MacBook Pro Sluggish

Not sure about the model, but I fixed my father in law's MBP the other day. HDD was acting up and sometimes working, sometimes not.

Removed the panel at the back and removed the HDD cable , cleaned the pins and reseated it. Fixed the issues. Might be worth a shot.
 
CPTBoy said:
Not sure about the model, but I fixed my father in law's MBP the other day. HDD was acting up and sometimes working, sometimes not.

Removed the panel at the back and removed the HDD cable , cleaned the pins and reseated it. Fixed the issues. Might be worth a shot.
Click to expand...

Did this last night too - thought it improved (booted up quicker), but then reverted back to its slow state.
 
lsheed_cn said:
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.
Click to expand...

While doing this check the battery for swelling.
I inherited a macbook pro, dead battery due to being off for over a year, slow as all hell till I removed the battery...
 
You can use a large flash drive as well, obviously can't clone the whole drive to it but you could install a fresh copy of OSX if you still have the downloaded installer.
 
lsheed_cn said:
Also - having 10G of ram is fine, the poster claiming 4g/8g etc is talking out of his ass.
Click to expand...

Technically it will be ever so slightly slower as you can't use all of it in dual channel mode (or possibly even none of it due to the mismatch).

Whether that makes an actual real world difference and doesn't just amount to a paper value is a whole different conversation.
 
SauRoNZA said:
You can use a large flash drive as well, obviously can't clone the whole drive to it but you could install a fresh copy of OSX if you still have the downloaded installer.
Click to expand...

I have the installer on the flash (a 16GB one). Can I install onto from the USB onto the USB?
 
Replace it with a normal drive for now, and then some time replace the Super Drive with a SSD.
 
$m@Rt@$$ said:
Replace it with a normal drive for now, and then some time replace the Super Drive with a SSD.
Click to expand...

I'm happy to fork the 1.5k out for an SSD - but only if it is the issue. Basically, I want a big red sign over the MacBook saying: "Replace your HDD - its broken!" :p
 
Sysem said:
I have the installer on the flash (a 16GB one). Can I install onto from the USB onto the USB?
Click to expand...

Should be able to just copy it on your machine and then run it from there to install to USB.

Sadly I no longer have a Mac so I go on most of this stuff with six month old memories. Sniff sniff.
 
Sysem said:
I'm happy to fork the 1.5k out for an SSD - but only if it is the issue. Basically, I want a big red sign over the MacBook saying: "Replace your HDD - its broken!" :p
Click to expand...

I think the sign is big enough, but I understand you want confirmation which you'll need to test first.

Where are you based?
 
Sysem said:
I'm happy to fork the 1.5k out for an SSD - but only if it is the issue. Basically, I want a big red sign over the MacBook saying: "Replace your HDD - its broken!" :p
Click to expand...

Never a waste - get the SSD, if there is nothing wrong with the old drive use it as a backup drive.

That SSD ain't never going to be wasted
 
SauRoNZA said:
Should be able to just copy it on your machine and then run it from there to install to USB.

Sadly I no longer have a Mac so I go on most of this stuff with six month old memories. Sniff sniff.
Click to expand...

I've partitioned the USB so I'm going to see if that works

SauRoNZA said:
I think the sign is big enough, but I understand you want confirmation which you'll need to test first.

Where are you based?
Click to expand...

In Cape Town. I'm going to iStore after work and will check if they can do a test using a HDD. If not, I'll take the plunge and order an SSD tonight.
 
AfricanTech said:
Never a waste - get the SSD, if there is nothing wrong with the old drive use it as a backup drive.

That SSD ain't never going to be wasted
Click to expand...

Oh true - its budget that I'm worried about ;)
 
SauRoNZA said:
Technically it will be ever so slightly slower as you can't use all of it in dual channel mode (or possibly even none of it due to the mismatch).

Whether that makes an actual real world difference and doesn't just amount to a paper value is a whole different conversation.
Click to expand...


In reality you won't though, OS X is memory constrained unless you have 16G or more, as you have more ram for swap on 10G than 8G, the improvement is far better than any spurious speed differences from dual channel / single channel throughput.

Speed difference is in the 3- 5%* range, but having more ram is usually in the 10-20%* and up range depending how little or how much you have.

*% increases pulled out of my ass, but I'm guesstimating somewhere around that.


So yes, we're both technically correct, but my answer is the correct one ;)
 
Last edited:
Sysem said:
I'm happy to fork the 1.5k out for an SSD - but only if it is the issue. Basically, I want a big red sign over the MacBook saying: "Replace your HDD - its broken!" :p
Click to expand...
Then wait until it packs up
 
lsheed_cn said:
In reality you won't though, OS X is memory constrained unless you have 16G or more, as you have more ram for swap on 10G than 8G, the improvement is far better than any spurious speed differences from dual channel / single channel throughput.

Speed difference is in the 3- 5%* range, but having more ram is usually in the 10-20%* and up range depending how little or how much you have.

*% increases pulled out of my ass, but I'm guesstimating somewhere around that.


So yes, we're both technically correct, but my answer is the correct one ;)
Click to expand...

Completely agree.

I was almost sure I had state the additional memory will probably outweigh the dual channel benefit, but apparently that was all in my head.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X