Macbook pro mid 2012 (Unibody) suuuuper slow

[fede_74]

Hi all,

My macbook is running super slow since long. Memory and CPU usage is far from full and I have plenty of free disk space. I have gone through most of the advices I found online, including repairing disk permissions, hardware tests, etc. Everything seems fine.

Then, I read many macbook pros mid 2012 had a problem with the HDD cable. I have ordered a new one and replaced it. No significant change in performance.

Does anyone know what might be failing and what can I do to solve this? Might this be a software or hardware problem?

Many thanks

 

[keysofanxiety]

Run SMART Utility. Anything other than 'Passed' would indicate the hard-drive is failing: https://cloudfront.volitans-software.com/smartutility323.zip

Even if the HDD's OK, you'd get much better performance upgrading to an SSD. More recent OS performance is pretty poor on spinning platters.

 

[fede_74]

Thanks! I already tried SMART, it reported no problems. I understand a SSD can improve much performance, but cannot understand why a HDD could make my laptop so slow (sometimes is amazingly slow and the Activity Monitor shows no process eating CPU or mem). Tomorrow I will install a SSD and 8Gb of RAM. I hope this makes it usable!

 

[keysofanxiety]

Thanks! I already tried SMART, it reported no problems. I understand a SSD can improve much performance, but cannot understand why a HDD could make my laptop so slow (sometimes is amazingly slow and the Activity Monitor shows no process eating CPU or mem). Tomorrow I will install a SSD and 8Gb of RAM. I hope this makes it usable!

It definitely will make it run better than new. Hard-drives are really slow and newer versions of OS X are designed/optimised for SSDs anyway. Over time, an HDD's performance will degrade anyway (larger seek times, slower read/write speeds) due to wear and tear on the needles and platters. So that could well be contributing to the issue.

Regardless, there's a lot down to programming too. The only good thing I can say about Windows is that it seems to run better than macOS on a spinning drive.

Apple haven't put much effort in ensuring their OS runs smoothly on HDDs, beyond implementing compressed memory in 10.9 to reduce writing to disk. Shame because they still sell spinning drives in a lot of products...

 

[BrianBaughn]

Post the specs on hard drive size and available space, OS version, amount of RAM.

Also, create a new, test user account and see if the computer is as slow when logged into it.

 

[BeyondtheTech]

I just have to ask, since it wasn't specifically mentioned, did you reset BOTH the NVRAM and SMC? My MacBook with the SSD started running slowly and even couldn't launch Disk Utility without hanging, and it was only after I did both, everything ran normally again.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Does anyone know what might be failing and what can I do to solve this?"

The answer is easy.
Put an SSD into it.

Problems.... solved!

Aside:
You truly won't understand how this can be "the answer", until you've done it...

 

[ZapNZs]

• Is yours a 15 or a 13?
• Are you currently running Sierra? (it seems quite a few HDD users are finding that after upgrading to Sierra that they are unhappy with performance)
• When using Disk Utility (if you are using an older version of OS X that used to separate these two features), beyond just repairing the permissions did you also Verify Disk? (to check the directory)
• Have you benchmarked your HDDs read/write performance?
• Did this issue come on progressively or suddenly (after an update?)
• Are you open to a SSD upgrade (if so, How much disk space are you currently using and what would your budget be?)

 

[fede_74]

Thanks to all for your feedback! Tomorrow I will have all the necessary tools to install my new SSD drive (plus 8Gb RAM, yummy). I'll let you all know how it goes after the upgrade. I will reset BOTH the NVRAM and SMC after the SSD is installed as advised.

 

[fede_74]

New SSD drive + 8Gb RAM and my macbook pro mid 2012 is running Sierra as if it were a new mac!!! Amazing

 

[BarracksSi]

I was going to say that my mid-2012 13" runs like $#!t if I've left a browser window on Facebook for too long and maybe you should check the same.

But, either way, you've fixed it. I may get another five years out of mine yet.