Suddenly Extremely Sluggish

I don't even have to import a file. After repairing permissions and dumping the plist (don't know what else to dump), the program starts fine, then suddenly drags to the point where there's a several second delay after trying to drag a window. I've tried it with no other apps open. Force quitting leaves my system just as sluggish. I'm considering the whole system reinstall thing. Can someone help? Thank you.

I've never seen a Compressor splash screen indicating that FXPlugs are loading.
On occasion I'll notice some sluggishnes and delays with Compressor, primarily when I'm adding multiple HD clips. Delays don't usually last very long, and once the batch is submitted to the cluster, everything seems fine here.
One other tip, if you're exporting from Final Cut Pro via Compressor, close Compressor's preview window.

Similar Messages

Macbook Pro extremely sluggish with new Wi-Fi service on Lion

I just got new Charter wi-fi service, and my Macbook Pro with Lion is extremely sluggish when loading webpages. The speedtest is fine. Other Windows computers in the area seem to work fine.

Hello there, miwaford.
The following Knowledge Base article provides some great steps for troubleshooting Wi-Fi:
Wi-Fi: How to troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro.

Macbook Pro 2012 extremely sluggish and unresponsive

I have a 2012 MBP that I purchased new earlier this year that has been a real pain to use.
Spec:
2.3ghz quad core i7
4GB RAM
500GB HD
OSX 10.8.4
Activity monitor always looks like there is tons of CPU and memory available, but I get constant beach balling just switching folders in Finder or opening a new tab in Chrome. Waking the thing up after opening the lid sometimes takes 3-4 minutes.
Here is a screenshot of my Activity Monitor from a few minutes ago when it was acting extremely sluggish. I'm concerned that the page outs might be high? Any advice? Is it normal for these machines to act like this? My 2009 MBP that I replaced with this machine was never this bad...

You need more RAM. You're swapping far too much to the hard drive so that you've so little 'free' RAM that I'm surprised that you can do much at all.
The two best RAM distributors are Crucial and OWC. OWC tends to be a bit more expensive, so I usually go with Crucial. Visit the Crucial website and click on the System Scanner tab - a small app will download. Run it and Crucial will give you the recommended upgrades for your model (which can hold up to 16GB of RAM).
Also see the X-Lab's Tuning Mac OS X Performance as well as Thomas Reed's Mac Performance Guide.
Good luck,
Clinton

Magic Mouse extremely sluggish when Time Capsule starts

Why is my Magic Mouse becoming extremely sluggish when Time Capsule is backing up my data? This is really frustrating, I even stopped backing up my computer because the mouse is becoming almost impossible to use as soon as Time Capsule starts...
I've heard stories of interferences between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, can anyone confirm that and provide me with a way to solve the problem? Thanks in advance.

UPDATE:
I think I've found a solution.... Though I'm a bit reluctant to post it already because I'd really like to see if it works over time... Anyway, here is the interesting post I found by Mr. Caliostro:
... sure, go into your Airport Utility application, inside Utilities inside Applications. Click on Manual Setup when your TC appears in the window. Click on the Wireless tab. You will find a pulldown menu there called Channel. Select your channel & Update your TC settings. I set mine to channel 1 to try it, & it made a tiny improvement. How close is your TC to your mac? Does the interference reduce if you ove further away? Perhaps swapping from 802.11g/n to 802.11n or vice-versa, may help? (depending if your setup can work on 11n-only). Perhaps switching from 2.5ghz to 5ghz or vice-versa may help? both 11n & 11g can work at 5ghz as well as 2.5ghz... Let me know how you go!
I set the 5GHz channel to 48 and the 2.4GHz to 1. Of course I changed these settings completely randomly since I don't know anything about these things but it actually seems to work pretty fine! No more sluggish mouse during Time Capsule back ups!

Extremely sluggish MBP (mid 2010) on Mountain Lion

Hello All,
I have a mid-2010 13" MBP (2.4 GHz C2D, 4GB RAM) which runs extremely sluggish on the Mountain Lion. I do not have Windows installed on my Mac. Most of the usage is for browsing, videos and MS-Office. Booting up from sleep takes much longer than earlier; restarting the mac takes even longer The Mac was much faster with the last OSX version: Snow Leopard. I am not even considering to OSX Mavericks for the fear of slowing down the system further.
Should I downgrade to Snow Leopard? I do not see too many features that I will be missing out on.
Or should I upgrade the RAM to 8GB? This is less preferable cos I'm unlikely to sell my existing 4GB RAM and will have to spend ~$100 on additional RAM.
Or is there any other option?
Any help in this regard is greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Back up all data in target disk mode. The internal drive has malfunctioned, or you have some other hardware fault. I suggest you have the machine tested by a service provider, but if you want to continue trusting it, you can reinstall OS X by booting the working Mac into Recovery and installing onto the non-working Mac, which is still in target mode. The results will depend on what caused the failure.

MBP extremely sluggish all of a sudden. Simple actions like closing browser results in spinning rainbow. Any suggestions.

I turned my 2010 MBP Mountain Lion, i7 8gb RAM on today and it stuck on the apple screen with a spinning load icon. I read an article that said to reinstal OS and all files should be fine. I reinstalled and now I can boot, but it is very slow. The slightest action results in spinning rainbow and usually takes several moments to confirm and execute. I verified and repaired this HD but nothing seems to be wrong. I checked and my memory is reading all 8 gig. I am at a loss. I would assume that maybe the HD is circling the drain, but don't want to fear the worst. Does anyone have experience with this issue, and could you offer advice.

Thank you for your time and help. I don't feel like this is a performance based issue like the site you suggested is geared at. My device was screaming fast prior to me closing the lid and leaving for a few hours. Free space isn't the issue, and I run a very clean machine with as little as possible running in the background to boost performance. I was just grasping at straws when I posted this. I will try a clean install tomorrow and see if that solves the issue. I was lucky thaat I was able to get most of my files off of the HD.
Again thank you so much for replying and offering your advice.

Windows Update extremely sluggish/useless after system recovery.

Hello there,
While trying to help a friend with his laptop, I have come across a bit of a problem, which seems fairly unique. After having searched the 'net and the Knowledge Base I am about as clued in as when I started, which is to say not very.
Machine: Satellite 1800-412 (Danish).
Did: Recover system to scratch back to XP SP1a (DK).
Problem: After doing a complete system recovery using the original recovery CDs, Windows Update runs *extremely* slowly, if at all, once it gets to the point where it scans for which updates you need. I have so far managed to get one (1) update downloaded, a small one. As an update is attempted the CPU usage peaks to 100% and stays there until I give up and hard reboot, since the machine is now nearly useless and sluggish to the point of appearing frozen.
Tried to: Manually applied different updates downloaded directly from Microsoft, like Internet Explorer 6 sp1, XP SP2 (DK), different updates and patches to XP, downloaded and checked/tried to reinstall drivers from Toshiba (they are up to date). Checked that systems boots cleanly with all devices recognized. Checked the system clock. Searched the Toshiba KB, searched the internet, searched the Toshiba support forum. Pulled some hair in desperation. I must have restored the system 4 times by now in order to try different ways of patching the system with updates.
Peculiarities: It is apparently *only* Windows Update, which causes this problem, and only after the very first little bit, where it updates the Windows Update engine inside Internet Explorer. Before I attempt to run an update the machine apparently works normally. I can surf, download, install and run programs and what not. (No, I did not visit any suspicious websites.) If Windows Update runs automatically in the background / 'in the tray', the very same thing happens: Machine suddenly becomes useless and stays that way.
The machine is on a local area network behind a bullet proof OpenBSD firewall, no other Windows machines on the inside, so there is zero chance of a fast infection from the network causing the problem.
Unfortunately: Manually downloading and applying the patches is not an option as I want to activate Automatic Updates before handing the machine back to its owner.
Hope some of you might have an answer to this one, as I have never experienced nor heard about something similar before.
Frank.

Hi Stefan,
Yes, that might be a possible solution, and I have been thinking along those lines myself. The trouble being that I don't have a CD with the correct version of XP (XP Home Edition, Danish) for which the machine is licensed, and here in the middle of the holiday season I have a bit of a problem tracking one down. I even tried calling Microsoft support and Toshiba to see if they would be kind enough to mail me a spare CD. No such luck.
The machine is used by a friend of mine, who has a severe physical disability. It is his main 'communication platform' and he operates it using a single button switch interface. So every additional day of downtime is a bit of a problem. I will probably have to reinstall it for now using the SP 1a base software, then completely disabling the network interface to avoid infections while I look for a XP CD.
The closest I can come to an explanation is that 'something' that Windows Update automatically installs conflicts with the factory supplied software. The problem happens even with a completely freshly recovered setup, so I was hoping this would be a known if perhaps a bit obscure problem.
Thanks again. :-)
Frank.

Mouse first perfect, then suddenly gets sluggish as if USB had lag.

Hardware:
Acer 5742G laptop, (aspire and travelmate 5742G have exact same mainboard), with i5 CPU and and Nvidia GT540M.
It has Optimus graphics.
Mouse is primarily Roccat Kone+ via USB, but the same happens with 7 other usb-mice, too.
Software:
Arch with latest kernel from official repo, laptop mode tools installed and Bumblebee with Intel+Nvidia and Intel+Noveau with their multilib counterparts.
Cinnamon Desktop with no kde tools installed. xf86-input-mouse installed.
Problem:
If I put in the mouse it works perfectly for a while, but suddenly the cursor is very sluggish, hard to move and laggy.
Mouse-Dpi is on 6000, sensitivity is highest.
After it happened every mouse that will be connected will be slow directly.
After a reboot the mice will be fast again for a while.
USB-Keyboards and Harddrives have the issue too, just tested.
Dmesg cutout:
I think its related
http://pastebin.com/kcpAQHdF
Last edited by PaellaGrindIron (2014-04-07 12:57:15)

andy123 wrote:
Hi, do you have the newest BIOS/UEFI/firmware installed? Are there any usb related settings in said firmware?
I (used to?) experience a problem similar to what you describe on my desktop machine. My theory is, that is occurs because I use some of my usb controllers with the usb drivers ({o,e}hci_{hcd,pci}) and the rest with vfio-pci for passthrough with qemu and kvm. However, I'm unsure when it happened the last time.
"Resetting" the usb stack solved it for me, at least temporary
#!/bin/sh
for mod in {o,e}hci_pci xhci_hcd usbhid # this might need adjustment, e.g. if you don't have usb3, use usb webcams, sound, etc.
do modprobe -rv $mod
done
for mod in usbhid {o,e}hci_{hcd,pci} xhci_hcd
do modprobe -v $mod
done
I'm sorry I'm a relative newbie, so this doesn't seem obvious to me but I'm supposed to run the script host or emulated side? running it host side returned fatal errors and I'm not quite sure how to run it emulated side. My naive attempt was typing it out in cmd entirely in one line.
My windows qemu no longer has any mouse. though I used to have one and I didn't change the terminal command to run it:
qemu-system-x86_64 -boot menu=on -bios /usr/share/qemu/bios.bin-kvm -vga qxl -m 4G -cpu host -smp 12,sockets=1,cores=6,threads=2 -soundhw hda -usb -device usb-kbd -device usb-mouse -name "test_vfio_pci" -M q35 -device ahci,id=ahci -drive file=/media/t/TBVolume/win8.qcow2,id=disk,format=qcow2 -device ide-hd,bus=ahci.0,drive=disk
If I remove the usb device for the mouse run it then add it back and run it again will this help?
EDIT : bizarely removing the emulated usb mouse *gives me* a mouse.
I don't know why.
Last edited by tatsu (2014-12-03 07:25:20)

My iMac with Comcast is suddenly extremely slow

Suddenly my imac with comcast internet with apple airport is extremly slow.
This sort of came out of the blue.
I have called Comcast and they said everything on their end seems to check out fine.
Going a bit nuts here. Any ideas as to why this is happening?
Anything I should test?
Doug

