My MacBookPro is coming up to 5 years old, it has definitely seen better days, so much so that I decided that a complete reinstall was in order.

So, I’ve just completely reinstalled Snow Leopard, run all the updates, installed Firefox and that’s about it so far. But I’ve just run Geekbench again on it now, and it’s no quicker.

My computer is a 2006/7 2.16GHz Core2Duo with 3Gig of RAM and a 320Gig 7200rpm WD Black HD. Mactracker says the average geekbench score for a machine like mine is approx 2700, I ran geekbench before I reinstalled and got just over 1400. After the reinstall, still just over 1400!

Why is that? This is a complete clean reinstall. Has my processor lost 50% of its computing power over the last 5 years somehow? I know it’s got pretty hot a number of times, but can it really do that?

Hmm, it’s usually when people let the HD get too full, but if you’ve done a fresh reinstall it can’t be I suppose.

Could be the CPU throttling itself as its getting too hot. This could be because the case is full of crud. Possibly take the case apart and blast it with compressed air to shift any dust/fluff, particularly around the fans and heatsinks.

Hmm, it’s usually when people let the HD get too full, but if you’ve done a fresh reinstall it can’t be I suppose.

Yeah, but it’s got a 320Gig drive that never got over 160Gig full, even before the reinstall… Odd!

Could be the CPU throttling itself as its getting too hot. This could be because the case is full of crud. Possibly take the case apart and blast it with compressed air to shift any dust/fluff, particularly around the fans and heatsinks.

It definitely used to get pretty hot, quite often, and the fans would whirr away. But now I’ve reinstalled, it’s not getting warm at all, but there’s just no performance really! Do processors degrade over time?

curious, just ran geekbench on my Mid 2009 Macbook Pro, according to there list i should have 3186, i have 3082, and that was running Chrome whilst doing the test. On the basis that the computer gets used alot i find it odd i have lost so little and you have lost alot.

Thinking, what is the state of your hard-drive, they do wear out? would that explain the numbers?

Not quite sure exactly what geekbench measures, but here’s my understanding:

CPUs dont degrade, they might completely break but the chip itself wont degrade as such. The problem you’re having might be dust, fluff etc stuck in the case which stops the heat getting out. The CPU then turns itself down (reduces it’s clock speed) in order to prevent damage. A related issue is that you might have a damaged temperature sensor that is causing the CPU throttling.

Alternatively, a damaged hard disk is also a pretty good candidate. These are mechanical devices which get damaged, and also magnetic which degrades over time. A new HDD would probably get you a decent amount of speed even if its not the problem (I would recommend a solid-state SDD, expensive but really quick). You should be able to check this with some kind of disk diagnosis tool which will tell you how many damaged sectors there are on the disk.

Alternatively, just buy a new one. I hammer my laptops every day and they rarely last more than 2 or 3 years. You would be amazed by the speed of even a new macbook air, although they are expensive.

Thinking, what is the state of your hard-drive, they do wear out? would that explain the numbers?

Erm, well the HD is probably the newest part, got replaced about 3 years ago as the original 120 wasn’t big enough any more. How can I tell if it’s shafted anyway? I’ve just verified it and it reported all was fine.

choron, whilst what you say makes sense, sadly I’ve got no funds to speak of to either buy a new machine (even with student discount) or a large enough SSD. I’d need to be absolutely sure that the machine was fine otherwise if I bought a new HD, and then I’d still need a minimum of a 256GB SSD which would cost a small fortune. The machine also needs a new keyboard, and a new battery too, I’m just trying to resurrect it a bit to actually take it into uni and use it for running Logic when on the move. I’ve got a powerful Hackintosh Tower at home which does me really well, but I could do with my laptop back in good health for convenience factor.

Maybe I should just sell it as working, but for spares/repair on ebay as it runs ok, just not that fast and needing a new keyboard and battery. Even then though, I’d need about another £600 to afford a new MacBookPro base model!

