[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Question for Mac guys (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 4/5/2008 12:03:15 AM EDT
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I've been having a bit of a problem with my MBP lately. It's the 2.4 GHz MBP running Leopard with 2gb ram. I have had it since September and have had zero problems. For the past week, however, it has been running slowly. As I type, the letters show up about 1 second to a few seconds after I've actually struck the key. And scrolling up and down is slow and choppy. I went into Activity Monitor and nothing is draining memory and the CPU is running at about 90% idle processes. I even downloaded a trial version of MacScan and all it found were a few tracking cookies. I thought it might be getting hot, but it's been operating at normal temps. I shut it down before I went to bed last night and it was going slow upon startup. Oddly, when I am running songs in iTunes, it smooths out most of the time. I honestly have no idea what is going on. There is only one volume as I repartitioned back to just Mac OS yesterday in an attempt to push things back to bare bones (no apps were installed in XP). I have XP Pro to put on 32 gb whenever this problem is resolved. Any ideas would be extremely helpful. |
I'd try and help you out (I'm a computer guy), but 95% of the world uses PC's, and unfortunately - that's where I spend all of my time. I'm clueless in front of a Mac. Sorry, bro.  Hopefully, somebody who knows Macs intimately (preferably a professional) will be able to answer your question. 
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OK, this is strange. As I am typing this in firefox, it is going slowly like I said before. At the same time, I have a TextEdit window open and am typing smoothly and up to normal speed in it. If I try to write in iChat, it is also going slowly. I have the last episode of Jericho running on iTunes and it is running perfectly fine. I opened and started running iTunes before I started the previous sentence and now that the show is on and running, all typing in Firefox and iChat is normal speed. Nothing else appears to be affected. Running any application I have is normal. I can run through files in Finder at normal speed and the preview images are loading quickly like normal. How could this be hardware if running different software is altering the speed of typing in Firefox and iChat? I just quit iTunes and the slow typing is back in Firefox immediately. Same with iChat. Pages is also typing slowly. But TextEdit is still normal speed. |
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Look for a freeware program called SMARTReporter You can run it and it will tell you if you have a possible hard drive failure issue. I'm sure you run Disk Utility.app and repair permissions. (you should have this on your mac from the factory) I also run OnyX.app, Cache Out X.app and MacJanitor periodically. All these apps are free. I'm still on 10.4 OS How full is your hard drive? Mac OS needs some space to run efficiently Some more hints: http://www.kenrickparish.com/jgeerling/articles/computing/mac-slow.html |
| Thanks, I ran a few of those programs and no problems have been found. The problem is not that the mac is running slowly--it is actually running extremely smoothly and fast. It is just the typing and sometimes scrolling up and down. On my old Dell, if my typing was going this slowly, I would be having other problems and it was almost always due to a program using too much memory or the CPU being devoted to running a couple of processes. I have 130 GB free on the HD, CPU at 90% idle, and 1.1 GB of 2 GB total ram free right now and it's typing slowly. |
| It's not showing an excess in mem usage though. And if I shut it down and run Safari it does the same thing. If both Safari and Firefox are shut down, it still types slowly in iChat or Pages. Add to that I have run Firefox on this machine since September and have had zero issues until this week. I've tried updating everything and I am completely updated with no change. |
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One of the OS install discs that came with your MBP should be "Apple Hardware Test" … Disconnect all peripherals (printer, external mouse/keyboard etc...), reboot with that in the optical drive, hold the "D" key as it boots up to select the Optical disk to boot from … run the diagnostic tests. This is a detailed diagnostic of everything and in some cases can take a real long time (seriously, like a couple of hours). BUT it will check your RAM, HD, motherboard and everything to see if there are any issues. Is the "Slow Typing" issue occuring in every application or just Firefox? If it's just Firefox, it might be worth it to just wipe and reinstall FF … I've used Firefox exclusively for a couple of years now, and have occassionally run into performance issues that have been fixed with a reinstall. |
Defragging the hard drive is pretty much unnecesary under recent versions of Mac OS X, if you're still running older versions of the OS (9 or earlier) then yes, go ahead and do it. This advice is directly from an Apple tech as the OS manages and organizes the files on disc much more efficiently than on earlier versions of the OS. I work with huge graphic files on a regular basis (1-2GB Photoshop files are not unusual for me) and have never done a defrag. I periodically run Repair Disk Permissions with Disk Utility, and about once a year (whether it needs it or not) do a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS with a low level format of the harddrive (obviously back everything up first) |
It sounds like a low-level software problem, ie., something wrong with part of the OS or something interfering with it. |
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Try running all of the above mentioned applications, but use Safari instead of FireFox. FF on my PC causes all sorts of weird issues. For that reason I don't use it on my macbook. My best friend has a MBP. IIRC, he had similar issues and it was related to the computer getting to hot. He downloaded a program that allowed him to tap into the fan control module. He sped up the fan speed and had it come on more often. That solved the problem. |
FAIL hardware failure wont make a box run slow, heat maybe its a mac. copy what documents and music you want to keep the reinstall. simple as that its not a hard process just pop the disk in and watch it, drink a beer then it'll be done. put your documents back where you want them and your good to go |
I posted that two posts above your last one. 