Nothing seems to have changed at all Allen.
Still taking *forever* to download images, pages, etc.
Here is the new report:
Hardware Information:
          iMac (24-inch, Early 2008)
          iMac - model: iMac8,1
          1 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
          NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS - VRAM: 512 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.2 (13C64) - Uptime: 0 days 0:56:41
Disk Information:
          ST3500418AS disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.25 GB (415.73 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
USB Information:
          Iomega External HD 1 TB
                    EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Media (disk1s2) /Volumes/Media: 999.86 GB (626.31 GB free)
          Hewlett-Packard HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub
                    Mitsumi Electric Apple Optical USB Mouse
                    Apple Inc. Apple Keyboard
          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Kernel Extensions:
          com.logmein.driver.LogMeInSoundDriver          (1.0.3 - SDK 10.5)
          net.telestream.driver.TelestreamAudio          (1.0.5 - SDK 10.6)
Startup Items:
          ColdFusion10: Path: /Library/StartupItems/ColdFusion10
Launch Daemons:
          [System] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.barebones.authd.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.barebones.textwrangler.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.logmeinblanker.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.logmeinserver.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.raupdate.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
Launch Agents:
          [System] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.amazon.sendtokindle.launcher.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.flipvideo.FlipShare.AutoRun.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.logmeingui.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.logmeinguiagent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.logmein.logmeinguiagentatlogin.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.wacom.pentablet.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.helperTool.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac.volumeWatcher.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.diskSpaceWatcher.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.scheduledScan.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.trashWatcher.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] ws.agile.1PasswordAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
          EvernoteHelper
          Skype
          Dropbox
          BitTorrent
          Google Drive
          AdobeResourceSynchronizer
          EvernoteHelper
          BambooCore
Internet Plug-ins:
          o1dbrowserplugin: Version: 5.2.4.18058 3rd-Party support link
          WacomNetscape: Version: 1.1.1-1 3rd-Party support link
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.4.4.2 3rd-Party support link
          WacomSafari: Version: 1.1.1-1 3rd-Party support link
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 1.0.0.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.201 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          LogMeIn: Version: 1.0.935 - SDK 10.7 3rd-Party support link
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.201 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          LogMeInSafari32: Version: 1.0.935 - SDK 10.7 3rd-Party support link
          googletalkbrowserplugin: Version: 5.2.4.18058 3rd-Party support link
          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.04 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
Safari Extensions:
          Searchme: Version: 1.3
          1Password: Version: 3.9.20
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
User Internet Plug-ins:
          WebEx64: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          WebEx: Version: 1.0 3rd-Party support link
          CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.94 3rd-Party support link
          Picasa: Version: 1.0 3rd-Party support link
          RealPlayer Plugin: Version: (null) 3rd-Party support link
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          3ivx MPEG-4 3rd-Party support link
          PenTablet 3rd-Party support link
          DC30 Xact Driver Panel 3rd-Party support link
          Flash Player 3rd-Party support link
          Flip4Mac WMV 3rd-Party support link
          Growl 3rd-Party support link
          Pastebot Sync 3rd-Party support link
          Perian 3rd-Party support link
          TextExpander 3rd-Party support link
Old Applications:
          Transmit:          Version: 4.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          Corel Painter Lite:          Version: 1.0.821 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          SLLauncher:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app
          /Users/[redacted]/Library/Application Support/WebEx Folder/1224
                    convertpdf:          Version: 1.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    Cisco WebEx Meeting Center:          Version: 1207.04.2732.10 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    asannotation2:          Version: 8.25.31.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    atmsupload:          Version: 4.14.29.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
Time Machine:
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 464.96 GB Disk used: 77.79 GB
          Destinations:
                    Media [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 931.19 GB
                    Total number of backups: 173
                    Oldest backup: 2010-10-10 13:20:12 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-04-22 16:27:56 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Adequate
                              Backup size 931.19 GB > (Disk used 77.79 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               5%          WindowServer
               1%          EtreCheck
               1%          Google Chrome
               1%          Activity Monitor
               1%          launchservicesd
Top Processes by Memory:
          156 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          143 MB          mds_stores
          119 MB          WindowServer
          102 MB          Adobe Photoshop Elements
          102 MB          Skype
Virtual Memory Information:
          1.24 GB          Free RAM
          1.56 GB          Active RAM
          678 MB          Inactive RAM
          557 MB          Wired RAM
          579 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

Bridge EXTREMELY sluggish (CS3)

