Why does macOS slow down with newer versions?

[nodito]

It's funny, after upgrading my 2018 Mini to Monterey everything was initially fine but after a few months it started slowing down, apparently throttling from overheating. I also noticed culprits taking up a lot of CPU, as you mentioned. After awhile, this seemed to get ridiculous and it was getting harder and harder to do anything. Then I realized that I'd never even looked to see how much junk was getting sucked into the vents.

Turned out everything was seriously clogged up, I live in a rural area with plenty of dust and pollen. Then there are two cats... After a careful cleaning, it was literally like a brand new computer! I was surprised how dramatic the difference was, and how I never even thought to check that before.

Not saying that could have anything to do with anyone else's issues but it's worth a look if you have an older machine. Of course, my 2018 Mini has 64gb RAM and hex-core i7 and it's probably a lot better candidate for Monterey than an 8gb 2015 MacBook Air. I have a 2013 MBA with 8gb RAM that I no longer use, can't remember but think I stopped upgrading at Catalina and it seemed to work fine with that.

I did open it and clean it, but didn't change the thermal paste.

It never throttles it doesn't get that hot. I mean I never use it for anything heavy, I use it for browsing mostly and just by doing that it can get to 80 degrees and use 20-30 percent of cpu. I understand it's just a dual core with 1.6ghz base clock, but just browsing shouldn't use so much resources. It wasn't like this before the update

Thanks for the tip anyway.

I agree, Catalina seems to be the latest macOS that works well with it.

 

[ChrisA]

*Slow after an update that offers no significant feature or improvement. Slow and hot even when browsing on safari.

Basics, you say, "I'm an obnoxious person, I read your post, but chose to ignore 99% of it because I don't really want to be useful I just want attention"

Not obnoxious, but rather unrealistic expectations. Most 10-year-old computers have been recycled or are in landfills, that yours still works says something good about the build quality.

In no case will a Mac that old run current software, so you can't get security updates. A good question might be "What is the best use for an old Intel-based Mac? One answer is "Linux"

 

[buggz]

Shrug, continued bloatware, though, m$ has that down pat, bloatware at it's finest.
Though, I am seeing Tahoe to be more eye candy than substance.
Almost a crime...

 

[nodito]

Not obnoxious, but rather unrealistic expectations. Most 10-year-old computers have been recycled or are in landfills, that yours still works says something good about the build quality.

In no case will a Mac that old run current software, so you can't get security updates. A good question might be "What is the best use for an old Intel-based Mac? One answer is "Linux"

10 year old computers are working just fine and regularly sold on second-hand markets, a computer from 2015 can have gtx 980, quad core core i7 with 3.40 ghz base speed, 16 gbs of ram or more which can run any non-mac Operating system, most games and usual programs without issues.

If a 10-year-old computer “still works” it’s just expected behavior, it’s actually pretty uncommon for a computer to just stop working after 10 years, unless it was under very heavy use all the time. A friend of mine has kept his first computer from 21 years ago it still works.

 

[nodito]

What really amazes me when I read posts in this topic, is that people say things like "Yes, on other devices apple has done that, but on mac, NO WAY!, mac is not iOS"

If apple has done it for iOS then it's very likely to do it for mac too, you either suffer from some kind of Stockholm syndrome, or you get payed by apple.

"YEAH, that guy robbed my neighbor's house, but he's never going to rob MY house, NO WAY, MY HOUSE != MY NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE"