My macbook is five years old and has become slow. often displays the whirling kaleidoscope. can anyone please give me advice on what to do?
My macbook is five years old and has become slow. often displays the whirling kaleidoscope. can anyone please give me advice on what to do?
Quite often the HDD is the source of the problems. Look at this comprehensive guide for possible solutions:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
Ciao.
Similar Messages
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I have just bought a mac book air and set up the email account but it doesnt show my email sub folders and i cant find out how to do it can anyone please offer any advice.
Many thanks ToniThe warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.
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My MacBook Pro is 18 months old and has just started to slow down. It is also not loadng certain photos from the autotrader website if this is relevant?
You may be able to improve the speed with some software work but it could also be your disk or SSD is corrupt or failing.
Try an SMC Reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Is it faster now? If not, proceed.
Backup your data immediately:
Before proceeding you should make sure you have a current backup. If it has been getting slower over time your disk could be a failing slowly. SATA drives have two retry modes: short and long. They can continue operating as read errors are increasing. The long retry cycle is very long and can cause significant performance degradation. If it has started long retries then it is likely to get worse and eventually fail. SSDs also have a failure mode where the fail slowly.
Time Machine Basics: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Most commonly used backup methods:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031
Try the remedies at http://www.macworld.com/article/2026650/mac-troubleshooting-what-to-do-when-your -computer-is-too-slow.html
and
Mac Performance Guide: http://www.thesafemac.com/mpg/
Safe Mode:
- Reboot the system in Safe Boot mode.
- Power on the Mac and when you hear the bong, hold down the shift key until it is booted.
- Be patient, this will take some time while it checks the filesystem.
If it runs faster in Safe Boot mode then it is probably third-party software compatibility issues.
- Restart.
- Does it run faster after the restart?
Spotlight: If Spotlight is continually running, re-index Spotlight:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409
Runaway processes:
Launch Activity Monitor (in the Applications/Utilities folder).
Click on the CPU heading.
Are there a process taking up a large percentage of the time?
If so select it and click on the upper left hand X to force quit the process.
Run Disk Utility (found in the Applications folder):
-In Disk Utility look at the S.M.A.R.T. Status.
If it says the disk has a hardware problem that can't be repaired then stop.
Your system could be in danger of failing at any time and you need to replace the disk soon.
Back your system up twice.
(You will need a second external disk for the second backup.)
Consider using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper! for the second backup to clone the disk.
Jump to the Hardware replacement section and seek expert help.
Repair Disk Permissions and Verify Disk. If Disk Permissions reports errors, don’t worry. That is normal. If Verify Disk reports errors then they need to be repaired. Otherwise skip to the reinstall OS X section.
Repairing your system disk:
- Boot in recovery mode.
(Boot and when you hear the bong hold down the
Command and R keys simultaneously until you see the recovery screen.)
- Select disk utility.
- Select your system drive.
- Repair Disk.
- Did it complete without errors?
If not you may need a new disk or SSD. Seek expert help.
If it completed normally then reboot.
-Did it boot faster and is it more responsive?
Reinstall OS X:
If it is still slow you should reinstall OS X.
- Boot in Recovery Mode again.
- Follow the instructions to reinstall OS X.
- Now does it boot and run faster?
Hardware replacement or upgrade?
Hopefully by now your Mac is back to its normal speed. If a hardware repair is indicated take it to an Genius bar at an Apple store for a free diagnosis and estimate of repairs. If it is under warranty or AppleCare they will repair it for free. If not, you can compare their estimate with DIY repairs.
Genius reservation http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/ .
or find an Apple Authorized Service Provider https://locate.apple.com/country
You can speed it up further by upgrading some hardware. For the following memory, disk or SSD replacements and upgrades check out OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/, Crucial: http://www.crucial.com/ and Kingston http://www.kingston.com/us/. You will need to know your Mac the year and season your Mac was first sold and model number which can be found here:
> About This Mac > More Info… > System Report > Model Identifier:
If your Mac has 2 or 4 GB of RAM, consider an upgrade to 8 GB (if the memory is upgradeable). An 8 GB memory upgrade is only $100. When I upgraded a MacBook from 2 GB o 8 GB it booted thee times faster.
If your Mac has a disk and it won’t repair properly, is low on disk space, or you just want a considerably faster disk, check out an upgrade to an SSD-Hybrid disk. Google "Seagate 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gbps 64MB Cache 2.5-Inch" or consider an SSD (120 to 480 GB).
OWC has SSD replacements and upgrades for MacBook Airs and Retina MacBook Pros.
Good luck. May the software fixes do the trick. -
My Macbook is 2 years old and I have yet to see the wonders of Apple...
