[Palmnuts]

I need some advice and given there seems to be a lot of technical knowledge on here, I thought this would be a good place to start before I either launch my Macbook through the TV or go and pay someone in an Apple store to sort it out!

The machine is a 13" Macbook Pro and is just a few months old and my problems started when I upgraded the operating system to Lion....obviously this was a horrendous mistake and I wish I hadn't done it but, what's done is done and I have to live with it

What happens now is that everything seems slower than it was....I loved my Macbook before for all it's cool design, neat gestures and it's mega speed - you never had to wait for anything after clicking a button. Now though, I click a button and I get the stupid spinning wheel (sometimes for like 15-20 seconds) whilst it works out what it wants to do. It's not all the time but is worse when a few apps are running and in particular, it just can't seem to cope with pictures in Aperture which slows it right down to the point where I sometimes have to do a hard shut-down (after watching the spinning wheel for minutes rather than seconds).

Now, I'm no expert and the forums are a bit too technical for me so is there anything I should firstly look at to improve the performance or is this just how Lion is? If so, can I go back to Snow Leopard easily and if so, how? I don't really want to do this as Lion does have some neat features like the multiple desktops which I do use.

The thing is, I have mostly everything on my Macbook (rather foolishly, I accept)....all my pictures, music, business docs etc etc. This means to do a full reinstall I really need to buy an external hard drive and back the thing up....right? Indeed, would a reinstall fix the problem?

Annoyingly, I'm sat here now and it's working fine but the minute I ask it to do a few things at once (such as browse the web at the same time as sending an email with 8mb of attachments through outlook....like I did a few mins ago), up comes the spinning wheel ad it slows right down. Aperature is constantly need ing to be rebuilt so I'm sure that program has something to do with it (but that has ALL my photo's on it and it never had problems before Lion )

Please try and avoid the temptation to say 'should've bought a windows machine'....that won't help and will likely result in me putting a big crack in the screen! I realise my description of the problem is a bit vague but that's really a consequence of my ignorance of these thing.....so if theres anything you need to know to help me out, just ask! Anything useful advice would be much appreciated

[blazex4]

I have a '09 Macbook Pro. Upgrading to Lion from Snow Leopard was a mistake at first but now I like it, mainly because my machine is not slow anymore. My first problem was when my mac didn't want to boot up after several attempts. But I did put it to "Safe Mode", which fixed my problem.

The main solution that I can think of that will make a difference is to "Repair Disk Permissions". It can be found on Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility. Click Verify Disk Partition then when it's finished, click Repair Disk Partition.

Here is an article from a trusty source if you do want to go back to Snow Leopard.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389334,00.asp

BTW, my computer didn't get back to normal after a week.

[briers]

Try resetting the disk permissions

Sometimes when you upgrade, your home folder can mess up

Try:

cmd + spacebar
type disk utility
click on the Hard Disk Drive on left
click repair disk permissions

wait then reboot


You could also try resetting the SMC (System management controller)
From apple site:
1) Shut down the computer.
2) Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
3) On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
4) Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5) Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

If you have anti-virus try disabling that too.

These are pretty simple quick things to try. If it doesn't solve the problem a re-install should at last resort. What you explained isn't normal lion behaviour. It can get slightly laggy with 2GB ram but shouldn't if you just look at pictures, email and web. Should be absolutely fine if you have 4GB which i think all 2011 MBP's have anyway.

But before that, i would back it all up with time machine, you will need an external disk. About £50-£70.

[Chadd]

is your hard drive filled to capacity? If it is it might make your comp slow. As others have said try repairing your disk permissions.

My early 2011 13 MBP came with 4 gig of memory and 320 gig HD. I bought two 4 gig memory cards from new egg for $25 so I have 8 gig now and its not much faster. I would spend money on an external HD and buy a SSD HD if I wanted my machine as fast as possible.

[MickyD'bo]

Get in that stunning Jag of yours with said Macbook in hand. Blast over to Apple store (meadow hall will be your closest)?. Walk in straight up to the genius bar and hand it over. Watch them work their magic. Walk out all sorted, smug, with no-cost. Think to yourself how incredible you are in being a 'mac' and that you would be spooning a tech guy's eyes out right now if you had a pc laptop and were trying that at BC World.

Climb back in the Jag and cruise home.

Job done.

Thank you.

[quattrogmbh]

Open the HDD folder on the desktop, browse to Applications/Utilities/Activity monitor

Look to see what is consuming resources when the system slows down.

[scooba0010]

Hi Andrew,

Do you have a Apple store any where close to you, If you do take it in and one off there tech guys will go through it with you.