I am running Bridge CS3. I have a sub-directory with 134 JPG images in it and no sub-directories off of it. In addition to most operations being quite sluggish, when I select 'Click to view items in current folder & its sub folders', there is an EXTREME delay on the order of 5 minutes before it displays the 134 images. Am I doing something wrong? I have a very large disk drive, so I have allowed Bridge to generate the largest amount of cache.
Shouldn't things be running faster than this?
I might add that this delay remains once I return to normal view and then go to the 'All Subfolders' view again. It's no faster the second time around.
Thanks, Gary

I think that YOU have the wrong concept of cache. Having been a
programmer for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is indeed intended
to improve performance. Otherwise, why have it? If you can compute
something just as fast on-the-fly, then why store it in a cache file
that has to be read later?
Much of Windows is built around caching disk accesses to improve
performance.
No, my hard disk is not fragmented...It is almost 100% contiguous.
I did have the cache slider set all the way to the right, but that has
been corrected.
I do know that Adobe is a memory hog...Even worse than Micro$oft! But
it will be a while before I can afford a 64-bit Windows Computer.
In the meantime, compacting the cache speeded things up over 100-fold.
Bridge is still sluggish compared to other programs that I use, but I am
just going to have to live with it with my present resources.
Gary

USB connection suddenly extremely slow

As I ususally have manny film, series on my external hard drive connected to my Airport Extreeme, I suddenly got a big supprise when the speed suddenly got extremely slow. Not possible to use it for anything. The internet connection is however perfect.
As it has allways functioned perfectly for me I don´t know what to do. It was about that time I uppdated the Java pack resently submitted by Apple. But I can´t see why this should have aything to do with this.
Has anyone had any simmilar problems, and what is the remedy. I am all blank....

Keep in mind that the very first device you connect will determine the default speed for the entire USB bus. So, if you boot up the MBP, log in, and plug in a USB2 device, then the bus will never operate faster than USB2. You would then need to reboot the computer, and first connect the USB3 device to ensure the bus steps up to USB3 speeds for USB3 devices.
Also, make sure you are using a USB3 compatible cable with any USB3 devices to get max. transfer speeds.
see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5172

Sudden EXTREME slowness, crashing

I was using my Macbook Pro today for just regular stuff, playing some music, when suddenly it slowed down to a really ridiculous speed. I double-clicked on a song in iTunes, it went to the pinwheel and took 15 seconds before the song played. I figured I would restart, so I did and now the computer is literally slower than I could have imagined.
At first reboot it sat at the Apple logo loading screen for a long time, to the point where I turned it off and let it sit for a moment, then turned it back on. For the next five or so off / on cycles it displayed a blank light-blue screen and nothing else, not responding to any kind of input. Holding down the button to get to the boot menu to choose between Windows and Mac didn't work.
Finally I left it for quite a long time and it managed to boot up to the login screen after about 30 minutes of loading. I managed to type in my password (which took awhile, it went to pinwheel for about 10 seconds before recognizing keyboard inputs). Another 10 - 15 minutes before it displayed the desktop and dock, then another 5 minutes before it displayed the top menu.
It continued to run extremely slow, and over the course of the next hour I managed to open up Disk Utility and Activity Monitor. Activity Monitor shows random tasks as "Not Responding", as does Force Quit. Different tasks at different times show up red, including SystemUI, iTunes, and Disk Utility itself.
I attempted to verify the disk, it worked for a moment, displayed a few errors and then stopped with the message "Underlying task failed", or something to that effect. I tried to Verify Disk permissions and it threw a long list back at me before freezing. Over the next 20 minutes I managed to force quit Disk Utility, and now my computer is apparently entirely frozen.
The Windows drive also didn't appear on the desktop, and under Disk Utility my windows partition showed up greyed out and d03 or something like that.
I'm going to try to restart with the install disk and run Disk Repair off of it and see if it will work, but I was hoping someone out there had an idea of what's gone wrong with my MBP before I just wipe the whole thing clean and start over...if I can.
It's a Macbook Pro, one of the first-iteration Macbook Pros that came out a few years ago.
Thanks a bunch.

Thanks for the quick reply. I tried restarting with the install disk, but it failed to repair with the same error. I'm going to have to send it in now anyway because the install disk is now stuck in there. Hopefully (with my luck) it won't spontaneously explode before I can get it to an Apple Store to have them send it back, I guess.
Thanks.

