af773atmsp From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 2587 posts, RR: 2 Posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1190 times:
I've had my Mac OSX for only about three years but its already starting to slow down. Safari and Firefox are slow and sometimes the website won't load, on YouTube it takes five minutes to load a 30 second video, Google Earth doesn't respond sometimes so I have to force quit, and the Time Machine isn't working. I deleted a lot of files and I'm starting to move albums off the computer and onto CDs, but the computer is still being slow. Is my computer just already old, or is it something else? I'm not a computer expert, so don't be surprised if I don't understand something.
na From Germany, joined Dec 1999, 9707 posts, RR: 10 Reply 1, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1171 times:
The things you describe are all internet-related, so it mustnt be the Computer thats the problem. I have two Macs, and the older one, an Imac which is 6 years old, is still being used 6 days a week without ever having had a problem. That it feels a bit slower than 5 years ago is mostly due to the fact that there are 10 times more files on it and more software.
Flighty From United States of America, joined Apr 2007, 7506 posts, RR: 2 Reply 2, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1165 times:
Open the Activity Monitor and keep an eye on it. You will see what is taking up your RAM memory. If you have under 100MB available, your computer will bog down. It's that simple. After surfing the internet for a while, web browsers will fill up your memory. Close the browser and start again. That is probably it...
Otherwise, you can buy more ram. I suggest this site that lists prices from a lot of vendors. www.ramseeker.com
PITingres From United States of America, joined Dec 2007, 966 posts, RR: 12 Reply 3, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1159 times:
I'd agree that this sounds more like an Internet connection problem than anything else, but to make sure, you can run the Activity Monitor found in Applications / Utilities. Ideally you would have done this on a normally running machine to see what "normal" looks like, but it's probably too late for that. You can guess at most of it and google for anything that looks suspicious, or is eating up a lot of CPU time.
If you are connected to the Net with a separate router/firewall box, that could be a suspect. I had to replace a router that got weird after 3-4 years and started dropping connections, hanging, and generally misbehaving. Most modern router / firewall boxes have some sort of maintenance or logging page that will show you an error or problem log.
af773atmsp From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 2587 posts, RR: 2 Reply 4, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1145 times:
Ken777 From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 7526 posts, RR: 5 Reply 5, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1128 times:
Closing the browser is pretty simple, while you are in Safari simply use Command + Q
Before you do, however, it might be wise to click on the Safari menu on the top bar and then Empty Cache.
I'll assume that Firefox works the same.
Other recommendations
1. only use one of the two apps at the same time.
2. with the apps closed go to Disk Utilities (under Applications -> Utilities). Select the Macintosh HD disk and then Select the Repair Disk Permissions option. This cleans up broken links, etc.
3. Then restart the Mac. OS X does a bit of housecleaning when it starts up.
af773atmsp From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 2587 posts, RR: 2 Reply 6, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1094 times:
Websites are loading much quicker. I checked the Activity Monitor and it went from under 100 MB to over 900 MB! The time it takes to load a YouTube video hasn't improved though, maybe its just a problem with YouTube?
AeroWesty From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 19259 posts, RR: 63 Reply 7, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1092 times:
n229nw From United States of America, joined Sep 2004, 1854 posts, RR: 35 Reply 9, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1076 times:
af773atmsp From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 2587 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1069 times:
AeroWesty From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 19259 posts, RR: 63 Reply 11, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 14 hours ago) and read 1066 times:
First, Time Machine won't run until you designate a backup media to send data to, so I wouldn't call Time Machine never having run a problem (just for clarification to get that symptom out of the way).
To repair permissions: Open «Disk Utility» in the Utilities folder, select your HD in the list that appears in the left, and «Repair Disk Permissions» from the First Aid menu on screen. Actually, I'd do the verify first, if you've never run it.
General rule of thumb is to verify permissions after any substantial software install, like upgrading the OS thru Software Update.
ajd1992 From UK - England, joined Jul 2006, 2645 posts, RR: 6 Reply 12, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 1033 times:
Also, worst comes to worst, (and don't tell me this isn't the case, I had a mac at one stage too, and it isn't perfect...) you could just back all your stuff on to CD or external hard disc, and completely wipe/reinstall with the discs that came with the laptop.