I also have a Macbook Pro, it is amazing ,Please dont smash it up just give it to me for my niece she will be your best friend for ever.

You will sort it and you will be happy try some off the above then failing that take it in the apple store.The store local to Me are fabulous and will spend as long as it takes to sort it so you leave Happy.

[Desmondo]

My first thing to check would be the amount of RAM you've got and how much free hard drive spae there is. You can check your RAM by clicking on the Apple logo top left and choosing About this Mac and then choosing More Info. In there you will see memory and you can see how much RAM there is.

For hard drive space, ctrl+left click on the hard drive logo on your desktop and choose Get Info and see how much free space there is.

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by Palmnuts

I need some advice and given there seems to be a lot of technical knowledge on here, I thought this would be a good place to start before I either launch my Macbook through the TV or go and pay someone in an Apple store to sort it out!

The machine is a 13" Macbook Pro and is just a few months old and my problems started when I upgraded the operating system to Lion....obviously this was a horrendous mistake and I wish I hadn't done it but, what's done is done and I have to live with it

What happens now is that everything seems slower than it was....I loved my Macbook before for all it's cool design, neat gestures and it's mega speed - you never had to wait for anything after clicking a button. Now though, I click a button and I get the stupid spinning wheel (sometimes for like 15-20 seconds) whilst it works out what it wants to do. It's not all the time but is worse when a few apps are running and in particular, it just can't seem to cope with pictures in Aperture which slows it right down to the point where I sometimes have to do a hard shut-down (after watching the spinning wheel for minutes rather than seconds).

Now, I'm no expert and the forums are a bit too technical for me so is there anything I should firstly look at to improve the performance or is this just how Lion is? If so, can I go back to Snow Leopard easily and if so, how? I don't really want to do this as Lion does have some neat features like the multiple desktops which I do use.

The thing is, I have mostly everything on my Macbook (rather foolishly, I accept)....all my pictures, music, business docs etc etc. This means to do a full reinstall I really need to buy an external hard drive and back the thing up....right? Indeed, would a reinstall fix the problem?

Annoyingly, I'm sat here now and it's working fine but the minute I ask it to do a few things at once (such as browse the web at the same time as sending an email with 8mb of attachments through outlook....like I did a few mins ago), up comes the spinning wheel ad it slows right down. Aperature is constantly need ing to be rebuilt so I'm sure that program has something to do with it (but that has ALL my photo's on it and it never had problems before Lion )

Please try and avoid the temptation to say 'should've bought a windows machine'....that won't help and will likely result in me putting a big crack in the screen! I realise my description of the problem is a bit vague but that's really a consequence of my ignorance of these thing.....so if theres anything you need to know to help me out, just ask! Anything useful advice would be much appreciated

First tongue in cheek response is simply this. Buy a real computer.

Now then..

Originally Posted by briers

Try resetting the disk permissions

Sometimes when you upgrade, your home folder can mess up

Try:

cmd + spacebar
type disk utility
click on the Hard Disk Drive on left
click repair disk permissions

wait then reboot


You could also try resetting the SMC (System management controller)
From apple site:
1) Shut down the computer.
2) Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
3) On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
4) Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
5) Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

If you have anti-virus try disabling that too.

These are pretty simple quick things to try. If it doesn't solve the problem a re-install should at last resort. What you explained isn't normal lion behaviour. It can get slightly laggy with 2GB ram but shouldn't if you just look at pictures, email and web. Should be absolutely fine if you have 4GB which i think all 2011 MBP's have anyway.

But before that, i would back it all up with time machine, you will need an external disk. About £50-£70.

Will almost certainly fix it. Good tips.

Originally Posted by Chadd

is your hard drive filled to capacity? If it is it might make your comp slow. As others have said try repairing your disk permissions.

My early 2011 13 MBP came with 4 gig of memory and 320 gig HD. I bought two 4 gig memory cards from new egg for $25 so I have 8 gig now and its not much faster. I would spend money on an external HD and buy a SSD HD if I wanted my machine as fast as possible.

Depends on if it's 32/64 bit ? I imagine 64: But if it was a 32 bit OS then that extra memory will make not one jot of difference. That said, SSD is clearly the best single change you can make for speed of system. Without a doubt.

Originally Posted by Desmondo

My first thing to check would be the amount of RAM you've got and how much free hard drive spae there is. You can check your RAM by clicking on the Apple logo top left and choosing About this Mac and then choosing More Info. In there you will see memory and you can see how much RAM there is.

For hard drive space, ctrl+left click on the hard drive logo on your desktop and choose Get Info and see how much free space there is.