Sudden extremely loud low-pitch buzz lasts for a second - happened randomly

My iMac occasionally would produce a sudden and extremely loud buzz from the speaker which lasts for 1 second or less only. The tone of the buzz is like an electronic distortion, something you would hear if you have a nasty electronic feedback in a digital audio mixer, low - mid range frequency. It is extremely loud I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. It happened very randomly, usually once a month or even less. But for the last 2 weeks I have had 3 episodes of it and 2 of them consecutively. 1st episode happened when I clicked on the delete button while trying to delete a contact from my MSN list. I had iTune opened in the back but not playing anything at that moment. 2nd episode, I had RealPlayer playing in the back, iTune opened but not playing anything, my iPod was connected with the iMac. I was converting a wav file in iTune into mp3, as soon as it was done, the loud buzz happened. Before I could catch my breath, (still had the RealPlayer playing in the back, iTune on but not playing anything), I tried to open a new tab in Safari and as soon as the tab was created, that loud buzz happened again. I tried asking apple genius but they haven't heard of anything like that and they guess it's probably the internal speaker's problem which I doubt. Any suggestion?

In some older iMacs, and others, a power surge could make noise;
and by this 'surge' I also mean some internal power component
could have a problem and supplying occasionally higher power.
Does this computer run warm or hot? Not sure if there is an
audible alert of some kind built into it; but a temperature widget
could be helpful to see how warm it gets. iStat Pro is good.
There may likely be a hardware cause behind this odd noise; so
I suggest you make an external backup of your work and files
just in case something else goes wrong; so you won't lose stuff.
Some kinds of backup include saving what you can to an off-
computer archive (DVD or CD media) to include using a bootable
externally enclosed FireWire hard disk drive; properly prepared,
and use it to make a complete computer drive 'clone' of everything.
A clone utility, such as Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner, is good;
since it gives you some options and also the web page allows
you to get the utility and run it, the product is donationware and
is a good product. Also, in the header of the home page, you can
mouse-over the menu icons and see additional information.
In some older Macs with a loud buzz sound, there were some
significant hardware issues behind it. If your computer no longer
has any AppleCare protection plan left, this may be costly to fix.
Or you may luck out and the problem may be a loose wire, etc.
But to backup the files and stuff (and figure out how, in the case
of making only copies of iTunes libraries or iPhoto libraries) is
about the best immediate advice. The computer probably should
see a real qualified technician; not just five-minute duration 'genius.'
With a known pattern or set of events in which the computer will
make a loud and unnatural noise, a technician should be able to
duplicate it. And take notes to keep a small log of what all you do
when the computer makes this noise; so it may be duplicated in
the presence of a troubleshooting technician.
There may be some other cause of the 'buzz' such as a failing
optical drive or some circuit; and there also is a chance the
hard disk drive may be the source of odd sounds if it is failing.
(How loud are the fans in this computer? - Do they run alot?)
Not sure what else to say; but if the computer contents are
backed up, and the unit goes into the shop, you will at least
have a complete copy (bootable is best, on a FireWire drive)
in the form of a clone; that also could be used to troubleshoot
the computer or be useful in routine home/tech maintenance.
Good luck & happy computing!

Mail gets extremely sluggish

The majority of my work deals with communicating with clients and co-workers via e-Mail and pre-mountain lion I never had any problems with the Mail App. I have many email accounts loaded into Mail app, work and personal emails, for a total of 7 accounts. I always let mail run 24/7 so I am notified immediately upon receiving an email and this is still something I do. The problem I am having is that after Mail is running for more than about 8 hours, it starts getting ridiculously sluggish clicking between emails, clicking between mail accounts or just moving around in mail in general. I click and it takes about 5-10 seconds before the action is actually performed. I feel like I am back on a Windows PC and it's extremely disspointing.
Is anyone else having this issue and is there any solutions? Exiting mail completely and re-opening it doesn't seem to solve the issue for too long, it starts normal and quickly becomes sluggish again until I do a reboot.
I'm running a mid-2010 MBP 2.53GHz i5 with 8GB of ram (not original ram, I had apple upgrade it for the cost of an arm and a leg).