Could be the HD; I had my Mac slow right down and behave erratically, then it woon’t start up. Turned out to be a failing HD. Another one went just a few days later (lucky I had four in there…). Computer went really slow, without any indication as to why. removing the affected HD sorted everything out.

The same model HD went in my PC about a week later. Same brand and model. Weird….

Had very high temps in my Mac couple of weeks ago; opened it up and hoovered out 5 years worth of fluff. 😮 Was clogging the cooling vanes for the CPU radiator. Temps had bin slowly climbing, hot weather din’t help. A proper hoover out has helped things a lot. Temps don’t get nearly as high even when using CPU intensive stuff like video encoding and that.

Had a monitor do weird things and seem to shut down randomly, after being on for a while. Was only happening on particularly hot days/nights. Heat is not something electronic stuff likes.

+1 for opening up the Mac and checking the cooling fan/vanes/vents.

Disk utility>repair disk
then disk utility>repair permissions
also, check to see if the hdd you have installed is actually the startup disk! i switch between a lion on ext hdd and snow leopard internal hdd. I forgot to reselect the SL disk one time and it took a minute to boot(an age!)

As part of the reinstall did you let OS X restore all your data and preferences from a back or Time Machine? If so, whatever caused it to slow down originally could still be slowing it down.

Also, try creating a new user account and logging on as that user then run your benchmarks. This will at least prove whether the issue is profile dependent.

Check firefox pluggins aren’t using all the memory resources (spotlight – activity monitor) – I’ve ditched firefox after i found it using 1.3Gb – its a known issue on the web that firefox has issues with memory leak.

I’ve switched to google Chrome and it make the MacBook like a whole new machine.

Even when i didnt have active firefox sessions but the firefox process were there it was causing problems.

Oh come on, can I just be the first to say, get a W7 PC 😉

As above, if you had to make a decision on the information presented, you’d suspect either overheating or a HD problem. Make sure your data’s backed up!

applejack.
download it and run it.
this usually cures any non hardware problems.
keep the hd less than 75% full.

How can I tell if it’s shafted anyway?

by using smart reporter

Open up console and take a look at the system log, see if there is owt there.
Open a terminal and run ‘top -Fn 5 -u 10’ to see what the top processes are and how much CPU they are using.
Activity monitor, see how much memory is being used.

Threaten the machine with a copy of windows, see if it scares it into working faster 😀

EDIT: You should have had a diagnostics disk with your machine. Boot into that and run them.

My MB behaved in a similar way just before the HD died. New HD and back to normal service.

It’s all in your head, Macs never go wrong.

Disk utility>repair disk
then disk utility>repair permissions

Had already done

As part of the reinstall did you let OS X restore all your data and preferences from a back or Time Machine? If so, whatever caused it to slow down originally could still be slowing it down.

No, no data put back on it yet. So far, just a fresh clean install, that’s it, I wanted to eliminate any issues that might be cause by any data on the drive already.

Also, try creating a new user account and logging on as that user then run your benchmarks. This will at least prove whether the issue is profile dependent.

It’s not profile dependent, it’s 100% the hardware. I did a complete fresh install, wiped all everything off the HD (after backing it up to an external HD) and reinstalled Snow Leopard afresh, then let it do all the updates it needed to. Then installed geekbench, ran it, and got the same lowly scores.

applejack.
download it and run it.
this usually cures any non hardware problems.
keep the hd less than 75% full.

Downloaded it, ran it, it did its thing. It’s made no difference.

HD has always been less than 75% full, currently there’s only about 10Gig taken up of a 320Gig HD!

by using smart reporter

Smart Reporter tells me everything is OK 😕

Open up console and take a look at the system log, see if there is owt there.

Absolutely f***ing tonnes, but what precisely am I looking for? 🙁

Activity monitor, see how much memory is being used.

