Very slow macbook pro

[smr]

Hi all,

I'm looking at fixing a macbook pro for someone at the moment. It is very slow. 99 percent of the time I fix windows computers so I'm not as confident with macs, but fairly adept.

Things I have tried are removing any unneccessary software. I removed chrome and firefox, and noticed that they had malware extensions, well Chrome did.

It's almost the barebones apps installed now, and still really slow. If I try and open Outlook it takes about 10-15 seconds with the icon bouncing before it does.

I've reset the pram and that other option, I forget what its called now. Ran ccleaner, malwarebyes, and now onyx, it's still dead slow, the hdd is half full so plenty of free space left. Also ran first aid on the disk.

Running out of ideas as to why its still slow. It's a 2012 i5 4gb macbook pro, running mojave.

It is quicker than what it was before I started working on it but it's still not very responsive.

Would appreciate any help.

 

[smr]

Could just be the hard drive - my fathers MBP also suffers with the same issue; really slow after last few updates. Have put an SSD in which has helped a fair little, but think combination of Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM makes it sluggish when a few programs + tabs open.

Have you tried a full virus scan?

Thanks. Yeah I am wondering if it's just the HDD being old. Which program would I do a full virus scan with?

 

[smr]

Any of the main free ones; Avast, AVG - which ever your prefer to use

Ok thanks I'll give AVG a go.

 

[smr]

are there any hdd apps like crystal disk for mac?

 

[smr]

Thanks for the advice. I've decided to back up the data via time machine onto an external drive and wipe the hard drive, install mojave again and see if it's any quicker. I've got a feeling there have just been so many crap programs added over time that remnants of them remain and are slowing things down, so many processes running in activity monitor.

So yesterday, after a setting I probably changed, I had to wait for the main drive in the laptop to be deencrypted, which took about 8 hours. Finally deencrypted meaning time machine could back up the data onto the external drive, and I must have not unticked 'Encrypt drive' as now, even though the back up is complete, the external drive is encrypting - and I imagine that will take another 8 hours!

So the question is, can I just eject the drive whilst it's at 2 percent encrypting, wipe the mac, install the OS, then use time machine to restore the data from the backup? ie. would the data be intact still if I quit the drive encryption process.

Or shall I eject the backup drive, format it, and run time machine again but without encryption enabled, as that'll be quicker I reckon than waiting for the drive to encrypt! What a faff...

 

[smr]

Well I left the macbook encrypting the backup drive since yesterday morning, and it's at 25 percent, its been on since then. This is why I hate macs. I don't think I even ticked encrypt drive thinking about it now, it just decided it would.

 

[smr]

Argh... so I need to get this macbook repaired SOMETIME this week, thanks apple.

So I had to cancel the encryption, it would have taken another 3/4 days. I took the external drive out, formatted it, and ran the backup again, making sure that file vault is not on, and having seen for myself that the main c drive went through dencryption a few days ago. So fwiw I am sure the main drive is deencrypted, in any case the file vault etc. is turned off. Yet when I plug the formatted external drive in, and make sure encrypt backup is off, it then says just before copying the files Time Machine is 'backing up an encrypted disk to an unencrypted disk' so I know that when it finishes backing up, it'll go back to encrypting the drive which would take about a ******** week!

So annoying. I think I am just going to do a manual back up of the photos and documents, and then install mac OS again.

**** apple.

 

[smr]

I don't understand, you formatted the drive and you're backing up to Time Machine? That doesn't make sense. Did you reinstall the OS from media/online recovery?

Do you have a Time Machine backup of it? Is that backup encrypted or not?

If you have a working backup on Time Machine, throw the drive in the bin and get a cheap SSD, restore to SSD, done.

I needed to back up time machine to an external drive, but after it copied the files it started encrypting the backup drive, which started yesterday morning and this morning was only 25 percent done. It was taking too long.

So I then ejected the backup drive, formatted it, and set about backing up via time machine again, this time making sure not to have the 'encrypt backup disk' option enabled. But alas, before copying the backup it said "Time machine is backing up an encrypted drive to an unencrypted drive" so the whole saga would have began again.

She doesn't want to spend much money repairing it so I am trying this option first before going potentially for an SSD.

So I am now having to do a manual backup, drag and drop onto the external drive. I'll have to copy the photos if I can find where they are, documents and downloads, then install the OS from scratch.

 

[smr]

FileVault is turned on, so that warning is normal. It's just saying you have an encrypted disk and it's backup up to something which is not encrypted. It won't encrypt the backup drive if that check box is not checked.

You're making thsi hard on yourself by doing it manually.

Ok thanks, I'll give it another go.

