Resolved I'm not sure if it's because of my MBP or not...

[a-m-k]

The Apple part description for the Hard Drive Cable is "Hard Drive Bracket, Front, with IR/Sleep/HD Cable". That's probably what they were referring to.

Apple currently has a silent quality program replacing these cables at no cost for affected MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012) models.

Yes, that sounds right, when i went in for my appointment, that is what was replaced because that is what the technician thought the problem was, however, the problem still stands. I am not sure when I get to make a new appointment to try again.

Is there anything I can do at home to test different things out before I make a new appointment? I don't know exactly how much space I have on my HDD since I can't get it to load properly unless the one image I posted a while ago with the bar the was supposed to be there didn't show anything worth reading. Though, I think it had some sort of numbers that could be useful.

 

[a-m-k]

I've got a little bit of good news about my issue. Yesterday, as an idea, I downloaded the disk space app because I couldn't read the about my mac information about my HDD. When I ran it, I was pleasantly surprised I actually got a reading from the aforementioned new app (from the app store, not a third party app)

I don't know how much time I have left until my MBP goes down again. However, I think I can get help ordering the right part in terms of SSDs soon. (I'll mention that you all recommend that I get a SSD.) Who knows, maybe I'll even go to the store and get it and save on shipping and handling.)

I'm actually surprised on how little of space I have taken up on my broken HDD. I have now had it for a little over four years now and this is the biggest problem I have had with it. (So, I think.) However, the battery life is kind of pathetic, I have to charge my MBP every night or keep it on charge while I use it. When do you all change your battery? Should I buy a new battery just in case?

Thanks again, you all have been really helpful and I am sorry I can't get this taken care of sooner.

 

[snaky69]

Your battery is quite healthy and does not need replacing.

What exactly is keeping you from changing that darn dying hard drive? We've been telling you to replace it since august, and it's a 10 minute swap. Your problem would've been fixed back this summer if you'd replaced the part.

 

[a-m-k]

Your battery is quite healthy and does not need replacing.

What exactly is keeping you from changing that darn dying hard drive? We've been telling you to replace it since august, and it's a 10 minute swap. Your problem would've been fixed back this summer if you'd replaced the part.

LOL! I know what you mean! I will do that eventually, however, since it's winter, I don't drive. (It's not complicated, it's just better this way) I'm waiting to get together with a few options in terms of help. Though, can someone please tell me where a good starting point to find a really good (yet, inexpensive) SSD upgrade.

I've been spending a long time reading and trying to figure out what one to order in terms of brands, any suggestions? From what I understand, MBs and GBs aren't an issue, in fact, I want to get an SSD considerably larger that my original hard drive to accommodate my MBP. That way, when I do upgrade. I can just swap out the new SSD and save (or sell) the HDD. I think I'm going to hang on to this MBP until something extremely major happens.

Thank you again for all your help everyone!

 

[treekram]

A couple of things you should determine first:
1) What size SSD do you want?
2) What shopping options are you considering (online vs. brick & mortar)?

Your statement that "I want to get an SSD considerably larger that my original hard drive to accommodate my MBP" would imply you want a 1TB or larger SSD. 1TB SSD's are about $250 or so. Is that what you meant? Or did you mean an SSD considerably larger your what you are currently using on your HDD? I'm presuming it's the later and for various reasons, I would suggest a 480GB+ SSD.

If you buy a 480GB SSD, most places will ship in the US for free (Newegg shipping outside the continental US being an exception, something I know about). Determining where you buy is important because as I mentioned a couple of months ago in your other thread, there isn't much choice at BestBuy, which I presume is the brick & mortar store you would go to. That can be good (much less time spent looking at choices) or bad.

The big players in this market are Samsung, Crucial, Toshiba/OCZ, Sandisk/WD and Intel. All make the NAND chips which store the data in SSD's. All sell SSD's for consumers. Hynix is another NAND chip maker starting to get in the SSD market. The other SSD makers use NAND chips from these manufacturers. Well-known names here are Kingston, PNY, ADATA, Corsair.

For current products, the pricing structure works like this: Samsung and some of the high-end products of the other major brands cost about 1/3 more than what the non-major players charge. At low-end price level, sometimes you'll find products from the major players, sometimes not. At this lower price level, sometimes there are major performance deficiencies (which may more may not be noticeable by the average consumer), sometimes the manufacturer wants to gain market share. For the 480GB SSD, the lower price level is around $120. You will typically not find current products drastically lower than this price level unless there some sort of special promotion (there were some of these around Black Friday, none at Best Buy that I saw). You could be waiting months for such a sale and it may never appear.

