Very slow Macbook pro but checked all the usual suspects

[Applelad]

My 2011 macbook pro is running like a dog (I quite often have to wait about a second and a half for a key press or a drag to have any effect).

Checked all the obvious things like disk space (have 170 Gig of SSD spare), memory (have 16 Gig) and dodgy processes hogging the CPUs (they are usually ideal - monitor them continuously using iStat).

I'm running Mavericks and the only thing I can think of doing is a complete re-install but I have a couple of virtual machines installed (usually don't have them running so they are not the cause) containing apps that were a pain to install so really don't want to go down the re-install road if I can help it.

Anyone any ideas what might be the cause?

 

[thundersteele]

Did you check the SSD speed? Maybe it is failing?

Can't you reinstall and then restore the VMs from a backup?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Why do you assume that he has an SSD?

 

[Hammie]

Why do you assume that he has an SSD?

Because he says it in his response... "have 170 Gig of SSD spare"

How old is the SSD?

What programs are running the most CPU usage?

Is it also doing this with only a single app open? Is it all apps or only specific ones?

 

[Applelad]

Did you check the SSD speed? Maybe it is failing?

Can't you reinstall and then restore the VMs from a backup?

I don't think there is anything wrong with my SSD (attached screen grab of QuickBench on it. I didn't know about re-installing from a VM backup - will look into it. Would still be nice though to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Because he says it in his response... "have 170 Gig of SSD spare"

Hah, I totally missed that! Even after re-reading the post, after reading yours!

 

[Applelad]

Because he says it in his response... "have 170 Gig of SSD spare"

How old is the SSD?

What programs are running the most CPU usage?

Is it also doing this with only a single app open? Is it all apps or only specific ones?

The SSD is only about 6 months old - it's the new Crucial M4 960 I think.

Attached screen grab of first section of activity monitor shown processes that are taking resource.

It's not just one particular app but occurs across all apps. Doesn't happen all the time but at least a few times a day - re-booting seems to solve the problem for a while.

 

[Hammie]

The SSD is only about 6 months old - it's the new Crucial M4 960 I think.

Attached screen grab of first section of activity monitor shown processes that are taking resource.

It's not just one particular app but occurs across all apps. Doesn't happen all the time but at least a few times a day - re-booting seems to solve the problem for a while.

I have two M4 drives and they are really nice ones. 6 months is not old at all. Probab;y not the drive unless you got a bum drive.

Can you post a screen grab of the Memory tab and CPU tab? Looks like you are showing the Network tab. That won't affect your typing in Word or Excel. Maybe just the speed web pages load or opening files on a remote network drive or something.

Sounds like some app has a memory leak.

 

[Applelad]

I have two M4 drives and they are really nice ones. 6 months is not old at all. Probab;y not the drive unless you got a bum drive.

Can you post a screen grab of the Memory tab and CPU tab? Looks like you are showing the Network tab. That won't affect your typing in Word or Excel. Maybe just the speed web pages load or opening files on a remote network drive or something.

Sounds like some app has a memory leak.

Attached screen grabs of Memory and CPU. The problem is at this very moment it seems to be OK. When it slows down again I'll do the screen grabs again and post them. Thanks for your help.

 

[Hammie]

Attached screen grabs of Memory and CPU. The problem is at this very moment it seems to be OK. When it slows down again I'll do the screen grabs again and post them. Thanks for your help.

Based on the current screen grabs, other than Photo Mechanic and Photoshop, you really have no apps using a ton of memory. As a matter of fact, you are really not even touching your 16GB total memory.

Sadly, you may need to do a clean install.

 

[niteflyr]

2 things. First, 15" and 17" 2011 MBP's have issues with SATA III drives in the optical bay. If you installed your SSD in an optical bay caddy you need to move it to the main drive bay.

Second, you can re-install OSX from recovery mode (command R boot) without erasing/formatting the entire drive. It will re-install over existing OSX.

As always, have a backup just in case.

Additional info: It could possibly be a RAM issue. You could try swapping positions with the RAM modules and/or try each module one at a time.

 

[GhettoMrBob]

Is that 16GB the original RAM or did you upgrade that yourself? I've seen where the RAM technically works but can produce some funky results in doing so.

As others have pointed out, I'd try swapping that SSD into the main drive bay if it is in a caddy in the optical bay.

 

[glenthompson]

I don't think there is anything wrong with my SSD (attached screen grab of QuickBench on it. I didn't know about re-installing from a VM backup - will look into it. Would still be nice though to get to the bottom of this.

Thanks

Using Parallels it's very easy to move/copy virtual machines. I wanted 2 copies of Windows 7, one a test environment that I can screw around with and one pristine with just the stuff I absolutely need. I installed it, activated it, then made a copy. The copy did not need activation. If I totally screw something up, I can just make another copy and I'm back in business.

 

[dezmen]

Do this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Solved tons of laggy issues for my mbp 2008 and 10.9.

 

[Applelad]

Thanks for all your help - sorry for my delay getting back but been away for the last couple of days. In response to your posts:

Regarding my SSD - it's in the main bay (not in the optical drive) - but since realized I have a problem with it which probably isn't helping.

Regarding memory - yes, it was installed by me (my brother actually bought it for me who is quite technical and I assumed he knew what he was doing). I guess I need to try and dig out the original memory and see if this is the problem.

Thanks for the hint on using Parallels copy virtual machines. I'm a bit stuck with VMware at the moment but sounds like Parallels might offer some useful flexibly in this respect.

I've since found that I do indeed seem to have an issue with my SSD. The write speed starts to slow down dramatically after about 30 seconds of writing. I'm going to contact Crucial about it but they are holiday today! Thinking about it, I guess it's possible that this might be related to a fault with the memory and the buffers (I've no idea really). But then thinking about it again, write speed doesn't slow down for externally connected disks.

Anyway, my computer is right now suffering from this problem so i've taken some screen grabs of the processes and memory (the titles are in Spanish I'm afraid - which I'm trying to learn - but should be clear enough).

Anyone any more thoughts? I hope I will be get to the bottom of this and will post all findings.

 

[glenthompson]

Do you have Trim enabled on the SSD?

 

[VanneDC]

+1 on the trim function…

let us know how you get on, i wouldn't bother taking out the ram mate, if it boots chances are that its pretty damm good. id be looking at the SSD..