MAC Book Pro gradually slowing

[Buz]

I have a MacBook Pro that had a replacement hard drive about 13 months ago.
It is getting progressively slower with the spinning wheel appearing more often, especially since upgrading to OSX 10.9.1
I have loaded a couple of software packages i've acquired as they say!! (Aperture, lightroom etc)

What is the best way forward?
Is there an option to go back to a previous build like you can in windows?
How easy is it to wipe the MacBook back to factory default.
If i wipe it then restore my latest time machine back up will it just load everything as it is now and i'm no more forward?

Is there any decent software i can run to check for errors etc

Any advice greatly received as i'm a bit of a numpty when it comes to Apple OS

 

[ianf]

Is the disk nearly full? It'll slow down a bit if it gets close to that.

Are you stopping unused applications, or just closing all the windows? The processes are still there if the dock icons are lit. Right click and quit them to free up memory.

How much memory does it have? You'd be best setup to have 8+ gb for big photo library work.

 

[Buz]

Hard drive is 500GB with 280GB of free space
I close all applications except Mail and Safari (but can have quite a few tabs open within Safari, 12 at the moment but none with auto update/refresh)
Photo's take up about 35GB

 

[cookie]

Open Activity Monitor and see if something is hogging the CPU.

 

[Buz]

Don't think there is anything?
Theres lots more lines below these but all showing about 1MB

 

[GrinningGSer]

You could also use the onboard disk checking utility: Launchpad Other Disk utilities and choose verify disk or check disk permissions and fix. That shouldn't do any harm.
I'd be very suspicious of any rogue applications: look at your activity monitor.
I think that OSX does its own defragmenting, but I could be talking bollocks
EDIT: seeing your post above 'Pete', your first four are massively greater than my MPB . My launched is 107MB kernel_task is 61MB safari is 40MB and everything else is in single figures or KB, so your machine does seem to be busy.

 

[cookie]

What's it like under the CPU tab on activity monitor?

 

[Buz]

Carried out Disk permissions and verify. Corrected any issues found and Activity Monitor is looking better

 

[GrinningGSer]

That is a HUGE improvement

 

[ymfb]

How do you open the activity monitor ?

 

[cookie]

Press command + space then type activity into the spotlight box that pops up in top right corner. Left click activity monitor on list.

 

[cookie]

Press command + space then type activity into the spotlight box that pops up in top right corner. Left click activity monitor on list.

Btw that's a quick way to launch any app that's not in the dock. Much better IMO than searching through the applications folder.

 

[ymfb]

Thanks for that. My largest activity is pri_vm_app which is using 12% of my CPU. Everything else is minuscule in comparison. What is it and can it be reduced ?

 

[Buz]

Thanks for that. My largest activity is pri_vm_app which is using 12% of my CPU. Everything else is minuscule in comparison. What is it and can it be reduced ?

Are you running windows on the MAC Book? Ive just checked on google and it seems that is associated with running windows?

 

[ianf]

Did you reboot between the two disk view cut and pastes? They are cumulative counters, and will be reset on a reboot.

The io that the kernel_task has done could well be paging. 10.9 tries to compress pages that have not been used recently, and signals modern applications to try and release cached stuff they can re-fetch, but eventually might need to page stuff out if demand is really high.

When it slows again, cut the memory view into here, including the summary at the bottom that shows the 'pressure'.

Prl_vm_app is the process hosting your windows VM. Normal to not be completely idle, cos it's windows.

 

[Buz]

Did you reboot between the two disk view cut and pastes? They are cumulative counters, and will be reset on a reboot.

The io that the kernel_task has done could well be paging. 10.9 tries to compress pages that have not been used recently, and signals modern applications to try and release cached stuff they can re-fetch, but eventually might need to page stuff out if demand is really high.

When it slows again, cut the memory view into here, including the summary at the bottom that shows the 'pressure'.

Prl_vm_app is the process hosting your windows VM. Normal to not be completely idle, cos it's windows.

Cheers ianf, i'll keep an eye on it

 

[shay]

You can reset pram and smc on your mac.. you may have to reset clock and other stuff in settings but it can clear up glitches,

instructions here:

http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2010/12/04/how-when-why-to-reset-the-pram-smc-on-your-mac/

Macaroni is now free and automatically repairs permissions, it isn't being updated so may not work with mavericks:

http://www.atomicbird.com/about/mac-apps

I use smart reporter to keep an eye on my hard drives, it will email you when the drive starts to show errors, link to free version:

http://www.corecode.at/smartreporter_lite/index.html

all above at your own risk, ymmv

 

[ymfb]

Are you running windows on the MAC Book? Ive just checked on google and it seems that is associated with running windows?

Yes, although now I have AutoCAD for Mac, Windows should be history by next week.

 

[beatmeier]

There is a few questions i want you to ask first before I will try to sort your issue. First of all are there any other devices connected to the Mac? The next one is, do you have a slow reaction time when you do a search with spotlight ?the third one is do you experience issues in your Browser(Safari) in particular opening Video content like tube,vimeo ? and last are there updates available in the AppStore ?

your Activity Monitor shows absolute normal values and just in case you're still hoping to go to previous versions of Software, ditch the idea please. Also there is no need to run third party products to test the mac, all they can do is what the mac can do on its own without help from outside.

Verifying and repairing the Diskpermissions was a very good thing to do, but might not have solved all the problems.


Steps ....
As it was Mentioned and you might have done it already is reset SMC ....The SystemManagement Controller is a *Fuseboard* and decides what component gets what power when.Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

2.
reset the pram. because you had a HD replacement after the update the MacBook might be confused with what components are built in. Same again no other devices connected and go as follows
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.

3. if when searching spotlight is slow old files might have issues to find their Applikation because since the update they have changed. To rearrange the Finder do this please From the Apple () menu, choose System Preferences.
Click Spotlight.
Click the Privacy tab.
Drag a folder or an entire volume (your hard drive) to the list.
If prompted for confirmation, click OK.
Remove the item or volume you just added to the list by clicking it and then clicking the minus ("-") button.
Close Spotlight preferences.Spotlight will re-index the contents of the folder or volume.

4. For Slow Video content in the bowser the best thing to do is to empty the Caches. After a update the might get stuck in a loop. When you open the Finder and look at the Menubar on top you see GO click on Go and then press the ALT ⌥ key you will see the Libray appear in the List ....click on it and search for the Folder.......Caches ......drag and drop the complete Folder onto the desktop and restart the computer afterwards.


After you have done all this I'm very confident things will be fine. If not let me know cheers ......i will go for a spin now

References
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2409