Not very much, got 3GB in the machine, OSX only needs about 512MB to run a clean install.

Threaten the machine with a copy of windows, see if it scares it into working faster

It didn’t respond, not even a murmur. I think it’s totally unfazable!

You should have had a diagnostics disk with your machine. Boot into that and run them.

Will they be on the Snow Leopard install disc I’ve also got (this machine came with Tiger), only I’ve lose the original discs.

My MB behaved in a similar way just before the HD died. New HD and back to normal service.

Don’t have a spare HD, and reluctant to throw more money at it in case it’s to no avail.

It’s all in your head, Macs never go wrong.

Errrr, the OS is very nice, but sadly just like all computers, they’re let down by 3rd party manufacturers poor quality parts all too often. And as you’ll know, in a Windows based machine, they’re almost always easier to fix/replace.

Hmm, yeah, agree that a hard disk problem might be the issue here.

My MBP with a 2.4ghz core2duo, 2GB of ram and a 5400rmp HDD (so should be similar to yours, if not slower) manages 3200ish on geekbench.

Fortunately, the hard disk is easy and cheap to replace 🙂

Either that or some dodgy RAM…

Hmm, yeah, agree that a hard disk problem might be the issue here.

Everything tells me the HD is fine. So how can it still be at fault?

Fortunately, the hard disk is easy and cheap to replace

Errr, on newer machines it’s easy yeah, not on my older MBP…

Either that or some dodgy RAM…

It’s Crucial and matched specs aside from one is 1Gb and the other is 2GB.

It’s Crucial and matched specs aside from one is 1Gb and the other is 2GB.

Do you not need to use matched pairs?

A quick google suggests that only 2GB is officially supported, and you need to use 2x2GB modules to use 3GB properly.

glenh, will try it with just 1Gb stick of RAM in tomorrow, as it came from the factory, see what I get.

Was told that it handles 3Gb of RAM fine though, and you’re supposed to do that via 1x1Gb and 1x2Gb chip. They, like pretty much all laptops now, don’t need matched pairs of RAM.

Can’t hurt to try though…

Macbook from mid 2007 2.16 dual core CPU, original hard disc OS never re-installed (10.6.8) 2 Gig of RAM, only maintenance has been to run Onyx now and then. Just ran Geekbench for the first time ever got a score of 2764 with a pile of apps open in the background. Maybe there’s a clue to the location of the issue with the summary of the score?

Mine was:
Integer 2171
Floating Point 4124
Memory 1998
Stream 1618

Have you tried asking on the apple forum often very good, or if you have the time go visit the genius bar.

Also the geekbench free version only runs at 32bit which might change results, although mine was very similar to the test results.

I just ran the test 32bit edition on my late 2006 MBP which has a 2.16 Core2Duo CPU 3Gb of 667Mhz Ram and an upgraded 320Mb hard drive and 10.6.8.

The score was very similar to yours. The laptop seems to run fine and snow leopard feels way quicker than Tiger used to.

Macbook from mid 2007 2.16 dual core CPU, original hard disc OS never re-installed (10.6.8) 2 Gig of RAM, only maintenance has been to run Onyx now and then. Just ran Geekbench for the first time ever got a score of 2764 with a pile of apps open in the background. Maybe there’s a clue to the location of the issue with the summary of the score?

Mine was:
Integer 2171
Floating Point 4124
Memory 1998
Stream 1618

My scores as follows…

Integer 1116
Floating Point 2021
Memory 1276
Stream 1194

As you can see, given very similar machine specs, my scores are almost half yours!!!

I tried running it with just the 1Gig stick of RAM in to see if that made any difference, and it made none at all.

I just ran the test 32bit edition on my late 2006 MBP which has a 2.16 Core2Duo CPU 3Gb of 667Mhz Ram and an upgraded 320Mb hard drive and 10.6.8.

The score was very similar to yours. The laptop seems to run fine and snow leopard feels way quicker than Tiger used to.

