System slow since upgrade to OS X "LION"

[AlarmGuy13]

Good day all,

I purchased my MacBook Pro in 2009 with Snow Leopard installed as the OS X at the time of purchase. When "LION" was introduced, I backed my system up and loaded "LION" on. During the upgrade process, the software download and installation froze, which I found was common during this release.

I powered the computer down and back up and the new OS X was loaded and ready to go. Ever since then and with all other OS X upgrades, my system has been slow. Safari loads extremely slow, startup takes as long as my company provided Dell and overall performance has been down.

When I visited my local Apple Genius Bar they cleared some temporary files but didn't have any answers on what could be the problem. I asked if I should backup my Mac, reset the system completely, and then load only the most important files back on to my Mac.

So, I realize i've dealt with this problem for awhile but it really is annoying and is not the performance I expect from my Mac and I'd like to fix this. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[T5BRICK]

So, I realize i've dealt with this problem for awhile but it really is annoying and is not the performance I expect from my Mac and I'd like to fix this. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

If you haven't already, upgrade your HDD to a SSD.

 

[DeltaMac]

You mentioned other upgrades since you installed Lion.
Lion was first released nearly 4 1/2 years ago.
What OS X version are you running now?

You can go to the App Store, then the Purchased tab.
Lion will be in the list of purchases, and you can download Lion again, or whatever OS X system you are now running.

As T5BRICK suggested - an SSD will, absolutely, bring back every bit of speed that you are expecting, and usually more.

How much RAM memory do you have installed?
Some 2009 MBPros came standard with only 2GB of memory, and would be really slow with Lion and any later system. All the 2009 MBPro could be upgraded to 8GB of RAM, and might be of some help, too. Not nearly as much as an SSD, but still improved.
You can also try downloading the full install for your system from the App Store. A simple (full) reinstall can help out.

 

[AlarmGuy13]

I misremembered the age, it's an early 2011 MBP. Here are the specs:

Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
OS X: Yosemite 10.10.5

 

[DeltaMac]

Same recommendations, as far as SSD and memory.

You could do a reinstall of OS X.
If you prefer to stay with Yosemite, that's fine, and you could download the full Yosemite installer, which would be the most recent 10.10.5, from your App Store. Make a bootable USB thumb drive from that installer. Easy to find the steps to do that in the terminal, or download the good DiskMakerX, which will do the job without you using the terminal. easy.
Then you have a good way to reinstall Yosemite, either the do an erase and restore, or just a simple reinstall, or as part of transferring your system to a new SSD (your best choice, too )