# Slow performing Macbook Pro



## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Hi all,

Hope someone can help me.

I have a MacBook Pro running 8Gb of memory 2.9GhZ Intel Core i7 chip.

The hard drive is 750GB and it has 250GB free. Most the space is taken up with photos.

I am running OS X V10.9.1.

On Thursday it was running fine - when I booted up on Friday it was running stupidly slow.

When I log on it will take 1 min to get into the computer, then when I execute safari or chrome for instance it will takes ages to boot up. Or for instant I right clicked on word to correct the spelling when typing this post it just froze for 1 minute... not exactly a demanding task.

I've run time machine yesterday to be safe, cleared my caches, emptied my trash and it's still running like a bag of bricks. I've got my Activity Monitor running and CPU/Memory usage etc is not excessive... infact it's positively low! 

Any suggestions? 

I am at the point now where I am going to buy SSD and get my mate to upgrade the HD.

By the way I am no techy so pretty clueless when it comes to computers.

Thanks, 

Ed


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## Scotty Pro (Nov 12, 2008)

Open Disk Utility and run and verify permissions.

Do you have spotlight indexing everything?

Also, you may want to try ****tail, its a great app for cleaning up crap.

I have an i5 with 8 gig and mine is fast as hell although I don't have big photo or itunes libraries.

Go with the SSD upgrade, it will be the best move you ever made. I put a Samsung Pro 128 in mine, removed the dvd writer and stuck my old drive in its place. When I press the power button it takes 10 seconds to reach the desktop, amazingly fast compared to the old Hard disk.


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## 182_Blue (Oct 25, 2005)

Have you looked on the activity monitor to see what's running?


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## Scotty Pro (Nov 12, 2008)

oops
forgot to add, you haven't installed Mackeeper by any chance have you ????


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Scotty - Spotlight isn't currently indexing anything and ironically i've just opened up the disk utility and verified it showing up some errors. Just repairing them now...

Not downloaded Mackeeper no and yep I think I am going to go with exactly what you've suggested with the SSD and replace my DVD drive with my existing drive. Was looking at the Samsung SSDs this morning...

Shaun - theres a lot of stuff running but not being a techy I'm not sure what it all is...

The 4 or 5 key memory users are:

Lightroom - fine
Kernel-task - not sure what this is???
Google Chrome
Google Chrome Helper???
MDS_Stores?
Dropbox

Thanks for the help gents!


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## LeadFarmer (Feb 23, 2011)

Can you open Activity Monitor and take a screen shot of it, and post it here?


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## m1pui (Jul 24, 2009)

I think I did a thread on here about doing the ssd swap. It's a piece of cake and I've not missed my DVD drive at all :thumb:


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

LeadFarmer said:


> Can you open Activity Monitor and take a screen shot of it, and post it here?


https://www.dropbox.com/s/4jj3jz9hzfkp33z/Screenshot 2014-01-05 13.41.19.png

Hope that's what you're after


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## Scotty Pro (Nov 12, 2008)

seems Google Chrome Helper might be your culprit, I only have one instance of that running, I use Chrome all the time since it syncs with my phone.

Try this
go into Chrome preferences, under settings click show advanced settings.
under privacy click on content settings
under plug ins there is an option to play all, click it and then click done.

that should stop Chrome helper from using to much CPU


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## Derekh929 (Aug 28, 2011)

How old is it as apple hard drive recalls covered this on my mac slow running was hard drive on way out, take it to Genius Bar to run test on system and hard drive after ding all the usual stuf , make sure you have current time machine Bach up asap


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2014)

What are all those google chrome helpers running ?


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Thanks for the reply lads - the mac is about 18 months old. Looking a lot like the hard drive is failing. It's all backed up so nothing to worry about that side of things. Just annoying as it's more money that needs spending on something that shouldn't fail!


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## Derekh929 (Aug 28, 2011)

EddieB said:


> Thanks for the reply lads - the mac is about 18 months old. Looking a lot like the hard drive is failing. It's all backed up so nothing to worry about that side of things. Just annoying as it's more money that needs spending on something that shouldn't fail!


Check on apple web site you need your serial number is it 1tb drive? If you say there must have been a fault in it from new , they may honour under the uk 5 year trading standards rule check the recal first


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## Serkie (Dec 8, 2007)

I very much doubt the hard drive is failing, just looks like something has gone funny with Chrome, probably a plugin.

More information here:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/y8VTVHmkuzU

Personally I would transfer my bookmarks to Safari and uninstall Chrome fully with something like AppCleaner. I would then see if the problem is resolved. I know its personal preference but I find Safari faster and more stable on Mac (as you'd expect considering its developed by Apple) than Chrome or Firefox.


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Ok i booted it up to reinstall OS X but before re-installing I tried the disk Utility repair function in the recovery partition and it's seemed to fixed whatever the issue was.

Going to still un-install Chrome... and next month I'll stick a SSD in the computer and move the 750gb into the DVD drive.

I'll monitor things but thanks for your help again peeps - I know I don't contribute much to DW anymore but I find I can always count on the community to help!


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## EddieB (May 13, 2006)

Thought I would post a quick update on this... after posting the above post the Mac went **** up again.

I've just returned from the Genius Bar and it turns out that the data cable between the HDD and the mother board had failed!


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## Stewartfinley (Mar 3, 2012)

I had the same issue and swapped the HDD for an SSD and it was like a new machine. 

I went from read write speed of 30 Mbit/s to 500 Mbit/s!


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## Stewartfinley (Mar 3, 2012)

Also took the optical drive out (I don't use CDs / DVDs) and put in a second hard drive to back up to for time machine.


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## chunkytfg (Feb 1, 2009)

m1pui said:


> I think I did a thread on here about doing the ssd swap. It's a piece of cake and I've not missed my DVD drive at all :thumb:


Got a link for it? Been thinking about doing the same for mine. Having to carry a 1tb external HDD round with me constantly and it's a PITA.

:thumb:


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## m1pui (Jul 24, 2009)

chunkytfg said:


> Got a link for it? Been thinking about doing the same for mine. Having to carry a 1tb external HDD round with me constantly and it's a PITA.
> 
> :thumb:


http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=276145

Think all the photo's should still work


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## Rob_Quads (Jul 17, 2006)

I also find running http://macpaw.com/cleanmymac is helpful in cleaning up any old files that may cause problem. Also good for uninstalling as it removes all the files not just the application


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