Hello. Maybe someone can help me with my troubles here. I bought my Macbook a year and a half ago, it will be two years in June. The first night I took it out of the box, something happened to the hard drive. I took it into the genius bar and they had me reinstall the hard drive. The computer was less than 24 hours old! Needless to say, it has been downhill from there.
Now that my computer is almost two, I am somehow in the market for a new computer. I cannot believe that my mac, this alleged flawless machine, needs to be replaced so soon. Unfortunately, I have been looking at Windows PCs instead of macs. I would really hate to do this, as I love using a mac and believe that is in fact easier to use than Windows. But I can say I have never been so stressed about a computer before.
This is one of my main questions. A few months ago, my macbook developed this habit of shutting itself off whenever it felt like it, regardless of the battery charge or if it was plugged in or not. Then, when I try to turn it back on, I have to press the power button 20-30 times. I wish I was exaggerating here. I took the computer to the genius bar and explained my situation to them. Rather than the "genius" looking at my computer, I was talked down to as if I did not even deserve to own a mac. This wasn't the first time this happened either. I have received this type of treatment on my macbook before, even for my iPod. Now, from what I can tell from reading these support boards, this has happened to a number of mac users. Why isn't there a recall, or something that can just tell me where I've gone wrong??
My second question is about the applications on this computer. In an effort to clear up some space on the machine, I've been going through the applications to see what I can delete. Can anyone tell me what these applications are, and what will happen to my computer if I delete them?: Adobe Help Viewer 1.0, AppleScript, Flip 4 mac, Font Book, Image Capture, iDVD (is there a difference between that and the DVD player that launches itself?), iMovie HD, iPodDisk, iSync, iWork 06, Omni Outliner, Picture Sync, Sherlock, and Text Edit.
I am sorry this sounded so negative, but I do appreciate any help I can get with these problems!asaldi wrote:
Hello. Maybe someone can help me with my troubles here. I bought my Macbook a year and a half ago, it will be two years in June. The first night I took it out of the box, something happened to the hard drive. I took it into the genius bar and they had me reinstall the hard drive. The computer was less than 24 hours old! Needless to say, it has been downhill from there.
Hard drive failures are the most distressing and misunderstood problem with computers. Apple is merely a consumer of hard drives, and there's nothing that they can directly do to make a drive more or less reliable. Hard drive failures happen because of the nature of the device. Anyone with important information needs a good backup strategy.
Now that my computer is almost two, I am somehow in the market for a new computer. I cannot believe that my mac, this alleged flawless machine, needs to be replaced so soon. Unfortunately, I have been looking at Windows PCs instead of macs. I would really hate to do this, as I love using a mac and believe that is in fact easier to use than Windows. But I can say I have never been so stressed about a computer before.
Nobody has ever said any manufacturer's equipment is flawless. Assembly defects or malfunctioning parts can come from any manufacturer.
This is one of my main questions. A few months ago, my macbook developed this habit of shutting itself off whenever it felt like it, regardless of the battery charge or if it was plugged in or not. Then, when I try to turn it back on, I have to press the power button 20-30 times. I wish I was exaggerating here. I took the computer to the genius bar and explained my situation to them. Rather than the "genius" looking at my computer, I was talked down to as if I did not even deserve to own a mac. This wasn't the first time this happened either. I have received this type of treatment on my macbook before, even for my iPod. Now, from what I can tell from reading these support boards, this has happened to a number of mac users. Why isn't there a recall, or something that can just tell me where I've gone wrong??
Sounds like they were rude to you. I'm an electrical engineer, and you can understand that I don't appreciate being talked down to by someone who might not know as much about electronics (not that I know everything) as I do.
My second question is about the applications on this computer. In an effort to clear up some space on the machine, I've been going through the applications to see what I can delete. Can anyone tell me what these applications are, and what will happen to my computer if I delete them?: Adobe Help Viewer 1.0, AppleScript, Flip 4 mac, Font Book, Image Capture, iDVD (is there a difference between that and the DVD player that launches itself?), iMovie HD, iPodDisk, iSync, iWork 06, Omni Outliner, Picture Sync, Sherlock, and Text Edit.
Flip4Mac is the plugin for QuickTime Player that allows playback of Windows Media files. Text edit is a simple editor for text file documents. I find both very useful.
I am sorry this sounded so negative, but I do appreciate any help I can get with these problems!
I'd say your's is a rant, although not as negative as some that I've seen in the past. I've never had anything terribly bad with my two iBooks and my current MacBook. The closest thing was my iBook G3 600 having wireless hanging up, as well as a grinding noise clearly coming from the hard drive (again - made by another company).
