Why is my Mac occasionally slowing and crashing?

[AMSOS]

In the wake of Covid outbreak I had to move my external monitor and MacBook Air (MBA 2017 running Mojave) combo to my living room from my office space. Since around that time I am noticing that the Air has slowed down and needed to be force rebooted every now and then. I discovered that the cable connecting the external to the laptop was a little loose. I tightened it but today it slowed down and then had to be force rebooted again.

1- Could there be an issue with the hardware such as the wiring in the house? Something to with earthing that is causing the external monitor to malfunction in some way, and which in turn is causing software issues with the OS?

2- See the two screenshots attached. How are the two system resources giving me such vastly different numbers for the free space? Could it be that I am dealing with some kind of virus here that is occasionally slowing things down?

3- Is there some way to reliably scan for malware and viruses without buying expensive software?

Thanks!

 

[Fishrrman]

"Is there some way to reliably scan for malware and viruses without buying expensive software?"

Yup, there is:
Download MalwareBytes and run it:

Official Site | Malwarebytes: Antivirus, Anti-Malware & Privacy

Malwarebytes offers advanced antivirus, anti-malware, privacy and scam protection for all your devices. Protect your digital life today.

www.malwarebytes.com

IMPORTANT:
Select the "home" option.
It's a FREE download

IMPORTANT:
You DO NOT NEED TO BUY A SUBSCRIPTION to run MalwareBytes.
It will run FOREVER IN FREE MODE.
When you open it, IGNORE the button to "Upgrade Now" or "Activate License".
Just click "Scan".
Again, you DO NOT have to buy the pay-for version!

 

[BrianBaughn]

When you say the external monitor cable is "loose" is it that there might be an issue with the actual cable or one of the ports into which it is connected?

The space difference is possibly due to one of the measurements taking into account temporary system or temporary backup files…but I'm not sure.

 

[AMSOS]

When you say the external monitor cable is "loose" is it that there might be an issue with the actual cable or one of the ports into which it is connected?

The space difference is possibly due to one of the measurements taking into account temporary system or temporary backup files…but I'm not sure.

Yes, I think next I should run the laptop separately and see if there are any issues.
My external monitor is 7 years old and I am using the original Apple DVI to Lightning connector. Maybe there's some issue with.

That's a great point! I backup on two different external HDDs and they have about 350 GB of data. Do you think the measurement in the disk utility app has something to do with this?

Thanks!

 

[BrianBaughn]

Yes, I think next I should run the laptop separately and see if there are any issues.
My external monitor is 7 years old and I am using the original Apple DVI to Lightning connector. Maybe there's some issue with.

That's a great point! I backup on two different external HDDs and they have about 350 GB of data. Do you think the measurement in the disk utility app has something to do with this?

Thanks!

Time Machine? It creates a local snapshot if you're not connected to your backup drive…I suppose it's designed for the event you delete or amend a document and your backup drive isn't connected. The local backup would have a newer version to restore.

Local snapshots being the culprit in available disk space discrepancies has been discussed here before but, honestly, I don't know if that's correct or current information.