At times there will be sales on discontinued SSD's and these may be a bit cheaper than the low-end of the current products. But there are caveats in buying these and they may not be available for long. For somebody not familiar with the SSD market, one should get an opinion from more experienced users and by the time that happens, the deal may be gone. So I would not suggest going that route. In any case, today, on Amazon, I don't see any such 480GB SSD's available.

For SSD's, don't buy refurbished unless you have the means to determine the write count, etc. of the SSD and have a good guarantee to return the SSD if there are issues.

So if you have to go to BestBuy, there's one choice (others are at least $23 more) - the PNY CS1311 at $127 you linked in your other thread a couple of months ago - now it's $7 more. On Amazon, I think the best buy today (among the major players) is the Toshiba/OCZ Trion 150 at $117. As I mentioned in the other thread, I don't follow the non-majors so I don't know about the CS1311.

 

[a-m-k]

A couple of things you should determine first:
1) What size SSD do you want?
2) What shopping options are you considering (online vs. brick & mortar)?

Your statement that "I want to get an SSD considerably larger that my original hard drive to accommodate my MBP" would imply you want a 1TB or larger SSD. 1TB SSD's are about $250 or so. Is that what you meant? Or did you mean an SSD considerably larger your what you are currently using on your HDD? I'm presuming it's the later and for various reasons, I would suggest a 480GB+ SSD.

If you buy a 480GB SSD, most places will ship in the US for free (Newegg shipping outside the continental US being an exception, something I know about). Determining where you buy is important because as I mentioned a couple of months ago in your other thread, there isn't much choice at BestBuy, which I presume is the brick & mortar store you would go to. That can be good (much less time spent looking at choices) or bad.

The big players in this market are Samsung, Crucial, Toshiba/OCZ, Sandisk/WD and Intel. All make the NAND chips which store the data in SSD's. All sell SSD's for consumers. Hynix is another NAND chip maker starting to get in the SSD market. The other SSD makers use NAND chips from these manufacturers. Well-known names here are Kingston, PNY, ADATA, Corsair.

For current products, the pricing structure works like this: Samsung and some of the high-end products of the other major brands cost about 1/3 more than what the non-major players charge. At low-end price level, sometimes you'll find products from the major players, sometimes not. At this lower price level, sometimes there are major performance deficiencies (which may more may not be noticeable by the average consumer), sometimes the manufacturer wants to gain market share. For the 480GB SSD, the lower price level is around $120. You will typically not find current products drastically lower than this price level unless there some sort of special promotion (there were some of these around Black Friday, none at Best Buy that I saw). You could be waiting months for such a sale and it may never appear.

At times there will be sales on discontinued SSD's and these may be a bit cheaper than the low-end of the current products. But there are caveats in buying these and they may not be available for long. For somebody not familiar with the SSD market, one should get an opinion from more experienced users and by the time that happens, the deal may be gone. So I would not suggest going that route. In any case, today, on Amazon, I don't see any such 480GB SSD's available.

For SSD's, don't buy refurbished unless you have the means to determine the write count, etc. of the SSD and have a good guarantee to return the SSD if there are issues.

So if you have to go to BestBuy, there's one choice (others are at least $23 more) - the PNY CS1311 at $127 you linked in your other thread a couple of months ago - now it's $7 more. On Amazon, I think the best buy today (among the major players) is the Toshiba/OCZ Trion 150 at $117. As I mentioned in the other thread, I don't follow the non-majors so I don't know about the CS1311.

Thank you.... I am not sure when I will get together with someone who can help me. I'm not entirely sure what their suggestion will be anyway. (I'm talking about the new MBA vs my current MBP, I think you all remember that posting. (One person offline suggests one thing vs someone in my family saying i should keep this one. Don't worry about it everybody.) I think I'll hang on to this one until it gets really old. (Just over 4 years old now.)

Soon, I will have a little more help and if the plan changes, I'll let you all know so the moderators can shut this discussion down. Again, I am sorry it has taken this long to fix and you have been very helpful. On the upside, since the time my MBP "died" and came back to life sometime later with a messed up date it hasn't died again and refused to turn on for a long time with the wrong date. (I never figured out what that was, but that was a long time ago around the time I started this thread.)

 

[a-m-k]

The help I thought I was going to get didn't come. However, I still do have two options before I give up and just get the MBA. One of the options included another genius bar appointment. I just haven't had the time since all this started kind of close to the start of the holiday season. I'm going to look at current models of the MBA and hopefully if I do have to "admit defeat", I'll know what I want. (The cousin I mentioned earlier has already suggested a model of the MacBook Air.)