Really - if you're having this many problems with your machine, I'd suggest a hard drive upgrade to something a bit larger. A two year old MacBook is not exactly outdated, and perhaps a larger and higher performance drive upgrade can bring new life into your machine. You would have ample room for your applications and data, and perhaps the issues with your original hard drive would be resolved. It's not that expensive and relatively easy for anyone capable of using #00 Phillips and T8 Torx screwdrivers. -
I have a Macbook Pro, a year old and it's started freezing all the time when I go to open pages, The small coloured wheel comes up a lot of the time, I have Mac Keeper and run this program but it doesn't sem to help. Do I have a problem with the hard drive or something else? This is very annoying.
Mac Keeper is a malware !!!! Read here and unistall this crap >>>
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3027
MacKeeper can be regarded as highly invasive malware* that can de-stablize your operating system. It is unethically marketed by a company called Zeobit and a rip-off.
Further opinion on it and how to uninstall MacKeeper malware can be read here:
http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/ -
My MacBook is almost two years old and has started running really slow. It gets bogged down when it is running different programs at the same time, like Safari and Pages. It didn't react this way until recently. Any advice would be very welcome.
Launch Disk Utility and select the icon of the internal drive (the drive itself, not the volume icons below it.) Is the SMART status "Verified?" If not, replace the drive immediately. If the status is "Verified," the drive may still be failing. Back up all data, if you haven't already done so. Reinstall Mac OS X, then run Software Update. Test with all wired peripherals disconnected. If it's still slow, you have a hardware problem.
Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Reinstalling Mac OS X -
I have a macbook about 3 years old running leopard. I amwondering ifitwouldbeworth the trouble to install snowleopardand then lion ($60.00) or just buy a new macbook pro ($$$$$$). How does lion perform on an intel core 2 duo processor?
I have Lion installed on a Mini with a C2D processor. The same Mini has Snow Leopard on another partition and there is no noticeable difference in operational speed between the two OS's. But compared to my new MBPro 17" with a 2.83GHz i7, the Mini running Lion is noticeably slower. So if you can afford anew MBPro, then I would get it because you will probably be unhappy with the performance of Lion on the older MBPro. The other benefit of getting a new MBPro with Lion is that if you have any Power PC applications currently on the old MBPro, which will not operate in Lion, then you still have the ability to use them. Many users got stung by upgrading to Lion, only to find they could no longer use the older PPC applications.
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My mac is one year old and has the latest os x 10.9.5. Will the older creative suite run on my mac?
Hello; I am planning on buying an older "unopened" adobe creative suite package that runs on Mac OS X v.10.2.4 through v.10.2.7. My mac is one year old and has the latest os x 10.9.5. Will the older creative suite run on my mac?
you can check other users experiences, http://roaringapps.com/apps:table
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My computer is extremely slow, with the rainbow wheel appearing with every click. It is one year old, and has all the most recent updates. Why is it so painfully slow?
That sounds horrible. There are a number of reasons it could occur.
The first thing to do is ensure you have adequate backups, because what you describe can be a symptom of impending disk failure.
To help determine the possible causes of this behaviour read the following. None of what follows is intended to fix anything, but it will provide the additional information required to advance troubleshooting. There are four separate parts to it; read everything first.
Boot OS X Recovery by holding ⌘ and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac. At the Mac OS X Utilities screen, select Disk Utility. Select your startup volume (usually named "Macintosh HD") and click the Repair Disk button. Describe any errors it reports in red. If Disk Utility reports "The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK" in green then you can be reasonably (though not completely) assured your hard disk is in good working order.
When it finishes restart your Mac and test again for operation. If it's still not behaving as you expect it should, please post the results of EtreCheck in accordance with the following instructions:
Apple Support Communities contributor etresoft wrote a very useful app to quickly gather certain system information that may help point to a cause of this problem. Read about it here. It contains a link to download EtreCheck. Don't download it from anywhere else (such as may be found by following the results of an Internet search).
Click Open - etresoft contributes to this forum frequently and can be considered a trustworthy developer.
It will take a moment to run as it collects its data.
Copy and paste its output in a reply.
Do not be concerned about anything that says "Problem" or “failed” or anything else that may appear in red.
EtreCheck was designed to remove any personal information (such as your computer's name and serial numbers) but if you see anything that looks like an email address or any other personal information that should not be divulged to others, please delete or obscure that information when you post the reply.
When you are finished with EtreCheck, quit the program. It occupies very little space, and you can keep it or drag it to the Trash as you wish.
After completing the above please determine if the problems also occur in "Safe Mode":
Safe Mode or "Safe Boot" is a troubleshooting mode that bypasses all third party system extensions and loads only required system components. Read about it: Starting up in Safe Mode
You must disable FileVault before you can start your Mac in Safe Mode.
