mac book running so slow - start up and spinning wheel.

[loonielola]

Hi. Can someone take a look at the specs of this macbook and tell me why it starts up so slow. i have run onyx and disk utilities. I cannot seem to find anything in the startup items .. but i did see in the CPU a windows app/software running ???

Anyone's suggestions and comments much appreciated. thx you.

Hardware Information: (What does this mean?)

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)

[Click for Technical Specifications]

[Click for User Guide]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro9,1

1 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4-core

4 GB RAM Upgradeable

[Click for upgrade instructions]

BANK 0/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

2 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 107 - SN = D86223502YMDGDLB9


Video Information: (What does this mean?)

Intel HD Graphics 4000

Color LCD 1440 x 900

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - VRAM: 512 MB


System Software: (What does this mean?)

OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 (15C50) - Time since boot: about 6 hours


Disk Information: (What does this mean?)

APPLE HDD HTS547550A9E384 disk0 : (500.11 GB) (Rotational)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

Macintosh HD (disk1) / : 498.88 GB (455.74 GB free)

Core Storage: disk0s2 499.25 GB Online


HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS31N ()


USB Information: (What does this mean?)

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller


Thunderbolt Information: (What does this mean?)

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus


Gatekeeper: (What does this mean?)

Anywhere


Kernel Extensions: (What does this mean?)

/System/Library/Extensions

[not loaded] com.marvell.kext.USBGenericPrinterClass (1.0.0) [Click for support]


Launch Agents: (What does this mean?)

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist [Click for support]


Launch Daemons: (What does this mean?)

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.teamviewer.Helper.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist [Click for support]


User Launch Agents: (What does this mean?)

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Click for support]

[running] com.hp.printerAgent.plist [Click for support]


User Login Items: (What does this mean?)

None


Other Apps: (What does this mean?)

[running] com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000005.Microsoft Excel

[running] com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000007.EtreCheck

[running] com.microsoft.autoupdate.fba.90912


Internet Plug-ins: (What does this mean?)

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 20.0.0.267 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Flash Player: Version: 20.0.0.267 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

LogMeIn: Version: 1.0.730 [Click for support]

Default Browser: Version: 601 - SDK 10.11

LogMeInSafari32: Version: 1.0.730 [Click for support]

SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.5.9 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

LogMeInSafari64: Version: 1.0.730 [Click for support]

Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30514.0 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 8 Update 66 build 17 Check version


User internet Plug-ins: (What does this mean?)

CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 [Click for support]


3rd Party Preference Panes: (What does this mean?)

Flash Player [Click for support]

Java [Click for support]


Time Machine: (What does this mean?)

Skip System Files: NO

Mobile backups: ON

Auto backup: YES

Volumes being backed up:

Macintosh HD: Disk size: 498.88 GB Disk used: 43.14 GB

Destinations:

MR Time Machine [Local]

Total size: 499.76 GB

Total number of backups: 18

Oldest backup: 2012-10-28, 4:00 PM

Last backup: 2015-12-26, 8:59 PM

Size of backup disk: Adequate

Backup size 499.76 GB > (Disk used 43.14 GB X 3)


Top Processes by CPU: (What does this mean?)

48% mds

25% mdworker(19)

3% WindowServer

2% kernel_task

1% fontd


Top Processes by Memory: (What does this mean?)

570 MB kernel_task

274 MB mdworker(19)

115 MB Microsoft Excel

115 MB WindowServer

82 MB mds_stores


Virtual Memory Information: (What does this mean?)

739 MB Free RAM

3.27 GB Used RAM (1.38 GB Cached)

0 B Swap Used


Diagnostics Information: (What does this mean?)

Jan 8, 2016, 07:29:11 AM Self test - passed

 

[treekram]

Hi. Can someone take a look at the specs of this macbook and tell me why it starts up so slow. i have run onyx and disk utilities. I cannot seem to find anything in the startup items .. but i did see in the CPU a windows app/software running ???


Top Processes by CPU: (What does this mean?)

>>> 48% mds

>>> 25% mdworker(19)

3% WindowServer

2% kernel_task

1% fontd

It's probably Spotlight indexing on the machine. Wait until the two processes indicated by the ">>>" come down and see if it's more responsive.

 

[loonielola]

It's probably Spotlight indexing on the machine. Wait until the two processes indicated by the ">>>" come down and see if it's more responsive.

[doublepost=1452308975][/doublepost]thx treekram. could i just not shut off the spotlight from indexing? the time to wait from a fresh startup is brutal. this client is not up to speed with the activity monitor so to suggest waiting for the processing to come down would be lame. what are your thoughts on a clean install ????

 

[simonsi]

Just leave the machine running (not put to sleep or shutdown), for a few hours or overnight, Spotlight will finish and it will be back to normal.

It does have a 500GB HDD though, which is the slowest of all disk accesses...

 

[MetalCores]

Like others have said it's probably spotlight. However, I would recommend upgrading the memory to 8GB and putting a SSD in it. You will be amazed at the performance increase

 

[simonsi]

These ARE Spotlight:

Top Processes by CPU:(What does this mean?)

48% mds

25% mdworker(19)

It means 73% of one cpu was being used by Spotlight so yes that may make it slow running your other processes until it completes.

 

[treekram]

[doublepost=1452308975][/doublepost]thx treekram. could i just not shut off the spotlight from indexing? the time to wait from a fresh startup is brutal. this client is not up to speed with the activity monitor so to suggest waiting for the processing to come down would be lame. what are your thoughts on a clean install ????

Well, there was another thread where people were trying to help somebody turn off spotlight. Using the Activity Monitor to do so was suggested as the simpler alternative and the OP had problems with that so it doesn't seem like that would be a good alternative in your situation. If waiting is not an alternative and it's still indexing, I could suggest this as a possible alternative:

I know that Spotlight re-indexing has been an issue for some when doing an upgrade. It wasn't an issue for me. I think (am not sure) that an issue for people where it takes a long time is the amount of text documents they have. I don't have a lot. You can have Spotlight not index directories (or drives, if applicable) where there are a lot of text documents, provided you know where these documents are located. If you don't know where these are, then this won't work.

Go into System Preferences and on the first row, click on "Spotlight". Press the "Privacy" button. At the bottom, there is "+" button. Press that and select the directory/drive where the text documents are located. The process can be reversed by selecting a directory/drive and pressing the "-" button.

The thing about removing directories from Spotlight is that from my experience, it seems to wipe out whatever indexing was already done on the directory/drive so if you want to index it at a later date, you have to start from scratch.

If I'm correct and it's the text documents that are causing a long Spotlight re-indexing, then a clean install won't help - once you add those text documents, Spotlight's going to start indexing them.