My Mac is sick, Any suggestions?

jdub

jdub

Scrambler
Location
Provo, Utah.
This is the first time in 4 years that my MacBook has had any issue. The thing is that everything works but is super slow with the internet. Once inside a website I can rifle through pages fast but it takes almost a minute to load RME. I have done everything that I can think of, removed tons of files and movies even pics to see if it was bogged down.

I know there are some Mac geniuses on here and I beg for some help I am lost on this one?

TIA,

Jdub
 
Is it only slow when you are on your home network, or anywhere? What OS are you running (10.4, 10.5, 10.6)? What browser are you using? Have you run all of your software updates?

You can check your network settings in 10.5 & 10.6 by going:

Apple Menu>System Preferences>Network
From there highlight the type of interface you are using (Airport, Ethernet) and look to see what the Location is set at (this will be at the top of the window. By default it should be set to Automatic. If it is not, and you don't have some special need to have it set to something else, reset it to Automatic. Often times that will get changed to something by a piece of software and can screw things up.
 
Thanks Stephen, It is set to Automatic and I have run the diagnostic that the Network menu offers and it says that everything is running well. I checked for viruses and no issues. Internet connection is full and working. Can there be a physical malfunction like my hard drive or any other device that may be worn out from 4 years of good use? What would be justifiable reason to take it in to get it serviced. I want to look at everything before it gets dissected and expensive.
 
Oh, and anything like youtube videos are out of the question. It doesn't even have the capacity to start to load. I feel like something is physically broken. Does this seem odd or is it a common occurrence?
 
The other thing I did is finally back up all of my itunes. Could the stress of writing those DVD's caused something to overheat/wear out?
 
Ours was horridly slow.. we Upgraded to Snow leopard, stripped it down, and it runs Damned fast now.. will see if I can get my Fath in law to log in as me, and spit forth what exactly he did.... IF the next post has way different phrasing than I use, and sounds Apple smart, that would be Bob.
 
Again, what browser are you using? What OS are you running? Have you run all of your software updates?

It is highly unlikely that it is a hard drive or viruses (as Macs are not really at much risk to those). In fact, if you are running some sort of anti-virus program, I would highly, highly recommend getting rid of it as these often cause lag with your internet and are completely unneeded for a Mac unless you frequent a lot of Russian porn sites (like Cody).

Try this:

Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility

Select your HD from the left had column, then select the First Aid tab. Click the Repair Disk Permissions button and let it run. It's not a common thing for disk permissions to cause an internet related problem, but its an easy thing to try.
 
Blackdogs "fath in law" ; suggestion 1, run disk utility> repair disk permissions. If this will not go, you will be instructed on running app from install disk. hope that helps
 
Stephen said:
Again, what browser are you using? What OS are you running? Have you run all of your software updates?

It is highly unlikely that it is a hard drive or viruses (as Macs are not really at much risk to those). In fact, if you are running some sort of anti-virus program, I would highly, highly recommend getting rid of it as these often cause lag with your internet and are completely unneeded for a Mac unless you frequent a lot of Russian porn sites (like Cody).

Try this:

Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility

Select your HD from the left had column, then select the First Aid tab. Click the Repair Disk Permissions button and let it run. It's not a common thing for disk permissions to cause an internet related problem, but its an easy thing to try.
Click to expand...
This post is the best one yet. Get rid of any anti-virus programs. I've never found one that doesn't kill OS X...and OS X doesn't need it (for now). Repair disk permissions. You may need to boot off your system disk and repair that way. Keep repairing until it doesn't fix anything. You can also boot off your system disk and run the hardware diagnostics. It'll test everything including your memory. Something else to do, open Activity Monitor and watch everything and see what's going on while it's going slow. You should be able to watch memory usage, network usage, disk usage, cpu usage, etc.

You could easily had a pice of hardware die after 4 years of use. No matter the hardware, life spans are 3-4 years...even though most people refuse to believe that. Beyond that, you can and will start experiencing hardware failure. Also, despite what most fanatics will say, any OS can stand a good reload after a few years of good use. If you haven't reloaded in sometime (or ever) I'd strongly recommend it. Backup your files and do a good clean install.

How much space do you have left on your drive? Right-Click on your hard drive and choose Get Info and see what it says you have available. OS X is horrible when you get down below ~10% of your disk space free. It needs extra space for swap and OS X defrags anytime you do anything that's 20mb or larger. So it needs the extra space. If you want to borrow it, I have a copy of Disk Warrior. It does the same thing as the Disk Utility but a bit better.
 
jdub said:
How do you do this? I never have done it.
Click to expand...
Put in your system disk (disk 1 if you have two discs) reboot and while it's booting up hold in the "C" key. If you want to run the diagnostics from the disk, hold the "D" key while it's booting up.
 
I have hard wired it to the internet and had no change.

I also did the disc utility and it seemed to say it was repaired.

It shows:

Macintosh HD

74.5 GB toshiba MK80

I ran repair disc permissions on both.

Why two?
 
I'm so sorry Supergper I really appreciate the help I am frantic with the semester starting, I am unsure what the system disk is.

Is it one that came with the computer?
 
Yeah, it's the CD that came with the computer. Generally you'll have two discs, disc one is the OS, system tools, hardware test, etc. Disc two is what you have to put in to load the extras (iLife, Developer tools, etc).
 
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