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lol, thanks. I have two laptops in my lap so I'm not paying the closest attention in the world. |
No worries.
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Yep, MacJanitor and Disk Utility clear up my speed problems... though it doesn't seem like this is gonna work for 103. I might suggest hitting your local Apple Store and seeing what they make of it. It's strange to be sure. Mebbe clear your caches in all web browsers too. |
I honestly think it is a FireFox problem or an overheating issue. Firefox has a lot of holes in it. It causes weird issues all the time. |
| Download a program called maintenance I think the newest version is 3.8 its freeware, it does permissions repair and quite a few other things when you run it just check all the options in the window that pops up, let it run and restart when its done. www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/30792&vid=316679&mode=feedback |
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That's unpossible. You have a Mac! Mac systems do not fail! Only weak Microsoft based computers are vulnerable to any sort of problem! I'm not familiar with a Mac, can you check to see where your CPU cycles are being used? Might be something in the background taking all your resources, and lagging the rest of your processes. |
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open the keyboard and mouse control panels and change some setting and then change them back, then maybe try restarting again. my scroll wheel gets jeky in safari and the above fixes it. Your problem does sound unusual, maybe some preferences somewhere are corrupt. |
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Mac not working? Simple solution. Update. And by 'update' I mean throw your old Mac away and get a new one. It's the Apple way. If that isn't your cup of tea, I would strongly suspect that it is not a heat or hardware failure. It is too inconsistent as to which programs are effected. It is almost certainly a low level OS issue and the slow keys are a symptom of that problem. The best advice so far is to backup whatever is important to you and reinstall the OS. Unless you are comfortable in terminal and very lucky I doubt OSX is going to give you the opportunity to fix something like this. If after a reinstall you still have problems then I would suspect a bad keyboard or USB controller before heat. No matter what anyone says, OSX is a big complex program like any other OS. It can, and does break. -Local Edit- Noticed the reply from the OP who seemed to fix the problem by upping the fans. I guess it was heat. Fucking OSX. |
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Or downgrade if your machine will let you. There have been many issues with 10.5 as well as safari 3.1. I only reluctantly moved to 10.4 cause I had to. 10.3.9 was fine. 10.5 is still a young os.