 

[treekram]

The help I thought I was going to get didn't come. However, I still do have two options before I give up and just get the MBA. One of the options included another genius bar appointment. I just haven't had the time since all this started kind of close to the start of the holiday season. I'm going to look at current models of the MBA and hopefully if I do have to "admit defeat", I'll know what I want. (The cousin I mentioned earlier has already suggested a model of the MacBook Air.)

I don't think there's anything wrong with your computer other than the HDD. However, since I haven't seen the computer in person, I can't make that assertion with a great deal of confidence. Besides the HDD, you might need more memory and/or there may be issues with the OS or third-party software you have. You've been in contact with Apple and I presume other than the HDD cable/bracket, they couldn't find anything else wrong and they replaced the cable. If you go to the Genius Bar, you can have them run diagnostics (if you didn't have that done before by them). If they don't find anything wrong other than possibly the HDD (which seems pretty erratic so it may not fail the diagnostic), then that would confirm my suspicion.

On the other hand, the cost of a SSD, memory and the battery (which also doesn't seem to be bad but which will have to be replaced at some point - if you get it replaced by Apple, it's $129), is decent percentage of what a new MBA would cost.

 

[a-m-k]

My brother who I just saw a few weeks ago suggested I just let it all be. Don't ask my why? Yes, he also has mac products. However, I am not happy at all with the performance as of late. My battery is constantly being charged. It's 4.1 years old as of now with a 90% capacity according to battery health 2.

I've been waiting patiently to make the appointment for someone on to drive to the apple store since I don't drive. My family who I live with know all too well about this and I am still constantly charging the battery.

I'm not sure if I am remembering right, would a battery replacement be beneficial to me since it's just a little over 4 years old now. (I've never replaced it, obviously. I was waiting until the capacity got down to the single digits.) Though, I have noticed something and I was kind of hoping that my brother would have heard it when I was visiting him and his family. I haven't heard the chirping sound lately.

Maybe, tomorrow, I'll try to back up with time machine again...... I doubt it still won't work. (I've even reformatted it.)

I HOPE to make that appointment soon.... I will update things when things are running perfectly one way or another. I hope you all know that I am so sorry this has dragged on for as long as it has. I wanted it to be fixed months ago.

 

[a-m-k]

To me, my battery seems OK since it has just under 90 percent of battery life for being "old". (Not my words.) I'm only posting this to ask a question about the battery. If I go back sometime in the future, what will replacing the battery actually do, it won't bring back my HDD to full functionality. It won't improve the speed. Will it? (I've never replaced the battery, so this will be good to know in the future.)

 

[treekram]

If you're recharging the battery more often than in the past, there's two likely reasons. 1) The battery is becoming less capable or 2) your computer is putting more demands on the battery. The data that your computer is putting out indicates that your battery is still pretty capable so I would look at whether your computer is using more power than it has in the past. Possible reasons for that include: 1) newer Mac OS's may require more power; 2) some software you've installed uses more power; 3) websites you visit may require more power or 4) your HDD, in it's current state, may require more power (so yes, we may be back to the issue of the HDD). If you're planning a visit to the Genius Bar, your battery issue is something that they could effectively address in person than any of us can online.

One thing you can do is open the Activity Monitor app and while you're not doing anything, see what the graph is for the various components. There's one for energy usage. The computer does various housekeeping chores when it's not actively being used so don't be alarmed if you see periodic spikes in activity. If you're seeing a lot of activity while it's not being used, that could indicate some software or hardware is the reason why you need to charge the battery more often.

To answer your question about the battery, in it's current state, I think a new battery may mean you have to charge less often. That's about it.

 

[a-m-k]

Thank you. So, I'll wait on the battery and just take care of the HDD when I can. I was told to use my MBP as normal for awhile and I notice things. I recently downloaded a macgamestore app because I can't find the one game I played all the time on a PC. (It was a CD-ROM game. Not from a website.) I've noticed while playing it, my trackpad "stalls" and it seems that the "button" locks up for lack of better words. (That was yesterday.) Since the most recent post, I had to force quit everything and do a hard shut down. It seemed as if my MBP froze. I don't remember that ever happening before. I don't remember if I had multiple windows open and I am not sure how much activity was going on when that happened.

 

[treekram]

Since it's the first time you've played the game, it could be the software itself or some problem with the interaction between the software and the OS.

