Extremely slow MacBook Pro.
January 31, 2018 9:55 AM Subscribe
I'm troubleshooting an old but previously insanely reliable A1278 MacBook Pro. I'm getting massive CPU load even with a factory default OS restore while offline.
I've tried resetting the PRAM and SMC. Disk health check looks ok. Even after a factory default reset to Snow Leopard it's still dealing with massive 50-70% CPU load in system, not user.
One known hardware issue is the battery is flat dead and needs replacing.
SMC resets don't change charger light status, either.
I've tried resetting the PRAM and SMC. Disk health check looks ok. Even after a factory default reset to Snow Leopard it's still dealing with massive 50-70% CPU load in system, not user.
One known hardware issue is the battery is flat dead and needs replacing.
SMC resets don't change charger light status, either.
Weird things can happen with a dead battery. A new battery is like 40 bucks on amazon, I would start there
posted by rockindata at 11:03 AM on January 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 11:03 AM on January 31, 2018 [2 favorites]
Given the age of your Macbook Pro, I'd replace both the battery and migrate to a new hard drive/SSD. They're similarly simple swaps, and that kind of grinding to a halt sounds like it could be either/both.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 11:16 AM on January 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 11:16 AM on January 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
In the Applications/Utilities folder you'll find Activty Monitor. Open that application and you should see a window called Activity Monitor. (If you don't, choose Activity Monitor from the View menu.)
The default is to only show some of the processes. Choose All Processes from the View menu. Click on the column heading marked "% CPU". That should sort by reverse order, i.e. most busy processes at the top. If it doesn't repeat the same click.
The top processes are using your CPU load. You may see Activity Monitor itself at first, but if you leave the system alone for a bit, it will calm down.
As an example of something which could be keeping your machine busy, there are bitcoin miners which start up several extra processes called "firefox". (Not "FireFox" which is the legitimate browser.) I get these on certain bogus websites. If you see such processes taking up your CPU, you can click on the line for that process, and then click the circle/X button in the top left corner of that window to force that process to quit.
Also, download MalwareBytes (a free utility) and run it to ensure you don't have any malware.
posted by blob at 12:07 PM on January 31, 2018
The default is to only show some of the processes. Choose All Processes from the View menu. Click on the column heading marked "% CPU". That should sort by reverse order, i.e. most busy processes at the top. If it doesn't repeat the same click.
The top processes are using your CPU load. You may see Activity Monitor itself at first, but if you leave the system alone for a bit, it will calm down.
As an example of something which could be keeping your machine busy, there are bitcoin miners which start up several extra processes called "firefox". (Not "FireFox" which is the legitimate browser.) I get these on certain bogus websites. If you see such processes taking up your CPU, you can click on the line for that process, and then click the circle/X button in the top left corner of that window to force that process to quit.
Also, download MalwareBytes (a free utility) and run it to ensure you don't have any malware.
posted by blob at 12:07 PM on January 31, 2018
The current OS does an insane amount of work in the background after importing photos. It makes my (much faster) Mac grind almost to a halt.
posted by w0mbat at 12:26 PM on January 31, 2018
posted by w0mbat at 12:26 PM on January 31, 2018
Response by poster: Yeah, this is happening with the default Snow Leopard 10.6.6 DVD install, which seems to give me temporary basic performance stability after an SMC reset. And I wish I could get Firefox or Opera installed or even import photos.
High Sierra was entirely unusable.
Trying to apply the current system patch for 10.6.6 apparently causes it to hang and never finish updating.
I'd love to throw a new battery and SSD in it but it's not in my very limited budget. Battery is eventually doable though.
And yeah, at this point I'm guessing the ancient battery is making the SMC unhappy.
posted by loquacious at 1:23 PM on January 31, 2018
High Sierra was entirely unusable.
Trying to apply the current system patch for 10.6.6 apparently causes it to hang and never finish updating.
I'd love to throw a new battery and SSD in it but it's not in my very limited budget. Battery is eventually doable though.
And yeah, at this point I'm guessing the ancient battery is making the SMC unhappy.
posted by loquacious at 1:23 PM on January 31, 2018
And I wish I could get Firefox or Opera installed...
Have you rummaged through this directory? I can't recall which versions worked with Snow Leopard.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:36 PM on January 31, 2018
Have you rummaged through this directory? I can't recall which versions worked with Snow Leopard.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:36 PM on January 31, 2018
I've seen dead/broken batteries do this, but also it can happen from overheating.
Open it up and get the dust out. The high CPU loads may actually be the system slowing down the CPU to keep it cool.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 2:36 PM on January 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Open it up and get the dust out. The high CPU loads may actually be the system slowing down the CPU to keep it cool.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 2:36 PM on January 31, 2018 [1 favorite]
Have you tried checking the CPU load when booted into single user mode? Reboot and hold down Command-S. You'll boot into a terminal instead of the GUI. Type "top" to get a live readout of CPU usage.
posted by nathan_teske at 3:49 PM on January 31, 2018
posted by nathan_teske at 3:49 PM on January 31, 2018
If the battery is truly dead remove it and just run from the mains. I've seen third party batteries for about US $35 on amazon.
"top -o CPU" will sort the top output so that the busy processes are shown first.
posted by blob at 8:57 PM on January 31, 2018
"top -o CPU" will sort the top output so that the busy processes are shown first.
posted by blob at 8:57 PM on January 31, 2018
Response by poster: Project status:
Keep in mind these problems are happening on factory default original DVD installs of Snow Leopard, the shipped and tested OSX version for this machine.
CPU/process list inspections are normal, with wildly varying reported CPU loads depending on the boot. Doing SMC/PRAM resets seem to stablize it slightly for one boot cycle.
I am pretty sure it's the battery and whatever funky Apple engineering is going on with the SMC and the battery.
Internal battery requires consarned Y-security bit hidden behind some perfectly lovely and over-machined Phillip's screws on the main panel. And a very ominous DO NOT REMOVE BATTERY warning label. Which will be ignored. I think there's one of those stupid bits around here somewhere, and if not I'll make one.
(Oh, Apple, what happened to you? Who hurt you? Was it Franklin Computing?)
posted by loquacious at 10:44 AM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Keep in mind these problems are happening on factory default original DVD installs of Snow Leopard, the shipped and tested OSX version for this machine.
CPU/process list inspections are normal, with wildly varying reported CPU loads depending on the boot. Doing SMC/PRAM resets seem to stablize it slightly for one boot cycle.
I am pretty sure it's the battery and whatever funky Apple engineering is going on with the SMC and the battery.
Internal battery requires consarned Y-security bit hidden behind some perfectly lovely and over-machined Phillip's screws on the main panel. And a very ominous DO NOT REMOVE BATTERY warning label. Which will be ignored. I think there's one of those stupid bits around here somewhere, and if not I'll make one.
(Oh, Apple, what happened to you? Who hurt you? Was it Franklin Computing?)
posted by loquacious at 10:44 AM on February 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by fedward at 10:35 AM on January 31, 2018 [1 favorite]