 

[smr]

Ok great that worked, back up is complete.

So is it just best to wipe the OS clean, install mojave and then run time machine and restore the data?

 

[smr]

I was hoping I'd be able to erase the disk, and then install mojave, and then select what I want to put back on from the time machine back up? Would I need a bootable USB drive though to install mojave after the disk has been erased?

 

[smr]

Or


I think you might be able to do it from online through the machine (connecting to Apple's servers)

Have a look online

And if I can't... I'll have to make a bootable USB installer first otherwise I won't be able to install anything if I can't download it.

 

[smr]

yep making a bootable usb at the moment.

I know how much SSDs improve speed as I have one and used to use normal sata drives on my windows computer, but the speed i am talking about on this mac is like 30 seconds after entering login password of blank screen before any icons load. constant spinning ball, just incredibly slow. it must be the crap that has been installed overtime, if it isn't then the hard drive is dying mechanically, which I'll be able to conclude once I do a clean install.

 

[smr]

erased the disk and now installing mojave .

 

[smr]

OS back on, everything a million times quicker, programs open in one or two seconds instead of 20-30. So the hard drive was just full of crap software wise.

I guess there's no point in me transferring everything from the time machine back up though, as that may introduce back on what caused the machine to grind in the first place. So I'll put the documents and photos etc. on and then probably just add the apps manually as she needs them.

 

[smr]

Ok well I had the macbook working well for a couple of days, everything was quick enough, not SSD quick obviously but still nice and quick.

Installed Microsoft Office 2016 today, and everything is slow now. Word just took 30 bounces to open, and Safari and Photos take about 10 bounces whereas before Safari and Photos were taking 2 or 3 bounces before opening.

....!?

 

[smr]

I'm sorry I can't help but this just makes me happier in my decision never to install any Microsoft software on my Macs.

Makes me happier having never bought a mac!

I've had to install MSOffice for her though as she uses word and outlook.

 

[smr]

You're blaming macOS for being bad on what sounds like a failing HDD. Throw an SSD in there and it'll fly or even replace the HDD with something newer if budget is a constraint.

Have you ran any kind of tests on it or a Apple hardware test?

The HDD isn't going to be at it's peak performance levels given the age of it, but as I said, for a couple of days after doing a clean install the mac was working fine. Today I made one change since then, installing msoffice 2016. Immediately after installing it, and an update for the program which it insisted upon, and then a reboot, the system went back to pretty much behaving how it was before. Not as bad, but generally slow again, the entire system really.

After the clean install Safari and Photos would open with 2-3 bounces and the entire system was generally quick and not frustrating.

Since the msoffice installation Safari and Photos take about 10 bounces to open.

Word takes about 30-40.

Outlook just took about 60 bounces.

 

[smr]

It might be that data is now being written to bad sectors on the drive or the head can't move fast enough anymore to read them.

What are the CPU activity levels during the 'opening' of apps?

When it's open it's ok, it's just the loading times and opening the apps which takes half a minute initially. I guess some data etc. is cached in the memory as exiting and then re-opening is a bit faster, up to 10 seconds. Once programs are open you can open 3/4 and switch between them with no real frustrating slow downs. It's mainly the opening speed of them all, but Outlook seems to suffer the most, she has loads of inbox folders and thousands of emails stored in them which probably isn't helping.

Think I will just phone her and persuade her an SSD is the way to go, presumably any SSD would be compatible?

Having had a look it's going to be around £60-70 for an SSD and then I've got to factor my time in as well which I would easily have to ask for a good three hours work, so £120, so it's whether she's willing to spend £200. From our initial consultation when I went to pick the computer up she didn't seem to be wanting to spend that much on it, but there's not really much else I can do.

Then again, substantially cheaper than a new macbook pro!

 

[smr]

I don't know why you'd need to rebuild your computer every 6 months?

as for the mac, it was noticeably quicker than before, and i explained to my customer that an ssd would be the way to go, but she didn't really want to spent circa 200 quid or more on it, and I have to be asking for that much for the drive and my labour etc.

but as it is, and like i say, it's a good margin quicker than before. Before I clean installed the OS safari et al were excruciatingly slow, I'm talking 20-30 bounces just for safari, but now that's about 3-5 bounces, then if you close the app and reopen, 1 or 2 bounces.

but mac office 2016 doesn't sit very well on it for some reason, excel, word and outlook take about 10-20 bounces even sometimes, but when they are open, the system experiences no slow downs, or crunching, as it was before.

So the clean install helped, but if it were my mac I'd have stuck and SSD in. Easily the best computer upgrade I ever made was buying an SSD, the difference they make is just phenomenal.