One thing to try is to run the Activity Monitor software and click on the "Memory" tab. At the bottom of the screen, keep an eye on the "Swap Used" and "Compressed" figures. If either of the figures are not zero before running the game, especially the "Swap Used" figure, some additional memory would help. If in running the game, "Swap Used" goes from 0 to not-zero, then it's using the HDD to provide additional memory, in which case that could be a cause of why the computer froze. It's comes back to replacing the HDD and getting more memory.

 

[a-m-k]

When I do this, It'll be when I have some time to concentrate.... Thank you teekram. Should I post a screenshot again?

 

[treekram]

When I do this, It'll be when I have some time to concentrate.... Thank you teekram. Should I post a screenshot again?

A screenshot isn't necessary - in your situation it's more significant if the "Swap Used" and/or the "Compressed" figures go over zero than what the numbers actually are.

 

[a-m-k]

A screenshot isn't necessary - in your situation it's more significant if the "Swap Used" and/or the "Compressed" figures go over zero than what the numbers actually are.

It might take me some time to figure this out. Thank you, again.

 

[a-m-k]

I just realized something, if I can hold on to my current MBP. I will have reached 5 years and hopefully, the lack of a hard drive will be my only problem. Since I can read how much space is left on my hard drive via the disk space app. I'll wait to get more help when things get really bad. According to the disk space app, I've only used 95.71 MBs out of 498.88 MBs. (As of this moment.)

I tried an experiment and tried to save something and the hard drive app I have on my MBP recognized the changes.
So feel free to ask questions about this if you want. I'm just letting you all know what I can still do as of right now.

 

[ZapNZs]

The battery's service life is moving towards the end, but it does not appear to be there yet. Currently, I think there are two main reasons to replace it: 1) it is swelling, or 2) you are unhappy with the current amount of battery time you get. You likely can get several hundred more cycles, with progressive loss in capacity, of course. If you are seeing a radical drop in battery performance, this could be software related. Before replacing, it is likely worth trying to reduce energy consumption via OS X settings, in my opinion. Switching to a SSD will improve your battery life, and this can be substantial over a HDD, as a SSD does not require a motor where as a HDD needs a motor that can spin a disk around 5,400 times a minute or more.

If you decide to do nothing regarding the hard drive (a suggestion I personally disagree with), it is worth being very vigilant since the drive could fail at any moment and any data not backed up will either be lost or have to go for "data recovery." Data recovery of a failed hard drive can often cost more money than a brand new computer, and it is not always successful in recovering lost data. So daily, bi-daily, or even hourly backups may be necessary to ensure you do not lose any work. Time Machine (or better, Carbon Copy Cloner,) is your best friend, since both can be configured to automatically update as often as you like, and both make good quality backups.

I agree with the Members who have noted that what you have described are "pre fail conditions" that describe a symptom that suggests hard drive failure may be imminent. Saving the document as a test does not tell us anything about the health statistics of the drive, and so I recommend considering a program like this:
https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx
the trial is free and, while diagnostic tests do NOT ALWAYS predict failure, this is a good place to start in getting an idea of what you are dealing with.



Between the pre-fail symptoms, the slowdown, and your general unhappiness, I personally think upgrading to a SSD is worthwhile and may save you a lot of frustration if you do this sooner than later. My favorite SSD that combines value + quality is the Transcend 370. Should you buy a SSD and later on the computer fail from another cause, you can always remove the SSD, put it into a $10 enclosure, and have an external SSD for use with your next computer (and if your next computer uses SATA drives, you could always pop it in and use it as the main local disk.)

If you are running OS X Sierra, and you plan to keep this system for a while, you may also want to revisit your RAM situation. An 8GB upgrade is very inexpensive, and can make a big difference in combo with a SSD if you only have 2GB of RAM currently. I'm guessing 8 GB upgrades are well under $50 these days.

Finally, have you already performed the Apple Hardware Test? What were the results?

 

[a-m-k]

The battery's service life is moving towards the end, but it does not appear to be there yet. Currently, I think there are two main reasons to replace it: 1) it is swelling, or 2) you are unhappy with the current amount of battery time you get. You likely can get several hundred more cycles, with progressive loss in capacity, of course. If you are seeing a radical drop in battery performance, this could be software related. Before replacing, it is likely worth trying to reduce energy consumption via OS X settings, in my opinion. Switching to a SSD will improve your battery life, and this can be substantial over a HDD, as a SSD does not require a motor where as a HDD needs a motor that can spin a disk around 5,400 times a minute or more.