Whilst mine runs ok if I’m not doing anything intensive, it’s definitely nowhere near as quick as it used to be when it definitely ran at full speeds…

Now what the hell is causing it!?!?

my 2009 MB has started to stall on startup, sometimes I have to switch it off and back on again using power button to force shut it down.

need to investigate

As part of a new Apple sales strategy Steve Jobs didn’t actually die, he simply transformed himself into pure energy and jumped into the WWW.

From there, he has embarked on a mission to f*ck up all old Apple hardware, thereby forcing the owners to upgrade to the newest Apple hardware. He will continue to do this until all the Apple hardware on the planet is less than 6 months old.

The cycle will continue forever.

😉

I did have an issue a while back where Spotlight was constantly re-indexing and taking up 100% of one CPU. In Activity Monitor MDS/MDworker was running wild. Spotlight uses plugins to recognise various formats and it turned out to be the Microsoft Office.mdimporter plugin that was causing the problem on my Macbook, I removed it from the relevant Library sub directory and end of problem.

My scores as follows…

Integer 1116
Floating Point 2021
Memory 1276
Stream 1194

As you can see, given very similar machine specs, my scores are almost half yours!!!

I tried running it with just the 1Gig stick of RAM in to see if that made any difference, and it made none at all.

Okay, so even in CPU only tests it is doing poorly. I think that probably eliminates the disk as being the cause.

Firstly fire up activity monitor as has already mentioned and change it to show all processes on the drop down menu. Sort by CPU usuage and see what is using CPU time.

Secondly, are there any other symptoms? Fans running wildly, graphics corruption etc?

Thirdly open up the Console to view the logs. Search for error, CPU, warning. Google anything which looks suspicious.

Do you still have the problem with a completely clean install or only after you put other software on it?

Have you tried resetting the SMC and PRAM?

You can boot an Ubuntu Live CD and install & run Geekbench. See if it is still giving similar scores.

step 1: Put Mac in bin

step 2: Buy a PC

jumpupanddown – Member

step 1: Put Mac in bin

step 2: Buy a PC

Yes, or that. 😆 Gotta love STW.

Unmatched DIMMs shouldn’t slow it that much, but are only worth it if you regularly use more than 2Gb in matched DIMMs if you see what I mean.

My bets on thermal throttling or hdd knackered. If you can take it apart, hover out the cruft and check the processor heatsinking is intact. Maybe renew the thermal paste.

step 1: Put Mac in bin
step 2: Buy a PC

Ever heard the phrase “if you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything at all”?

I rest my case…

Do you still have the problem with a completely clean install or only after you put other software on it?

Completely clean install… Hence it’s kinda irrelevant seeing what software is trying to take up my resources, practically nothing is as its totally fresh. Yet performance is still poo!

Thinking I’ve got to bite the bullet, and open the machine up and see what’s going on inside. Which scares me a little as it could be reduced to an expensive mess, but given its £60 an hour for a Mac specialist to open it up, and it could be a few hours work, I’d rather save the money towards potentially having to buy a new machine.

Completely clean install… Hence it’s kinda irrelevant seeing what software is trying to take up my resources, practically nothing is as its totally fresh. Yet performance is still poo!

Worth it for the 2 secs it takes to eliminate it tho?

Also did you try resetting the SMC?

System Performance
The computer is running unusually slowly although it is not experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization.

SMC: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Opening a mac Apple product up is a last resort IMHO, they never go back together in quite the same way …

My bets on thermal throttling or hdd knackered. If you can take it apart, hover out the cruft and check the processor heatsinking is intact. Maybe renew the thermal paste.

Yep, could be thermal throttling, but seems unlikely if the fans aren’t running on full blast. Broken HD wouldn’t explain the poor CPU scores from the benchmark.

Post a screenshot of the console log or activity monitor? maybe the stw online collective could analiseanalyse it?