dry, alot of people say 2GB is on the low side of Lion, that I cant say but my 09' Mbp certainly chunked down the extra Ram I gave it and certainly picked up the pace a bit.

Another solution alot of people have been praising is replacing the Hard Drive with a SSD Drive, which is a newer technology with faster read/write and alot faster access times. Making alot of the standard function behave much more rapidly. This however is a more costly thing, whats positive is that you can take that drive with you if you get a new computer and just stick the old one back in your old machine again.

Could you point me toward a good brand or site to buy from? I'm willing to do the research, just need to know where to start.

 

[GGJstudios]

Could you point me toward a good brand or site to buy from? I'm willing to do the research, just need to know where to start.

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Could you point me toward a good brand or site to buy from? I'm willing to do the research, just need to know where to start.

That depends on your location. Newegg and MacSales and Amazon are good sites to get RAM and HDDs and SSDs.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD

the guide includes:

• 0. Identify your MacBook or MacBook Pro
• 1. Getting a new HDD
• 2. Guides to replace the internal HDD with a newer one
• 3. Transferring data from the old HDD to the new HDD
• 4. Using the optical disk drive (ODD) slot for placing an SSD or HDD inside the MB/P (OPTIBAY)

​

Upgrading RAM in MacBooks and MacBook Pros​

 

[GGJstudios]

Based on your corrected screen shots, it doesn't appear any particular app or process is consuming an inordinate amount of system resources. Try restarting your Mac after going through the performance tips (especially the first 3 tips), and keep an eye on page outs.

 

[BlueCollarBelle]

Will do, thank you!

 

[outz]

Could you point me toward a good brand or site to buy from? I'm willing to do the research, just need to know where to start.

If you know your mbp model year, I would just go to
www.crucial.com

Their site will ask for that info and show you exactly what your machine is able to run...

My 4GB felt sluggish in lion, so I went to 8 shortly after. Costs ~$40

 

[BlueCollarBelle]

The advice so far has been very helpful and I am checking out the suggested sites. I have taken one more screenshot during a time when my computer is running particularly slow. What is the USB Print and Storage Center? I do not have any printers or USB devices attached right now, I've just been doing normal things like using Keynote and Safari. Any reason why this is using so much of my CPU? Also, I am having trouble with my backlight and keypad lights acting strangely again.