Starting your Mac in Safe Mode will take longer than usual, graphics will not render smoothly, audio is disabled on some Macs, and some programs (iTunes for example) may not work at all.
Merely starting your Mac in Safe Mode is not intended to resolve the problem, it's to observe its performance without certain additional components.
To end Safe Mode restart your Mac normally. Shutdown will take longer as well.
System performance problems for reasons that cannot be isolated to any other cause justify an SMC reset. Be sure to read the procedure carefully and follow all the steps exactly as written, even if they seem inapplicable or trivial. -
My charger has stopped working, it is only a year old and has no frayed or exposed wires.
My charger is about a year old and has been working perfectly until today. It has no frayed parts or any wires exposed on it. i plugged it in and it wasn't charging and my battery icon on my monitor had an x on the inside of it and wouldn't charge. I tried again to charge it after it finally died and it didn't work, I used my mom's charger and it worked perfectly fine, so it isn't the batter that is having a problem. Has my charger just spontaneously stopped working or it is a common flaw that occours often with other users, and if so is there a soloution to fix it or get a discount on a new charger for what I am going to assume is a design flaw in the box on the charger because that is the only other thing I can think of that would be causing my charger any problems?
I had a lightbulb once. Brand new. Screwed it in its socket, lit it up. 20 minutes later it was dead. It's "brother" from the same twinpak is still shining bright almost 2 years later. Same thing here. The manufacturing process only guarantees that the mean time between failures is adequately long. But the individual units follow a probabilistic bell curve: sometimes you get one from one end and dies right off, most times you get one from the middle and lasts awhile, occasionally you get one from the other end and seems to last forever.
If you have AppleCare, it will be replaced for free. Else you will have to pay the $79 we all have. Of the 8 Mac portables I've owned, in only one did the power brick die on me. Replaced it at my cost, watched the Mac die a month later. -
my iphone 4 is almost 2 years old and has started locking up. what do i do to get it working as it used to?
Have you tried: restarting, resetting, restoring?
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what to buy? I want to a small amount of product photo editing, build websites, and do some product label graphics. 74 years old and do not want to do the Cloud thing online.
Well, the web site building we can get out of the way rather easily: You cannot build websites with any Photoshop related applications. Adobe has other applications for that.
You can still buy the full version of Photoshop CS6 with a perpetual license—no monthly payments and you own it. $700 for the standard version, $1,000 for the extended version.
The Photographer's deal gives you a subscription to both Photoshop and Lightroom for $10 per month, but you never get to own the software. The moment you stop paying, the software ceases to work.
The Cloud thing is not really on-line. It resides on your computer. It only has to call the mother ship once a month or so.
Then there's the bargain-basement priced, emasculated Photoshop Elements, with some hand-holding features.
I'm a septuagenarian too, but then I've been using computers for decades, Photoshop seriously for over twelve years. Photoshop is a professional level application that makes no apologies for its very long and steep learning curve.
Depending on exactly how much editing you need to do to those products shots, you may be satisfied with Ps Elements mentioned above.
There are trial versions for all of the above. -
I Have followed all the steps and still cant remove iCloud to my existing account and add to the new one, the old email account was changed a year ago and cant get that email plus the password don't work please HELP!
Welcome to the Apple community.
This feature has been introduced to make stolen phones useless to those that have stolen them.
However it can also arise when the user has changed their Apple ID details with Apple and not made the same changes to their iCloud account/Find My Phone on their device before upgrading to iOS 7, or if you restore from a previous back up made before you changed your details.
The only solution is to change your Apple ID back to its previous state with Apple at My Apple ID using your current password, you don’t need access to this address if it’s previously been used with your Apple ID, once you have saved these details enter the password as requested on your device and then turn off "find my phone".
You should then change your Apple ID back to its current state, verify it once again, delete the iCloud account from your device and then log back in using your current Apple ID. Finally, turn "find my phone" back on once again.
This article provides more information about Activation Lock. -
My ipod Touch is 3.5 years old and I would like to update the operating system. There is no software section in settings, general or elsewhere. My ipod Touch model is MC008LL and my version is 3.1.3 (7E18). How can I update my operating system. Thank you, Richard
Connect it to iTunes on a computer and update it to iOS 5.1.1.
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I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro with OS X and now my HP printer won't work. Can anyone help?
I recently upgraded my Macbook Pro with OS X and now my HP printer won't work. Can anyone help?
Visit HP's support site to see about downloading an updated driver. Or you can check at support.apple.com/downloads/ for new HP printer drivers package.
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