It might be worth rebuilding your individual mail folders within Mail.
For each of your seven accounts, select the account, then Mail -> Mailbox -> Rebuild. When you are done, restart Mail and see if the interactive performance has improved. I find that my gmail account, after acquiring a large number of messages and spam, slows the Mail client down until I visit Google and delete that crap.
Also, if you haven't done so in a long while, erase the deleted messages in all accounts: Mail -> Mailbox -> Erase Deleted Items -> In All Accounts...
Also, under Mail -> Preferences -> General, how often are you checking for new email? Mine is set to every 15 minutes. If you have this set to 1 minute, you will have 7 mail threads checking your accounts every minute which may slow you down.
Hope this helps.

Windows Server 2012 HyperV VMs becoming extremely sluggish and slow

I have recently set up a new system for a client consisting of a single Dell T320 server with Xeon E5-2350 2.2GHz 6 core cPU and 32GB of RAM. Windows Server 2012 Standard is installed on the bare metal, and runs only the HyperV role. It is not
joined to any domains.
It hosts two VMs, one a Windows Server 2012 Standard VM containing the RDS related roles acting as remote desktop server, with 10GB RAM allocated and 3 cores. Only 5 people use the terminal server concurrently.
The second VM is a Windows Server 2008 R2 based primary domain controller, with 16GB of RAM allocated and 3 cores. It runs the AD role, as well as Exchange and GFI MailEssentials 2012. Avira is also installed on this VM.
The problem is that the system will function properly for 3-4 days, then suddenly it goes into a state where a multitude of applications would start consuming inordinate amount of CPU time, and become very, very slow. Almost like the hypervisor goes
into a software emulation mode where everything runs like molasses. This affects BOTH VMs equally. For example, Exchange and GFI on the Windows 2008 R2 VM together consume about 25% CPU, most of it is spent in kernel CPU time. At the same
time, in the other Windows Server 2012 VM, svchost, Taskmgr, WMIPrvSE, LogonUI, Explorer, sqlservr, wsmprovhost etc. will all consume a total of about 70% CPU time, this time 99% of this is user time, not kernel time. When one user starts any application,
be that internet explorer, firefox or TaxPrep, the CPU spikes up to 100%.
All while nobody is using the system, the system is idle and no mails are flowing in or out of the system. A reboot of the VMs does not fix anything, even a reboot of the host server does not fix anything. When I yanked out the two power supplies
and performed a hardware diagnostic (which came back 100% OK), it booted up and the slowness was gone for 3 days, until today when it started acting up again like I described above.
One more thing, when the system behaves normally the sunspider javascript benchmark in IE10 takes 316ms to execute (average) on the HyperV host operating system. When the system goes slow like this, I pause the two VMs in HyperV then run sunspider
again, only to be greeted by an average time of 5084ms. So this clearly does not only affect the virtual machines but the host operating system as well. My gut still tells me the hypervisor is getting messed up somehow.
Any ideas? This is a major problem and I have no idea what is causing it.

We have had the EXACT same thing happen with a Dell T320 on two separate servers. The first one was running SQL Server 2008 with nothing else funny going on. It ran fine for a month or so, then it developed this slowness issue. We finally installed SQL on
a loaner box (without Hyper-V) and it worked fine. We brought the T320 back to our shop and tested the hell out of it with Dell's assistance and it was NTF. Took it back onsite and moved an SBS 2011 VM over to it. After a few days, it ground to a halt. CPU
utilization was 100%. I started shedding services, killing Exchange, Sharepoint, etc. Even stripped to the essentials, the CPU was still up in the 60-70% range.
I put a T310 out onsite and downed the guest SBS vm. I copied the HUGE vhd over to the T310 (running Server 2008r2 with the Hyper-V role) and it ran perfectly. CPU at about 2-4%, spiking to 15% occasionally.
We finally concocted a story that the USB controller was bad, so they replaced the motherboard (not the CPUs) and it all seems to be working OK now after we sunk at least 100 man-hours into the problem.
Our second one is a similar setup. T320, Server 2012, Hyper-V role, SBS 2011 Standard and a couple of member servers running basic apps. No one can find any problem and everyone acts like this is something new, although my posting comes one year after Tim's
original posting.
MCP SBSC

Suddenly Extremely Sluggish

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for