My 2.16 MBP is just not acting like it used to (and should be)

[BiikeMike]

So I got this fancy dancy MacBook Pro computer, and when I took it out of the box, it was lightning fast. Nothing took any time at all to do. Now, fast foreward 6 months and add some heavy use with CS2, Lightroom, Excel, Word, etc, and I feel like i'm back on my old Performa II.

I get the Beach ball allllllll the time, even just trying to open Firefox. Things just take way too long, and waaaay longer than they used to. I know loading a computer up with software will slow it down, but this seems a little much.

Config: MacBook Pro 2.16 Intel Core Duo, 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, 100 gig 7200 rpm harddrive, 15 gigs free, OSX 10.4.7. I run the cleaning and optimization on OnyX, is there anything else I can do?

I know adding another gig stick of ram will help, and I plan on doing that, but that does not explain the slow down

 

[Sicarius]

No, it doesn't. Hmmm. What speed is the HDD? Do you turn off your Macbook Pro often, or put it to sleep?

 

[iW00t]

Try doing a reinstall of OS X. It does the trick when Windows XP starts slowing down in my experience.

 

[Scottyk9]

Rosetta uses a ton of RAM, and it looks like now you are using a lot of apps which require its use. If your available RAM is used up, the computer starts reading & writing from the HD, which is vastly slower than RAM.

In activity monitor, check the ratio of page ins to page outs. While there is no hard in fast rule, if you have a high number of pageouts (compared to page ins), more RAM would likely speed things up.

I am considering moving to a C2D with 3G of RAM - I have 167000/149561 page ins/outs with 2G of RAM, and get some of the slowdowns you encountered.

While Rosetta (and relative ease of creating UB) has made the transition to Intel smooth, RAM use with Rosetta is in my opinion the achilles heel.

 

[Scottyk9]

Try doing a reinstall of OS X. It does the trick when Windows XP starts slowing down in my experience.

Before doing this, I would try rebooting, and exclusively using universal apps and see if you get the same issues.

 

[BiikeMike]

If I'm not running the apps, they should not affect the computer, correct? like right now, I am just running Stickies, Mail, Firefox, Finder, and Adium, and still..... it takes a second to change windows, and things are just generally slow.

Will the "older" MacBook Pros take more than 2GB of ram? I didn't think they supported the 2gig sticks?

 

[Scottyk9]

If I'm not running the apps, they should not affect the computer, correct? like right now, I am just running Stickies, Mail, Firefox, Finder, and Adium, and still..... it takes a second to change windows, and things are just generally slow.

Will the "older" MacBook Pros take more than 2GB of ram? I didn't think they supported the 2gig sticks?

Try running those apps after a reboot (look at your page ins/outs 1st, these will reset). While OS X is pretty good at RAM management, rebooting frees it all up.

And you are right, only the Core 2 Duo's will take 3Gg, the Core Duo MPB take a max of 2G.

 

[macman2790]

Try doing a reinstall of OS X. It does the trick when Windows XP starts slowing down in my experience.

i do that once every 2 months with xp, it never fails

 

[BiikeMike]

i do that once every 2 months with xp, it never fails

The whole point is........... this is not XP!

 

[BiikeMike]

Well, I restarted 52 Minutes ago, and have had 34872 Page ins, and 0 page outs.

But all i've done the last 52 minutes is surf the web, so i'd hope I don't have page outs, but even still, some things run slowly............?

 

[BiikeMike]

And another thing its doing lately is the battery is acting super weirdo. It'll say I have 15-20 minutes left, and then just shut off. If I close it with 30-40 minutes left, when I open it again, it wont work, I have to plug it in first. It never did this before.

When I just restarted, I got the Questionmark folder of death for a split second before I got the Apple...... Somthing is not right.

 

[ero87]

did you add 3rd party RAM? You could try taking that out, see if the problems continue (i know it's a hassle, but it might be worth it).

Now you encounter the great Catch-22 of using a Mac: Get extra RAM... ooh but don't buy it from Apple, install it yourself... ooh your mac is giving you problems? It's probably that faulty RAM you installed!

sigh...

 

[timnosenzo]

Have you repaired permissions? Reset your PRAM? You could also try opening terminal, typing in "sudo periodic daily weekly monthy" (without the quotes), this forces the system to run maintenance that its supposed to run when idle. Might be worth a shot.