Why has my new Macbook Pro started to feel... slow?

[johnnnw]

I don't really know how to describe it perfectly.

Just lots of freezes when switching windows, when I right click something it will take a while for the box to come up, won't recognize clicks for a few seconds sometimes... lot's of random little things that are making it feel really laggy/slow.

It was fine like a month ago when I got it, but it's slowing down all the time now.

What can I do?

 

[onirocdarb]

I had the same experience a few months ago after installing ML. What I did was erase my disk from the recovery partition and reload everything from my backup. After that I rebuilt my spotlight index and deleted all caches.
My mac is no longer slow

 

[GGJstudios]

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

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

If that doesn't help, follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

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).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
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.

After that I rebuilt my spotlight index and deleted all caches.

Deleting all caches is rarely, if ever, appropriate and will demand even more system resources while they're being rebuilt. Caches exist to improve performance and shouldn't be deleted unless you're troubleshooting a particular problem with a particular cache.

 

[johnnnw]

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

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

If that doesn't help, follow every step of the following instructions precisely. Do not skip any steps.

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).
   (If that column isn't visible, right-click on the column headings and check it, NOT "CPU Time")
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.

Deleting all caches is rarely, if ever, appropriate and will demand even more system resources while they're being rebuilt. Caches exist to improve performance and shouldn't be deleted unless you're troubleshooting a particular problem with a particular cache.

I monitor the Activity Monitor pretty regularly, but here you go:

 

[GGJstudios]

I monitor the Activity Monitor pretty regularly, but here you go:

Image

Image

Re-read the instructions, including the bold text, and try again.

 

[johnnnw]

Re-read the instructions, including the bold text, and try again.

At the very first I had "My Processes", but I noticed right away and changed it to "All Processes".

Sorry about that I guess you got here too quick, before I had changed them. Besides that I think I did everything else correct.

 

[outphase]

That's a lot of RAM being eaten up by Safari and related processes. Your swap file uses more space than you have in RAM. Consider upgrading to 8 GB of RAM.

 

[GGJstudios]

At the very first I had "My Processes", but I noticed right away and changed it to "All Processes".

Sorry about that I guess you got here too quick, before I had changed them. Besides that I think I did everything else correct.

How long since your last restart? You have significant page outs. To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

Also, generally speaking, Flash is notorious for consuming system resources, raising temps and decreasing battery life. For Flash-related issues:

• Find your Flash version and make sure it's the latest version available. Never install or update Flash from a pop-up on a website. Always go to Adobe's site to get Flash or updates.
• Install ClickToFlash (Safari), Flashblock (Firefox) or FlashBlock (Chrome) to control which Flash content plays on websites.
• Install ClickToPlugin (Safari) to prevent Safari from launching plug-ins automatically, resulting in faster browsing, reduced fan usage, and increased battery life. It can also replace many plug-in-based media players with Safari’s native HTML5 media player.
• Try using the YouTube HTML5 Video Player to watch YouTube videos, when available. (May impact fullscreen viewing. See link for details.) Some have reported better performance with HTML5, while some have reported worse. Try it and find out what works best for you.

 

[johnnnw]

Re-read the instructions, including the bold text, and try again.

The rest of the list:

----------

That's a lot of RAM being eaten up by Safari and related processes. Your swap file uses more space than you have in RAM. Consider upgrading to 8 GB of RAM.

Think the reason I have slow downs is that when I'm trying to do something more sometimes it will run out of ram? Does that cause it to suddenly freeze up for a few seconds?

----------

How long since your last restart? You have significant page outs. To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

Also, generally speaking, Flash is notorious for consuming system resources, raising temps and decreasing battery life. For Flash-related issues:

• Find your Flash version and make sure it's the latest version available. Never install or update Flash from a pop-up on a website. Always go to Adobe's site to get Flash or updates.
• Install ClickToFlash (Safari), Flashblock (Firefox) or FlashBlock (Chrome) to control which Flash content plays on websites.
• Install ClickToPlugin (Safari) to prevent Safari from launching plug-ins automatically, resulting in faster browsing, reduced fan usage, and increased battery life. It can also replace many plug-in-based media players with Safari’s native HTML5 media player.
• Try using the YouTube HTML5 Video Player to watch YouTube videos, when available. (May impact fullscreen viewing. See link for details.) Some have reported better performance with HTML5, while some have reported worse. Try it and find out what works best for you.

Okay I'll try those things. I restarted earlier today. I've been considering more RAM I've been waiting for it to go on sale. I was going to just go 16GB because it's only a little more and why not, but it hasn't been on sale for a while that I've seen.

That must the problem. I can get 4GB page outs in a day no problem. I don't actually understand what page outs are however. It's just a number to me.

 

[GGJstudios]

That must the problem. I can get 4GB page outs in a day no problem. I don't actually understand what page outs are however. It's just a number to me.

Page outs occur when your Mac has to write information from RAM to the hard drive (because RAM is full) before bringing new data from the drive. So rather than only a read operation (copying data from the drive to RAM), it has to first perform a write (copying data from RAM to the drive) so data won't be lost, then a read. Twice as much read/write activity, at the slower drive speed, rather than the faster RAM speed.

 

[johnnnw]

Page outs occur when your Mac has to write information from RAM to the hard drive (because RAM is full) before bringing new data from the drive.