Neither of which will make ANY difference to the fact it was quick, a single piece of software was installed: And now it isn't. It would have been slow before if it was just a system limitation


And finally:

Originally Posted by dobbo9

Get in that stunning Jag of yours with said Macbook in hand. Blast over to Apple store (meadow hall will be your closest)?. Walk in straight up to the genius bar and hand it over. Watch them work their magic. Walk out all sorted, smug, with no-cost. Think to yourself how incredible you are in being a 'mac' and that you would be spooning a tech guy's eyes out right now if you had a pc laptop and were trying that at BC World.

Climb back in the Jag and cruise home.

Job done.

Thank you.

This. Topic resolved. You've paid a fortune for a mac and one of the reasons for that is the service that comes with it. Take it, put it on their desk and wait until they fix it. Free of charge. Insist on the free of charge bit.

Easy.

[rich1068]

So is Lion becoming Apple's Vista then? (And when I say Vista I mean at release not after SP1 when in fact it was really rather good.)

[Jon D]

As others have said, if 'Repair Permissions' hasn't worked, a session at the Genius Bar will almost certainly fix the problem for you. However, you have to book your slot and that can very easily be done on-line here: http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/geniusbar/

[peterg1965]

I love Macs and am a real convert. The OS Lion download on my son's 27" iMac appears to have been seamless. My only gripe is that the srcolling with the mouse appears to have changed directions!

Glad I didn't have any snags cos taking a 27" desktop to the genius bar would be tricky!

Hang on in there Andrew, it will get sorted and it is definitely worth it.

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by Palmnuts

The thing is, I have mostly everything on my Macbook (rather foolishly, I accept)....all my pictures, music, business docs etc etc. This means to do a full reinstall I really need to buy an external hard drive and back the thing up....right? Indeed, would a reinstall fix the problem?

External hard drives are very cheap and if you set-up 'time machine' in 'system preferences', it will back-up your entire system automatically, whenever it's connected to your computer.
Alternatively, Apple makes the Time Capsule which does it wirelessly.

[NotNormal]

Originally Posted by peterg1965

I love Macs and am a real convert. The OS Lion download on my son's 27" iMac appears to have been seamless. My only gripe is that the srcolling with the mouse appears to have changed directions!

Glad I didn't have any snags cos taking a 27" desktop to the genius bar would be tricky!

Hang on in there Andrew, it will get sorted and it is definitely worth it.

You can change that back in the setting menu
I did it on my MBP and on my magic mouse

[Desmondo]

Originally Posted by MEGA

Neither of which will make ANY difference to the fact it was quick, a single piece of software was installed: And now it isn't. It would have been slow before if it was just a system limitation

Unless that software now takes up a lot more hard drive space that was being used as virtual memory. Less space available and the system starts to struggle and grinds to a halt.

I'm not saying that IS the answer, but with a little more info it could be ruled out or it could point to the problem.

[Palmnuts]

Wow, thanks for the tips chaps....I will try what Briers has been suggested as that seems to have got the mega-royal approval.

I can't imagine it's my hard drive or memory....it's a 4gb machine with a 320gb hard drive and 186gb (58%) free (so the machine is telling me).

If that fails then I'll book it in for Genius bar session at my local Apple store (in Leicester....some way closer to me than Sheffield lol!)

[Jon D]

Loads more help here: https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

[Desmondo]

Originally Posted by Palmnuts

it's a 4gb machine with a 320gb hard drive and 186gb (58%) free (so the machine is telling me)

Yep, nothing to do with that then. Worth checking though to at least rule out some of the simpler solutions.

[mobileadam]

I had a similar experience when first upgrading (seems my machine has the same spec as yours). It seems after a few of the updates that have been pushed down has largely sorted out my problems. Although it will choke on FCP and iPhoto sometimes.

[NotNormal]

I run a 13" MacBook pro, it's only upgrade being from 4gb to 8gb by myself, which I upgraded to after a week of ownership
I regularly check the performance - to keep it tip top I use Onyx, which is a free download, and a useful tool
Frequent disc permissions repair sessions are handy too

My MBP is a 2009 model, 2.57GHz duo core two, 250gb and it performs flawlessly running Lion

[evil_scooby]

Why does changing file permissions make it run faster?

I have 12GB of RAM in my iMac and its running a lot slower than my MBP with 4GB RAM these days.

Going to try the file permissions and this Onyx software you mentioned and see if it makes a difference.

[rs939]

I had the same issue with the swap from SL to Lion, I am running the 15' macpro with 500 ssd HD and 8 gig of ram.

I did end up doing a complete clean reinstall rather than the update and it fixed it, The permissions thing still makes me wonder why this works but it does so I am happy.