Return of slow MBA

[DarioK]

Have any of you noticed any slowing of the MBA since installing SL?

I have a rev A 1.6. When I first bought it in feb 2008 I noticed that it would slow down and eventually freeze simply by surfing and using Skype, no videos. After the firmware update everything was fine and I could even watch YouTube videos whilst having other programs open and there would be no problem.

However after installing Snow Leopard, the computer seems to slow down and freeze when I am doing even less tasks also the fans never seems to slow down anymore, on top of that it gets hotter quicker under the same conditions as when Leopard....

Does anyone have this problem? Or is it just my computer..

After the hinges breaking this year and the fact that the sound has disappeared I am starting to lose patience with this machine.

Dario

 

[mackhydr4]

Have any of you noticed any slowing of the MBA since installing SL?

I have a rev A 1.6. When I first bought it in feb 2008 I noticed that it would slow down and eventually freeze simply by surfing and using Skype, no videos. After the firmware update everything was fine and I could even watch YouTube videos whilst having other programs open and there would be no problem.

However after installing Snow Leopard, the computer seems to slow down and freeze when I am doing even less tasks also the fans never seems to slow down anymore, on top of that it gets hotter quicker under the same conditions as when Leopard....

Does anyone have this problem? Or is it just my computer..

After the hinges breaking this year and the fact that the sound has disappeared I am starting to lose patience with this machine.

Dario

Get a Rev B?

I've installed SL on mine (I've had the 1.6 rev B, now on 1.86 SSD rev B version, by choice, not issues) and it's dead silent, no heat issue and no slowdown.

Seriously, I don't know much you paid for the rev A, but the rev B has gotten so lower in price-

 

[AIRniloc]

i'm willing to bet that you have skype running as a startup item..

skype is the second worsst login app to have (behind DING!), disable it from your login items, reset your PRAM and reset your SMC...i'm willing to bet you'll see some performance improvements

also, coolbook is a must-have for rev A MBAirs..

 

[caonimadebi]

why is skype a bad start-up item? With the SSD it seems to launch almost instantly, like other apps. Skype is really an indispensable app to me, and I really only notice the fan kicking in when my camera is on.

 

[aaquib]

Get CoolBook and see if it helps.

 

[DarioK]

I only have iTunes helper as a login item. I have Coolbook but it doesn't seem to work. It just goes so slow now and it didn't do that with 10.5.8.

 

[VS007]

Both my AppleTV and MBA(even with SL) have become slower over the period of years. Apple TV used to be snappier when displaying video and that too stutters now and I reboot it often.

Regards to MBA, even the stacks takes some time to refresh and Finder is also slow while displaying dirs as I navigate. This has happened over a period of year, and I think its losing its snappiness. SL does not help either. I am just a Safari user no videos.

PS: Am I the only one a bit underwhelmed by SL?

 

[Scottsdale]

Both my AppleTV and MBA(even with SL) have become slower over the period of years. Apple TV used to be snappier when displaying video and that too stutters now and I reboot it often.

Regards to MBA, even the stacks takes some time to refresh and Finder is also slow while displaying dirs as I navigate. This has happened over a period of year, and I think its losing its snappiness. SL does not help either. I am just a Safari user no videos.

PS: Am I the only one a bit underwhelmed by SL?

I think the processor clock speed of only 1.6 GHz may be problem. Also if it's an original MBA it's not even a Penryn CPU. I have noticed a lot of complaints from people with 1.6 GHz processors. I personally think that Flash, QT, HD video and etc take more CPU power.

I really feel like even though it's not that much higher clock speed the 1.86/2.13 CPUs exceed the minimum necessary and provide a much better user experience. I never have experienced those types of problems.

At the same time, I am not really impressed with Snow Leopard either. I have considered going back to Leopard. The MBA doesn't run 64-bit kernel either which is a good thing. I expect the MBA will do better when software is taking advantage of Snow Leopard technologies like OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch. I just wonder if there is no reason to run SL until software can take advatage of it. Supposedly all of the 64-bit apps don't run any better on an MBA with less than 4 GB of RAM.

We will see. I suspect that the MBA will improve when SL evolves and software uses the GPU and CPU core. I noticed Xbench scores have dropped significantly too. It all makes me wonder if SL is really even ready???

 

[DarioK]

Unless it is a known problem and a firmware update will be issued, I think perhaps I will go back to Leopard.

Hopefully Rev D will be a lot better.