My MacBook Air is so slow lately....I have a 3 month old new OS X, 10.9.1 version. I use Mozzilla Firefox......I am not tech savy! Arlene.

Question

My MacBook Air is so slow lately....I have a 3 month old new OS X, 10.9.1 version. I use Mozzilla Firefox......I am not tech savy! Arlene.

Answer 1

If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. This procedure is a diagnostic  test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything suggested in this comment. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. It does nothing but produce human-readable data about the state of your computer. However, you need to be cautious about running any program at the behest of a stranger on a public message board. If you question the safety of the procedure suggested here — which you should — search this site for other discussions in which it’s been followed without any report of ill effects. If you can't satisfy yourself that these instructions are safe, don't follow them.
Here's a summary of what you need to do: Copy a line of text from this web page into the window of another application. Wait about a minute. Then paste some other text, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page. The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. Details follow.
You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only run the test in safe mode, proceed anyway.
If you have more than one user, and the affected user is not an administrator, then please run the script twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The administrator is the user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time. If you can't log in as an administrator, just run the script as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking  anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in your browser, and you can then copy it.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
When you launch Terminal, a text window will open with a line already in it, ending either in a dollar sign ($) or a percent sign (%). If you get the percent sign, enter “sh” and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
clear; shopt -s extglob; Fb='%s\n\t(%s)\n'; Fm='\n%s:\n\n%s\n'; Fs='\n%s: %s\n'; PB="/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c Print"; Pm () { [[ "$o" ]] && o=$(sed 's/^/   /' <<< "$o") && printf "$Fm" "$1" "$o"; }; Pc () { o=$(egrep -v '^[[:blank:]]*($|#)' "$2"); Pm "$1"; }; Pp () { o=$($PB "$2" | awk -F'= ' \/$3'/{print $2}'); Pm "$1"; }; Ps () { o="${o##+( )}"; R () { [[ "$r" -eq 0 ]]; }; [[ "$o" -ne 0 ]] && printf "$Fs" "$1" "$o"; }; a=$(id | grep -w '80(admin)'); r=1; [[ "$a" ]] && { sudo true; r=$?; }; t=`date +%s`; clear; { [[ "$a" ]] || echo $'No admin access\n'; [[ "$a" && "$r" -ne 0 ]] && echo $'No root access\n'; system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType | sed '8!d;s/^ *//'; o=$(system_profiler SPDiagnosticsDataType | sed '5,6!d'); fgrep -q P <<< "$o" && o=; Pm "POST"; o=$(nvram boot-args | awk '{$1=""; print}'); Ps "boot-args"; o=$(ls /L*/L*/Dia*/*.panic | wc -l); Ps "Panics"; o=$(ls /L*/L*/Dia*/*.c* | tail); Pm "System crash logs"; o=$(ls L*/L*/Dia* | tail); Pm "User crash logs"; o=$(syslog -F bsd -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|SATA W|timed? ?o' | tail -n25 | awk '/:/{$4=""; $5=""; print}'); Pm "Kernel messages"; o=$(df -m / | awk 'NR==2 {print $4}'); [[ $o -lt 5120 ]] && Ps "Free space (MiB)"; o=$(($(vm_stat | awk '/Pageo/{sub("\\.",""); print $2}')/256)); o=$((o>=1024?o:0)); Ps "Pageouts (MiB)"; s=( $(sar -u 1 10 | sed '$!d') ); [[ ${s[4]} -lt 90 ]] && o=$(printf 'User %s%%\t\tSystem %s%%' ${s[1]} ${s[3]}) || o=; Pm "Total CPU usage" && o=$(ps acrx -o comm,ruid,%cpu | sed '2!d'); Pm "Max %CPU by process (name, UID, %)"; o=$(kextstat -kl | grep -v com\\.apple | cut -c53- | cut -d\< -f1); Pm "Loaded extrinsic kernel extensions"; R && o=$(sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.(apple|openssh|vix\.cron)|org\.(amav|apac|calendarse|cups|dove|isc|ntp|post[fg]|x)/{print $3}'); Pm "Loaded extrinsic daemons"; o=$(launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple|org\.(x|openbsd)|\.[0-9]+$/{print $3}'); Pm "Loaded extrinsic user agents"; for d in {/,}L*/{La,Priv,Sta}*; do o=$(ls -A "$d" | egrep -v '\.DS_Store|^com\.apple'); Pm "$d"; done; o=$(find -L /S*/L*/E* {/,}L*/{A*d,Compon,Ex,In,Keyb,Mail,P*P,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Spo}* -type d -name Contents -prune | while read d; do ID=$($PB\ :CFBundleIdentifier "$d/Info.plist") || ID="No bundle ID"; egrep -qv "^com\.apple\.[^x]|Accusys|ArcMSR|ATTO|HDPro|HighPoint|driver\.stex|hp-fax|\.hpio|JMicron|microsoft\.MDI|print|SoftRAID" <<< $ID && printf "$Fb" "${d%/Contents}" "$ID"; done); Pm "Extrinsic loadable bundles"; o=$(find /u*/{,*/}lib -type f -exec sh -c 'file -b "$1" | grep -qw shared && ! codesign -v "$1"' {} {} \; -print); Pm "Unsigned shared libraries"; o=$(launchctl getenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES); Pm "Inserted libraries"; R && o=$(sudo profiles -P | grep :); Pm "Profiles"; o=$(find {,/u*/lo*}/e*/periodic -type f -mtime -10d); Pm "Modified periodic scripts"; for f in fstab sysctl.conf crontab launchd.conf; do Pc $f /etc/$f; done; Pc "hosts" <(sed '1,10d' /etc/hosts); Pc "User launchd" ~/.launchd; R && Pc "Root crontab" <(sudo crontab -l); Pc "User crontab" <(crontab -l); R && o=$(sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook); Pm "Login hook"; Pp "Global login items" /L*/P*/loginw* Path; Pp "User login items" L*/P*/*loginit* Name; Pp "Safari extensions" L*/Saf*/*/E*.plist Bundle | sed 's/\..*$//;s/-[1-9]$//'; o=$(find ~ $TMPDIR.. \( -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! -user $UID -o ! -perm -600 \) | wc -l); Ps "Restricted user files"; cd; o=$(system_profiler SPFontsDataType | egrep "Valid: N|Duplicate: Y" | wc -l); Ps "Font problems"; o=$(find L* -type f ! -size 0 -name *.plist ! -exec sh -c 'plutil -s "$1" >&-' {} {} \; -print); Pm "Bad plists"; o=$((`date +%s`-t)); Ps "Elapsed time (s)"; } 2>/dev/null | pbcopy; exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Then click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste (command-V). The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the script will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important, so don't worry about it.
The script may take up to a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. There is no indication of progress until it's done. Wait for the line "[Process completed]" to appear in the Terminal window.
You can then quit Terminal. The output of the script will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. All you have to do is paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V again. If any personal information, such as your name or email address, appears in the output, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary. Please don't copy anything from the Terminal window.
When you post the output, you might see in your browser the message, "You have included content in your post that is not permitted." That's because the forum software falsely identifies something in the post as a violation of the terms of use. If that happens, please post the output on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
Note: This is a public forum, and others may offer you advice based on the output of the script. They speak only for themselves and I don't necessarily agree with their views.
Copyright © 2014 Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Terms of Use of Apple Support Communities ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.