If you decide to do nothing regarding the hard drive (a suggestion I personally disagree with), it is worth being very vigilant since the drive could fail at any moment and any data not backed up will either be lost or have to go for "data recovery." Data recovery of a failed hard drive can often cost more money than a brand new computer, and it is not always successful in recovering lost data. So daily, bi-daily, or even hourly backups may be necessary to ensure you do not lose any work. Time Machine (or better, Carbon Copy Cloner,) is your best friend, since both can be configured to automatically update as often as you like, and both make good quality backups.

I agree with the Members who have noted that what you have described are "pre fail conditions" that describe a symptom that suggests hard drive failure may be imminent. Saving the document as a test does not tell us anything about the health statistics of the drive, and so I recommend considering a program like this:
https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx
the trial is free and, while diagnostic tests do NOT ALWAYS predict failure, this is a good place to start in getting an idea of what you are dealing with.



Between the pre-fail symptoms, the slowdown, and your general unhappiness, I personally think upgrading to a SSD is worthwhile and may save you a lot of frustration if you do this sooner than later. My favorite SSD that combines value + quality is the Transcend 370. Should you buy a SSD and later on the computer fail from another cause, you can always remove the SSD, put it into a $10 enclosure, and have an external SSD for use with your next computer (and if your next computer uses SATA drives, you could always pop it in and use it as the main local disk.)

If you are running OS X Sierra, and you plan to keep this system for a while, you may also want to revisit your RAM situation. An 8GB upgrade is very inexpensive, and can make a big difference in combo with a SSD if you only have 2GB of RAM currently. I'm guessing 8 GB upgrades are well under $50 these days.

Finally, have you already performed the Apple Hardware Test? What were the results?

Hello, I just saw this and since its early Sunday morning for me. I will have to get back to you on this. I'll re-read what you said later today and see what comes up and let you know. Thank you.

 

[a-m-k]

I made an error in the posting and can't totally delete what was posted.

 

[a-m-k]

View attachment 685258 View attachment 685259

A 2% capacity improvement since last Tuesday? So I was just thinking, what is the health? Is it the battery or the overall MBP. I've never replaced the battery and maybe when I make my appointment and go in for it, I'll show the technician the battery screenshots. Is there anything else I should keep my eye on? I know that the "About my mac" is all screwed up sometimes. (The bar graph. Sometimes I can tell what's on it and other times it's all greyed out. It's stuck on "calculating" most of the time. (Like now.)) The diskspace app gives me a reading, though, According to that, I've only used 96.79 MBs out of 498.88 GB hard drive. The original one.

 

[a-m-k]

Battery capacity dropped considerably since the last post with the picture. I'm not able to take it in yet, but if I were to show the screenshots of the battery monitor and it's capacity to the technician, how likely is my problem all battery related. I think I included a battery picture before I made my first appointment when the bracket was replaced.

I've never replaced my battery and the sudden drop in capacity is quite surprising. (4%, 91% to 88%.) I'll check again tomorrow and see what the reading is when it's fully charged.

 

[ZapNZs]

It's not unusual for battery stats to fluctuate some. A technician can perform a test designed to look at detailed health info on the battery. To me, it sounds like the battery probably isn't your problem. The Apple Hardware Test and a SMART test can confirm this or start to rule out the more likely causes, which you can do on your own should taking it in not be practical.

 

[treekram]

You've mentioned going to the Genius Bar in the near future. If you go there, you can just give a short explanation to the technician of your concerns and they'll take it from there - they have their own tools and methods to determine the battery health. As I mentioned earlier, going through this process is also almost certainly going to result in a better diagnosis than any of us can do online.

All of that being said, I'll give my opinion that it's very unlikely that your earlier problems were due to the battery since your battery issues seem to be recent.

 

[a-m-k]

Thank you everybody. From watching the behavior firsthand, that I'll have to replace the HDD and upgrade to an SSD. I have read about the upgrade possibilities for the SSD. Though, who knows, maybe I'll wait until December (or until things get really bad), upgrade to a model of the MBA that was suggested to me last year, I have a new app to test things (games) on, and as I suspected, the game reacts slow. (I'm only going to limit it to one game even though, if I am reading the numbers right, I have a lot of space on my HDD. (The hard drive bar graph info in "about this mac".) I just can't read what is actually taking up my hard drive.

Just weird observance, but the grey bar that I posted once, now has the colors it's supposed to. To me, this means it's malfunctioning. The strange thing, when I leave it up for awhile, it "turns on" to be able to read. According to it, I haven't used a lot of space. (A little less than one full GB.)

Is there any more wires I could mention or possibly scan for here