What is wrong with my computer?

[basketball762]

Hi MacRumors! I have a quick question. I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 Model which has a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM. My question is that in recent weeks I have noticed that my computer has slowed down drastically. The majority of where I see it is when I am using Google Chrome and searching the web. Every time I want to open a new tab I will get the colorful spiral wheel, the fan picks up speed/the computer gets extremely hot, and it takes anywhere from 5-30 seconds to open that tab or complete the task. I also have just noticed that I get the colorful spiral wheel a lot more than I usually do. Why is my computer running slow? I was thinking about picking up an SSD and replacing my HD with it. I know SSD's help with opening up applications quicker and booting up faster but, would it help with minimizing the spiral wheel and the problems with simple tasks lagging like internet usages and e-mail? Any help is appreciated!

 

[basketball762]

Bump. Any help? I am looking at some SSD's for my computer and I found one good deal but it ends soon. I don't want to pay $200+ if it is not going to fix the troubles I am having with my computer right now.

 

[G3HR1G]

Same here

Same here, it just randomly started turning a lot slower recently, and now, every once in a while, it will start to freeze or not allow me to connect to the internet.

 

[Rajpdx]

Bump. Any help? I am looking at some SSD's for my computer and I found one good deal but it ends soon. I don't want to pay $200+ if it is not going to fix the troubles I am having with my computer right now.

SSD will make it lightning fast so good upgrade regardless.

Your machine shouldn't be beachballing just on web browsing. You should close all your apps, start activity monitor from applications/utilities then from the menu select window and then activity monitor.

From the activity monitor window, select all processes and then the CPU tab to order the processes by CPU usage.

Then use the computer as normal. If you get beachballing have a look at how much cpu capacity is being used by what processes - it sounds like something is operating inefficiently behind the scenes.

Also in activity monitor you can check ram usage to see what processes are using ram - but it's unlikely to be this in my view.

But getting an SSD I can completely recommend but you don't need it to fix the problem.

 

[Macman45]

Try emptying your Browsers cache, over time this can become cluttered with junk, and can drastically reduce web performance.

If tha fails to correct the issue, have a look at your router / wifi setup...Very often, re-booting a modem will give you a speed boost, but the caches need emptying first.

 

[basketball762]

Thank you all for your help! I really appreciate it. I have started looking at my activity monitor and I noticed that I only have anywhere from 50-200 MB of RAM free at any given moment. Could this be a reason why I am having so many issues? It says though, that I have about 933 MB of RAM inactive. Should I upgrade my RAM to 8GB? Thanks again for the help!

 

[Rajpdx]

Thank you all for your help! I really appreciate it. I have started looking at my activity monitor and I noticed that I only have anywhere from 50-200 MB of RAM free at any given moment. Could this be a reason why I am having so many issues? It says though, that I have about 933 MB of RAM inactive. Should I upgrade my RAM to 8GB? Thanks again for the help!

inactive ram is also free - it's waiting to be used.

Take a look at the page outs over a period of time. If that number is large then you may need more ram as the memory contents are being written to disk because of a ram shortage. If it doesn't ever get all that big then you're not really short of ram.

I'd say get the SSD first, ram second - if you are paging to the drive, the paging will be faster with an SSD anyway.

 

[Jameson.Kusch]

Hi MacRumors! I have a quick question. I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 Model which has a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM. My question is that in recent weeks I have noticed that my computer has slowed down drastically. The majority of where I see it is when I am using Google Chrome and searching the web. Every time I want to open a new tab I will get the colorful spiral wheel, the fan picks up speed/the computer gets extremely hot, and it takes anywhere from 5-30 seconds to open that tab or complete the task. I also have just noticed that I get the colorful spiral wheel a lot more than I usually do. Why is my computer running slow? I was thinking about picking up an SSD and replacing my HD with it. I know SSD's help with opening up applications quicker and booting up faster but, would it help with minimizing the spiral wheel and the problems with simple tasks lagging like internet usages and e-mail? Any help is appreciated!

I have the same macbook as you. I also had this problem. Before upgrading the ssd and/or ram, try upgrading to mountain lion as that makes the machine run more efficient.

 

[GGJstudios]

My question is that in recent weeks I have noticed that my computer has slowed down drastically.

Same here, it just randomly started turning a lot slower recently, and now, every once in a while, it will start to freeze or not allow me to connect to the internet.

1. Launch Activity Monitor
2. Change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes"
3. Click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top).
4. Click on the System Memory tab at the bottom.
5. Take a screen shot of the entire Activity Monitor window, then scroll down to see the rest of the list, take another screen shot
6. Post your screenshots.

If you're having performance issues, this may help:

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

 

[qpiqp]

Have you tried doing the same things in Safari? If you haven't, do that. If Safari runs fine then you should just be able to uninstall and reinstall because you know it is a software issue. Also, it could just be a google chrome issue right now as chrome is going through updates.

 

[clumeng]

iStat Menus is an invaluable tool. Provides menu bar real time data on RAM, CPU usage and other.

Other tips:

1. Verify Permissions in Disk Utilities
2. In Account preferences see what is loading on startup and get rid of crap
3. There is benefits to wiping the system and starting over. While this is very common to do almost every 6 months for PCs with Macs it does help. I'd do a fresh install of apps after backup obviously.

 

[basketball762]

Thanks everyone for their help! I thought I would go ahead and just post what my activity monitor is saying. I think I am going to upgrade the RAM right now then the SSD later.

 

[AppleFanatic10]

Hi MacRumors! I have a quick question. I have a MacBook Pro Early 2011 Model which has a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM. My question is that in recent weeks I have noticed that my computer has slowed down drastically. The majority of where I see it is when I am using Google Chrome and searching the web. Every time I want to open a new tab I will get the colorful spiral wheel, the fan picks up speed/the computer gets extremely hot, and it takes anywhere from 5-30 seconds to open that tab or complete the task. I also have just noticed that I get the colorful spiral wheel a lot more than I usually do. Why is my computer running slow? I was thinking about picking up an SSD and replacing my HD with it. I know SSD's help with opening up applications quicker and booting up faster but, would it help with minimizing the spiral wheel and the problems with simple tasks lagging like internet usages and e-mail? Any help is appreciated!

Could be a problem with your motherboard. I remember I had to get my MB fixed because the motherboard was making the fans kick up to high speeds without me actually doing anything with the computer. I'm assuming you still have warranty, so I'd adivse you to go to an apple store soon before you're warranty ends.

 

[Passante]

Is it lagging only in safari? How about general disk access?

 

[basketball762]

I still haven't purchased more RAM for my computer or gotten an SSD yet cause I am still going back and forth. But I thought I would post another screen shot of my computer when google chrome was freezing up and lagging and beach balling.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

It looks like OS X is being a bit of an arse with Inactive memory and not freeing it up properly to me. I get this sometimes. I suggest opening the terminal and typing "purge" then hit enter and give it 5 or so seconds to free up the inactive memory. See how it goes from there.

 

[GGJstudios]

It looks like OS X is being a bit of an arse with Inactive memory and not freeing it up properly to me.

How can you tell? There are excessive page outs, but there's no indication that they're happening at the time of the screen shot. They could have occurred at a time when there was no free or inactive memory available.

OP, restart your Mac to reset page outs to zero and see if Chrome locks up again. Then post a screen shot of your Activity Monitor at that time.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

How can you tell? There are excessive page outs, but there's no indication that they're happening at the time of the screen shot. They could have occurred at a time when there was no free or inactive memory available.

OP, restart your Mac to reset page outs to zero and see if Chrome locks up again. Then post a screen shot of your Activity Monitor at that time.

Well it could be a big coincidence that he has practically no free RAM, loads of inactive RAM, and Chrome has crashed at the same time (no doubt due to this lack of RAM - I've experienced the same thing), but I don't think it is.

 

[GGJstudios]

Well it could be a big coincidence that he has practically no free RAM, loads of inactive RAM, and Chrome has crashed at the same time (no doubt due to this lack of RAM - I've experienced the same thing), but I don't think it is.

A few observations:

mdworker and mds are using more resources, indicating possible Spotlight reindexing. (although the dot doesn't appear in the Spotlight icon, the screen shot could have been taken in between "pulses")

Chrome is hanging with 342% CPU utilization, while only using just over 1GB of RAM (if you include flash)

Page outs are 12GB since the last reboot, but the current swap file is only 3.95GB, indicating most of that paging activity was in the past.

 

[Dangerous Theory]

A few observations:

mdworker and mds are using more resources, indicating possible Spotlight reindexing. (although the dot doesn't appear in the Spotlight icon, the screen shot could have been taken in between "pulses")

Chrome is hanging with 342% CPU utilization, while only using just over 1GB of RAM (if you include flash)

Page outs are 41GB since the last reboot, but the current swap file is only 3.95GB, indicating most of that paging activity was in the past.

Page ins are 41 GB Outs are 12. Either way, we're both speculating. I just had a hunch, since it feels like I've been there before.

 

[GGJstudios]

Page ins are 41 GB Outs are 12.

You're quite right. Thanks for catching that. They're still more than the current swap file, indicating most of the page outs are in the past.

Either way, we're both speculating. I just had a hunch, since it feels like I've been there before.

True. I think a restart will help clear up other possible contributing factors.