Why is my refurb MBP 2011 so slow in comparison to an identical model?

Question

Hello dear community.
I purchased my macbook pro early 2011 from the refurb store about four months ago.
When I use a browser and a few (1 - 3) regular programs (office, itunes, acrobat) along the side the OS sometimes starts lagging.
At first I was using chrome and as soon as I had it running for a while or with more than a few tabs i found it was getting really slow and i got the loading ball on the regular. I felt this couldn't really be it as the macbook should be running like a charm. I googled issues and found that in some cases chrome might be bugged and using up all the ram. Reluctantly I switched to Firefox & Safari which I both find to be lesser browsers in terms of usability. As it turns out this doesn't really solve the problem. Running aperture or final cut is still a pain and still takes so much longer than I would think.
2 weeks ago I used a friends identical macbook pro 2011 and it runs a lot smoother than mine.
Could this be related to the refurb purchase or did I do something wrong? My startup is not clogged, I always keep everything clean & tidy, I use progs such as clean my mac etc. pp.
Would love to get some advice on this
thx ahead!

Answer 1

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
Third-party system modifications are a common cause of usability problems. By a “system modification,” I mean software that affects the operation of other software -- potentially for the worse. The following procedure will help identify which such modifications you've installed. Don’t be alarmed by the complexity of these instructions -- they’re easy to carry out and won’t change anything on your Mac.
These steps are to be taken while booted in “normal” mode, not in safe mode. If you’re now running in safe mode, reboot as usual before continuing.
Below are several lines of text in monospaced type, which are UNIX shell commands. They’re harmless, but they must be entered exactly as given in order to work. If you have doubts about the safety of running these commands, search this site for other discussions in which they’ve been used without any report of ill effects.
Some of the commands will line-wrap or scroll in your browser, but each one is really just a single line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, and you can then either copy or drag it. The headings “Step 1” and so on are not part of the commands.
Note: If you have more than one user account, Step 2 must be taken as an administrator. Ordinarily that would be the user created automatically when you booted the system for the first time. The other steps should be taken as the user who has the problem, if different. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this paragraph doesn’t apply.
To begin, launch the Terminal application; e.g., by entering the first few letters of its name in a Spotlight search. 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” (without the quotes) and press return. You should then get a new line ending in a dollar sign.
Step 1
Copy or drag -- do not type -- the line below into the Terminal window, then press return:
kextstat -kl | awk '!/com\.apple/ {print $6 $7}'
Post the lines of output (if any) that appear below what you just entered (the text, please, not a screenshot.)
Step 2
Repeat with this line:
sudo launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple/ {print $3}'
This time, you'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. You don't need to post the warning.
Step 3
launchctl list | sed 1d | awk '!/0x|com\.apple/ {print $3}'
Step 4
ls -1A /e*/mach* {,/}L*/{Ad,Compon,Ex,Fram,In,Keyb,La,Mail/Bu,P*P,Priv,Qu,Scripti,Servi,Sta}* L*/Fonts 2> /dev/null
Important: If you synchronize with a MobileMe account, your me.com email address may appear in the output of the above command. If so, change it to something like “[email protected]” before posting.
Step 5
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get the name of every login item'
Remember, steps 1-5 are all drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste, whichever you prefer -- no typing, except your password.
You can then quit Terminal.