White MacBook 13" (late 2009) slow preformance

[lazaroo]

Hello.

I've been experienceing some frustraiting issues with my Macbook. I recieved it last winter from my school, this was around the same time my PC broke down. I'm a person who sits quite a bit infront of the computer, this has resulted in that my macbook has taken quite a beating as I exercise all my digital needs on it (gaming, media, schoolrelated business).

Lately (beginning around summer) my macbook has progressively been getting slower. E.g the computer freezing for 30 seconds up to a minute, programs running at a slow rate and when starting up the macbook it can take up 15-30 minutes until I can log in.

At first I thought perhaps cleaning up some space from the hard drive would help, sitting around 100~gigs free of a total 250gb it hasn't really done anything. I don't really know where to continue from here onwards, any help would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

It might be a corrupt Mac OS X installation (if you got the MB from your school, they probably did the installation) or a dying HDD.
Maybe the try the usual:
SMC and PRAM Reset and repairing permissions via Disk Utility

Search results:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452

 

[alust2013]

That sounds like a dying hard drive to me, especially the really long boot times.

 

[gnasher729]

Lately (beginning around summer) my macbook has progressively been getting slower. E.g the computer freezing for 30 seconds up to a minute, programs running at a slow rate and when starting up the macbook it can take up 15-30 minutes until I can log in.

One reason why this would happen is a hard drive that is on its way out. If you don't have it already, get an external drive for Time Machine backups - you should do that anyway, but if your computer plays up, then it is absolutely essential. If you have these delays while doing the Time Machine backup itself, then you can be quite sure that the hard drive is causing problems.

If your MacBook is one with the removable battery (MacBook but not MacBook Pro) then replacing the hard drive is very easy; if you have a MacBook with non-removable battery (no matter whether MacBook or MacBook Pro), then it is a bit more work, but still very easy.

 

[lazaroo]

Thank you for all the help, I'm going to give your advices a shot and I'll let you know the outcome. I must say that the quick response dazzled me.