Considering the 5400RPM drives are ungodly slow I can see this being a problem. I ordered a 840 Pro, still waiting for it to arrive. That should help. I'll also upgrade the RAM as soon as I see it on sale.

 

[outphase]

Think the reason I have slow downs is that when I'm trying to do something more sometimes it will run out of ram? Does that cause it to suddenly freeze up for a few seconds?

Swap space is HDD space used in lieu of additional RAM. Data has to be moved around to have it accessible to your programs. So yes, it'll sometimes suddenly freeze during this process.

 

[GGJstudios]

Considering the 5400RPM drives are ungodly slow I can see this being a problem. I ordered a 840 Pro, still waiting for it to arrive. That should help. I'll also upgrade the RAM as soon as I see it on sale.

A SSD will dramatically improve read/write speeds, but it's still not as fast as RAM. For excessive page outs, you'll get a bigger improvement from adding RAM. Of course, a SSD helps with all the other disk activity, as well.

 

[johnnnw]

A SSD will dramatically improve read/write speeds, but it's still not as fast as RAM. For excessive page outs, you'll get a bigger improvement from adding RAM. Of course, a SSD helps with all the other disk activity, as well.

Yeah I was thinking RAM would be more beneficial for improving page outs, I'm just waiting for 16GB of a quality brand to dip below 80$ on sale.

 

[GGJstudios]

Yeah I was thinking RAM would be more beneficial for improving page outs, I'm just waiting for 16GB of a quality brand to dip below 80$ on sale.

From the amount of page outs it appears you may not need as much as 16GB. If that represents your normal workload, it appears 8GB should eliminate most or all of your page outs. It's likely you'll find that 16GB is overkill.

 

[johnnnw]

From the amount of page outs it appears you may not need as much as 16GB. If that represents your normal workload, it appears 8GB should eliminate most or all of your page outs. It's likely you'll find that 16GB is overkill.

You're probably right, however today was a weekend so I wasn't doing any work/school on it. Usually it'd be a little more activity. Still though I agree with you 8GB might be sufficient.

They're not that different in price and I don't really mind, so I kind of just see it as why not. You know?

Eliminates the need to ever need to upgrade again. If I get 8 and decide I want 16 the two 4GB sticks will be wasted.

 

[GGJstudios]

You're probably right, however today was a weekend so I wasn't doing any work/school on it. Usually it'd be a little more activity. Still though I agree with you 8GB might be sufficient.

They're not that different in price and I don't really mind, so I kind of just see it as why not. You know?

I only mention it since price seems to be a concern, if you wanted to save even more. It certainly won't hurt to add more than you need.

 

[johnnnw]

I only mention it since price seems to be a concern, if you wanted to save even more. It certainly won't hurt to add more than you need.

I just like getting deals Makes me feel good! And it means I get to browse Newegg, I can't complain about that.

Thank you for all your help, really appreciate it.

 

[johnnnw]

What the heck flash?!

Flash is going wild with one twitch.tv (a streaming website) and a youtube video.

Normal?

Flash really is the devil.

 

[GGJstudios]

What the heck flash?!

Image

Flash is going wild with one twitch.tv (a streaming website) and a youtube video.

Normal?

Flash really is the devil.

Read the last half of post #8.

 

[johnnnw]

Read the last half of post #8.

Thanks for all the help man. I like ClicktoPlugin, unfortunately it's causing the issue of the chat portion of twitch.tv to not load. As soon as I installed it the problem started and when I disabled it the chat started working again. It's not clickable so I can't enable it like you would do for flash content etc.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks for all the help man. I like ClicktoPlugin, unfortunately it's causing the issue of the chat portion of twitch.tv to not load. As soon as I installed it the problem started and when I disabled it the chat started working again. It's not clickable so I can't enable it like you would do for flash content etc.

Go to ClicktoPlugin Preferences > Control Lists and add that site to the list "Allow plug-ins on these sites"

​

 

[johnnnw]

Go to ClicktoPlugin Preferences > Control Lists and add that site to the list "Allow plug-ins on these sites"

View attachment 410027​

Beautiful. Thank you! Do you use ClicktoPlugin as well?

I'll test this clicktoplugin for a week, if I don't find too many things not working I'll definitely keep it on.

Are the flash problems caused by incompetent programmers on Adobes end? Why is it so infamous for being bad?

Only other problem I see immediately is annotations on youtube don't work on HTML5 format.

All of a sudden a new process is appearing using a gig of ram and sometimes 30% + "kernel_task", assuming this has to do with clicktoplugin somehow?

 

[GGJstudios]

Are the flash problems caused by incompetent programmers on Adobes end? Why is it so infamous for being bad?

I believe it's very inefficiently designed, or it wouldn't be so resource intensive. Of course, Adobe has a long-standing reputation for creating bloatware. Many of its products are resource hogs.

Only other problem I see immediately is annotations on youtube don't work on HTML5 format.

I haven't noticed that because I disable those annoying annotations even on Flash. This may help: Youtube Annotations Not Working? - Google Groups

 

[johnnnw]

I believe it's very inefficiently designed, or it wouldn't be so resource intensive. Of course, Adobe has a long-standing reputation for creating bloatware. Many of its products are resource hogs.

I haven't noticed that because I disable those annoying annotations even on Flash. This may help: Youtube Annotations Not Working? - Google Groups

Can you check your activity monitor and look at "kernel_task", this suddenly increased to 20% or so when I started using c2f.