MacBook Pro Sluggish

Sysem · Sep 2, 2015

I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro that's acting up quite badly. It has 10gb RAM, and (after a a couple of unsuccessful attempts) a fresh install yet it still seems to struggle. Switching between chrome tabs can take up to a minute. Switching between apps the same. Booting can take between 5 and 15min.

It seems it could be a failing hard drive, and a SMART test done by an app says the drive is failing (315 errors), yet another tool (smartctrl - cmd line tool) reports the same amount, 315, yet says it PASSED? I'm not clued up on the SMART tests, so I'm not sure if 315 is ok or bad...

Any advice?

stricken · Sep 2, 2015

ram should ideally be either 4 / 8 or 16 gigs ... 315 is quite bad... get an SSD installed.

Sysem · Sep 2, 2015

stricken said:
ram should ideally be either 4 / 8 or 16 gigs ... 315 is quite bad... get an SSD installed.

I upgraded my 2x 2gb sticks to 1x 8gb stick and was told here leaving the 2gb would be fine. I haven't had issues in the 3 or 4 months with that setup either, so shouldn't be that.

I was thinking 315 is high, but I don't want to fork out 1.5k for an SSD only to find out it's not the HDD causing the issues. Hopefully the iStore can tell me what's wrong...

bwana · Sep 2, 2015

Have you run the Hardware test? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

Sysem · Sep 2, 2015

bwana said:
Have you run the Hardware test? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201257

I did the normal test and it said there were no issues. Running an extended test to see if that yields a different result

Viva · Sep 2, 2015

In my experience, sluggishness more often than not results from a CPU that is preoccupied. What does the system monitor show the CPU is doing when this occurs?

PostmanPot · Sep 3, 2015

Sysem said:
I have a mid 2012 MacBook Pro that's acting up quite badly. It has 10gb RAM, and (after a a couple of unsuccessful attempts) a fresh install yet it still seems to struggle. Switching between chrome tabs can take up to a minute. Switching between apps the same. Booting can take between 5 and 15min.

It seems it could be a failing hard drive, and a SMART test done by an app says the drive is failing (315 errors), yet another tool (smartctrl - cmd line tool) reports the same amount, 315, yet says it PASSED? I'm not clued up on the SMART tests, so I'm not sure if 315 is ok or bad...

Any advice?

Test the drive with Hard Disk Sentinel.

itareanlnotani · Sep 3, 2015

If the hard drive says errors, its the hard drive. Not really a hard issue to diagnose.
Cheapest reasonable sized ssd is 900 odd - http://www.takealot.com/ocz-trion-100-series-120gb-ssd/PLID38668921

Replace it yourself, its easy enough to do.
Make sure you've done a backup so you don't lose data. Now may be a little late for that though.

Also - having 10G of ram is fine, the poster claiming 4g/8g etc is talking out of his ass.

weelzSA · Sep 3, 2015

^ what he said. I've been running 10GB for close to a year now and haven't had a single problem. If you can get an SSD - I know there are many posts about SSD's but it really makes a huge difference with OS X and can't see myself ever going back to normal HDD.

Sysem · Sep 3, 2015

Viva said:
In my experience, sluggishness more often than not results from a CPU that is preoccupied. What does the system monitor show the CPU is doing when this occurs?

I initially thought that too, but this is a fresh install. CPU and memory usage is right at the bottom. I literally have issues opening Finder and bowsing my folders

bwana · Sep 3, 2015

Sysem said:
I initially thought that too, but this is a fresh install. CPU and memory usage is right at the bottom. I literally have issues opening Finder and bowsing my folders

It's bound to be the HDD - you could remove the 2gb RAM stick if you like but even though using mixed RAM does make a difference IRL it's miniscule.

Sysem · Sep 3, 2015

The extended Apple Hardware Test also said no troubles. Will test the drive with Hard Disk Sentinel and see what that reports

$m@Rt@$$ · Sep 3, 2015

To isolate the problem to just the failing drive, try booting from an external drive and see if there is an increase in performance - this will not be as snappy as the internal drive but general usage should be fine. As above, have a look at you Activity Monitor. Look at what is either sapping you CPU or GPU and disk usage.

Sysem · Sep 3, 2015

$m@Rt@$$ said:
To isolate the problem to just the failing drive, try booting from an external drive and see if there is an increase in performance - this will not be as snappy as the internal drive but general usage should be fine. As above, have a look at you Activity Monitor. Look at what is either sapping you CPU or GPU and disk usage.

I've been trying to find a HDD to do this with. I have a 3.5" and 2.5" external, but both have backups on. I'm hoping iFix or the iStore can help with this.

In the Activity Monitor, nothing is out of the ordinary.

Viva · Sep 3, 2015

Sysem said:
I've been trying to find a HDD to do this with. I have a 3.5" and 2.5" external, but both have backups on. I'm hoping iFix or the iStore can help with this.

In the Activity Monitor, nothing is out of the ordinary.

In this case I'll put put my money on it being the HDD. Upgrading to a SSD will give you a nice performance and battery boost.

Sysem · Sep 3, 2015

Viva said:
In this case I'll put put my money on it being the HDD. Upgrading to a SSD will give you a nice performance and battery boost.

That's what I'm thinking. Been meaning to get an SSD, but budget is a little tight this month, so only want to get it if it solves the problem.

AfricanTech · Sep 3, 2015

If budget can't stretch to SSD, get a hybrid

SauRoNZA · Sep 3, 2015

It seems obvious that it's the hard drive...yet you choose to ignore that.

Tried booting from an external instead? Simply do a Disk Utility clone to an External and then use Alt to boot from that drive. If your problems go away...there's your answer.

Then keep booting off that Disk Utility clone and replace the drive...then clone it back to the new one.

****

On a side note, are your fans on all the time?

AfricanTech · Sep 3, 2015

Sysem said:
I've been trying to find a HDD to do this with. I have a 3.5" and 2.5" external, but both have backups on. I'm hoping iFix or the iStore can help with this.

In the Activity Monitor, nothing is out of the ordinary.

Just check that you're not going to be charged for them to test this for you.

Sysem · Sep 3, 2015

SauRoNZA said:
It seems obvious that it's the hard drive...yet you choose to ignore that.

I'm not ignoring it - I'm also certain it is. My issue is that 50% of the tools say its "Failing" and the other 50% say its "Passing". So I'm looking for other symptoms from you guys before I fork out 1.5k on an SSD (I don't want if its NOT the issue... I want to pay the 1.5k on fixing whatever is wrong).

SauRoNZA said:
Tried booting from an external instead? Simply do a Disk Utility clone to an External and then use Alt to boot from that drive. If your problems go away...there's your answer.

Then keep booting off that Disk Utility clone and replace the drive...then clone it back to the new one.

I've already mentioned I don't have an external lying around to boot off - thats what iStore will hopefully help me with.

SauRoNZA said:
On a side note, are your fans on all the time?

Nope - all sounds good.

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