Sometimes it's just a general build up of e-crap that slows you down. I format and reinstall windows every 3 months or so just because I like a computer to be as fast as it can be (who doesn't?)/
MD-90 From United States of America, joined Jan 2000, 8422 posts, RR: 13 Reply 13, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 1025 times:
Quoting ajd1992 (Reply 12): Sometimes it's just a general build up of e-crap that slows you down. I format and reinstall windows every 3 months or so just because I like a computer to be as fast as it can be (who doesn't?)/
Every three months?! I do it about every 2-3 years.
ajd1992 From UK - England, joined Jul 2006, 2645 posts, RR: 6 Reply 14, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 11 hours ago) and read 1022 times:
Quoting MD-90 (Reply 13): Every three months?! I do it about every 2-3 years.
What can I say, I'm very anal about it
I don't have a very powerful laptop (1.8GHz, Dual Core Dell Inspiron, 4GB RAM) so any crap slows it down quite a bit. Even going from Windows 7 Home Premium to Ultimate slowed it down a fair bit.
Either way, if you haven't done it yet, I'd recommend it after 3 years. You'll be surprised how much quicker it is.
Klaus From Germany, joined Jul 2001, 20901 posts, RR: 55 Reply 15, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 988 times:
Quoting af773atmsp (Thread starter): I've had my Mac OSX for only about three years but its already starting to slow down. Safari and Firefox are slow and sometimes the website won't load, on YouTube it takes five minutes to load a 30 second video, Google Earth doesn't respond sometimes so I have to force quit,
All that does indeed strongly suggest that you simply got internet connection problems.
And have you plugged an Ethernet networking cable into it or are you using a wireless network? In the latter case the frequencies around your house might just be congested or there might be other interference. The speed test above should give you a hint.
The amount of free RAM is actually not very relevant most of the time, since Mac OS X uses available RAM to cache files from the harddisk, so it will always fill up over time but with normal use there is not much of a slowdown because of that as long as you have a decent amount of RAM installed relative to your regular usage.
If you're worrying about that, call up Activity Monitor, select the System Memory tab at the bottom and check out the Page outs item. If it doesn't change (much) during normal use, too little RAM is not your problem. (Page ins is not a problem either – just don't worry about it.)
What does it say there?
Is it ON?
Is a backup drive selected?
Does it say when the last backup was and when the next one is scheduled?
Quoting af773atmsp (Thread starter): I deleted a lot of files and I'm starting to move albums off the computer and onto CDs, but the computer is still being slow.
Fortunately that is not really related.
As your disk is filling up, you'l find that it gets somewhat slower particularly when writing new files or accessing files that have been added later.
That is normal for a mechanical harddisk since it starts at the fastest tracks on the outer rim and fills up towards the slower inner tracks. A solid state disk (SSD) will generally stay equally fast (there are some qualifications to that, but these depend on the manufacturer and model, among other things).
When you have enabled Spotlight, it will also index new or changed files in the background. That can sometimes lead to frantic activity in the background, particularly after being enabled initially. Harddisk response may appear slower than normal in that case as well. But normally you won't even notice it indexing the few changes going on during normal use.
Your slowdowns don't seem to be related to the harddisk as it appears, so this is just contextual information.
caliatenza From United States of America, joined Dec 2006, 1149 posts, RR: 0 Reply 16, posted (2 years 3 months 3 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 932 times:
My 2007 MacBook pro's Nvidia video card finally failed yesterday . I hope getting a repair out here in India won't be too much of a hastle. Damn you Nvidia lol
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From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 2587 posts, 
From Germany, joined Dec 1999, 9707 posts, 
You can guess at most of it and google for anything that looks suspicious, or is eating up a lot of CPU time.
From UK - England, joined Jul 2006, 2645 posts, 
. I hope getting a repair out here in India won't be too much of a hastle. Damn you Nvidia lol
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