My Macbook has started running really slow, help!

Question

Hello, my Macbook has started to run at a far slower pace than usual. I have had my macbook since December of 2010 and for the past few weeks I have noticed that the rainbow wheel would appear when I would try to do even the most simplest of things (i.g. open Microsoft Word). Using the terminal's top command I would notice that the fc-cache would use a high percent of the system. However that ceased using the command "fc-cache -f -r -v", and it seemed as if the font fc-cache stopped. However that did not stop the problem.
I then decided to run a EtreCheck run and the following came out:
EtreCheck version: 1.9.13 (49)
Report generated August 15, 2014 at 1:23:55 PM CDT
Hardware Information: ?
  MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2010) (Verified)
  MacBook - model: MacBook7,1
  1 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
  2 GB RAM
Video Information: ?
  NVIDIA GeForce 320M - VRAM: 256 MB
  Color LCD 1280 x 800
System Software: ?
  OS X 10.9.4 (13E28) - Uptime: 34 days 11:23:11
Disk Information: ?
  Hitachi HTS545025B9SA02 disk0 : (250.06 GB)
  S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
  EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
  Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 249.2 GB (205.4 GB free)
  Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
  OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5970H 
USB Information: ?
  SanDisk SanDisk USB 8 GB
  S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified
  ANGEL'S USB (disk1s1) /Volumes/ANGEL'S USB: 8 GB (4.63 GB free)
  Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
  Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
  Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
  Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Gatekeeper: ?
  Anywhere
Launch Daemons: ?
  [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
  [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist Support
  [loaded] org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support
Launch Agents: ?
  [running] org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support
User Launch Agents: ?
  [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
User Login Items: ?
  iTunesHelper
Internet Plug-ins: ?
  FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 14.0.0.176 - SDK 10.6 Support
  QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
  Flash Player: Version: 14.0.0.176 - SDK 10.6 Support
  Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
  SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.2 - SDK 10.6 Support
  DirectorShockwave: Version: 12.0.9r149 - SDK 10.6 Support
  JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Check version
Safari Extensions: ?
  Omnibar (Disabled)
Audio Plug-ins: ?
  BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
  AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
  AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
  iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins: ?
  Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
3rd Party Preference Panes: ?
  Flash Player  Support
Time Machine: ?
  Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU: ?
      7% Google Chrome
      5% WindowServer
      1% hidd
      0% X11.bin
      0% Activity Monitor
Top Processes by Memory: ?
  54 MB Google Chrome
  43 MB com.apple.quicklook.satellite
  41 MB Finder
  41 MB Mail
  35 MB Google Chrome Helper
Virtual Memory Information: ?
  86 MB Free RAM
  563 MB Active RAM
  510 MB Inactive RAM
  343 MB Wired RAM
  14.06 GB Page-ins
  487 MB Page-outs
If someone could please help that would be amazing.
Thank you very much!

Answer 1

I'll take a wild guess that the most noticeable slowdown began after you installed OS X Mavericks.
1. You have plenty of hard disk space, 205GB available of 250GB, but you have only 2GB system RAM installed. 2GB RAM was adequate for acceptable performance using OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Technically, Apple specs say that OS X 10.9 Mavericks REQUIRES just 2GB RAM, but realistically, 2GB is not nearly enough to run it with decent performance, especially if you run both a browser and other application programs simultaneously. Your system can hold a maximum of 16GB RAM. Upgrading to 4GB RAM would absolutely help performance. Upgrading to 8GB might provide additional performance with OS X Mavericks. I won't speculate on the benefits of 16GB.
Disclaimer: I use OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as my primary operating system, about 8 hours every day. I run Mavericks once a week or less for a couple of hours, and for only one application, so my experience with Mavericks is limited, and your use is likely considerably different. I use OS X Mavericks to run Windows 7 using Parallels 9, in order to use my licensed copy of Windows MS-Office 2011.   I didn't like Windows 7 performance with Parallels 9 running in Mavericks with just 4GB installed on my mid-2011 2.5Ghz iMac, so I upgraded to 8GB.
Macs are notoriously picky about system RAM, and not all RAM vendors are the same when it comes to Mac. I recommend purchasing your Mac RAM upgrade from Apple, Crucial.com, or Other World Computing http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_Whi te
Depending upon where you purchase the RAM and whether you are confident to install it yourself, a 4GB RAM upgrade will likely cost well under US$100. 8GB would likely cost around $100. Your Mac can use up to 16GB, at a cost over $200. Before spending any money to upgrade an older computer, always consider how much you're willing to spend on a  4-year-old computer, versus saving that money, if you have plans to purchase a new(er) Mac in the near future.
Recent generations of Mac computers seem to be highly reliable. My son has a mid-2009 aluminum MacBook Pro that easily survived 4 years of college and is still going strong. We just recently upgraded his system to 8GB RAM so he can try out Mavericks on a spare external drive before he decides whether or not to upgrade.
2. You're running Google Chrome browser. I don't use it based on advice in several discussion threads within Apple Support Communities from users who are far more knowledgable that I am about such things. They say the Chrome browser does not use RAM very efficiently, and that Firefox and Safari are better.
3. You haven't rebooted your computer in 34 days. With such limited RAM, until you upgrade, rebooting the computer at least every few days could increase performance a little bit. Some programs, particularly web browsers, often take huge amounts of available RAM and open dozens or even hundreds of links, then don't release RAM properly when you close browser windows.