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It's currently 80% of new purchases in the US and dropping. Link |
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Call Apple. They are consistently rated #1 or #2 for customer satisfaction for a reason. If they can't fix it over the phone, they'll do it immediately via overnight mail. A few years ago I had a problem with my Mac that couldn't be problem-solved over the phone. They sent me a box and i mailed the computer. Sent it out Wed, got it back Fri. Overnight both ways. Fixed. |
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Posted this in MacForums, but I thought I'd do it here too. Maybe one of you can help me. Issues with installing XP: Alright, when I upgraded to Leopard I used Bootcamp to install XP. My old copy of XP Pro SP2 was damaged, so I borrowed a friend's before looking for my backup burn buried deep in some cd bundle. It was XP Media Center Edition and it requires activation. Like I said, I only installed it to see how smoothly it would run, etc. A few days ago I finally got around to installing my own copy, so I repartitioned back to just the Mac volume and then created a new 32 GB Windows partition. Still the copy of XP Pro SP2 I have is corrupted somehow and it would not load. So a friend lent me a non-activating copy of XP Pro Corporate and I would upgrade it with a valid key to SP2. (I actually bought a few volume copies of this stuff a long time ago and still have some valid keys.) I formated the 32 GB NTFS and installed Windows. I went to install SP2 and keep getting an insufficient memory warning using the update installer straight from Microsoft. After this failed and failed, I broke out a good backup burn of XP Pro SP2 from college (for some reason BootCamp wouldn't see this as a bootable copy of Windows, hence why it was not used to do this install) and used it to upgrade to its version of Pro SP2. It copied all of the setup files and restarted to start the install proper. However, on each attempt, Windows freezes at the shut down screen. When I manually shut it down and restart it, I select the XP setup option and it begins to load Windows. Just as it is getting past the XP logo'd loading screen, I get a blue screen. I have no idea why because I know this copy is good. Further, when I checked the Windows volume, it says that 24 GB are in use. This just makes no sense. Including hidden folders, I cannot account for more than 5 GB of used memory. What in the world is going on here? I had no problems installing XP the first time and if I can't upgrade to SP2, I can't run the Leopard driver install. |
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First off, I can't tell you more vehemently, DO NOT USE BOOTCAMP!! Bootcamp lets you use a MS OS on your mac. Fine. However, it installs XP as a application on the hard drive. If, while using XP you get a virus or get spyware, your entire mac is now vulnerable. When XP crashes, your entire mac will crash just like a PC. EPIC FAIL. Get Parallels and install XP as a virtual OS. That way if you get a virus or suffer a catastrophic OS failure, it effects XP only, an not the rest of the mac. Bootcamp in NOT the answers. Parallels is much better. I have heard there are a few other mac applications that will do the same thing as parallels. |
| Wait. BootCamp creates a totally separate partition formatted FAT32 or NTFS. According to the people on MacForum, it is the most reliable way to run Windows. I know for sure that running parallels will not be sufficient to run the programs in Windows I am going to run. Like I said, I ran XP on its own partition before and had no issues. A friend of mine has been running Vista using Bootcamp on his MBP since Vista came out and has had zero problems. |
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It may create a partition, but it does not protect your hard drive from being infected with a virus. Parallels creates a virtual hard drive on your desktop. Windows will run independently of the apple OS (on the virtual HD). If windows gets infected or crashes, it affects WINDOW's only. Simply reboot or reinstall. It will not affect other applications or programs on the computer. With bootcamp, a windows virus will infect the hard drive containing the application, and thereby the hard drive itself, including all of the other programs and applications. Bootcamp is NOT the way to go. It was the solution prior to Parallels. Post parallels, it is a path to trouble. |
I wish I could explain it, but I can't. I really don't know the specifics. I do know that in my recent purchase of 2 macbooks (for business) ALL of the people in the mac store (customers too) told me to NOT use bootcamp for the reasons I described. Apple customer service told me the same thing on many occasions. Wish I could explain it better. I am not a tech guy. 
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Open a terminal window and type "top". That will give you a list of the processes using the most CPU, and a profile of the memory. It's certainly possible that you've got some sort of hardware fault, though. If top shows no heavy CPU use I'd start looking at hardware. skeg:mcgredo$ top Processes: 57 total, 2 running, 55 sleeping... 180 threads 18:21:48 Load Avg: 0.88, 1.23, 1.10 CPU usage: 16.2% user, 10.8% sys, 73.0% idle SharedLibs: num = 191, resident = 25.5M code, 2.72M data, 3.94M LinkEdit MemRegions: num = 9757, resident = 256M + 4.19M private, 88.7M shared PhysMem: 72.2M wired, 267M active, 148M inactive, 488M used, 23.4M free VM: 4.28G + 140M 421322(1) pageins, 439394(0) pageouts PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VSIZE 7694 mdimport 0.0% 0:00.26 3 60 47 932K 2.05M 2.57M 39.0M 7689 top 9.0% 0:05.62 1 19 22 512K 336K 2.34M 27.0M 5554 Safari 4.9% 6:10:52 11 313 4103 220M 61.0M 185M 748M ... |