# Mac Incredibly Slow



## RobinD (Oct 13, 2014)

Hi everyone !

My mac (early 2012, operating on OSX Mavericks) has really slowed down all of a sudden one week ago. Everything is super slow, from starting up my mac to opening finder, and my mac is unresponsive for a few seconds from time to time.

Following advice found on many sites, I have repaired the disk permissions using Disk utility, made some space on my hard drive (although it was already 1/2 empty), installed and ran Onyx, resetted PRAM (cmd+alt+p+r a startup) plus a lot of minor changes (no more apps launching automatically when my mac starts,etc.),..., and finally a scan for viruses on norton.
Unfortunately, nothing has changed and my mac is still unbelievably slow. It seems to be getting even slower as i’m having trouble writing this text ('rainbow volleyball' all the time…:banghead

Concerning my RAM, when checking the activity monitor I do have a high memory usage : between 3,2 and 4 GB even when pretty much only safari is working (I have 4GB total).
The thing is no specific app takes more than 500Mb (that would be kernel_task), and the memory pressure graph says everything is OK (low and green values). Plus, when using memory clean it frees up 2GB, but my mac is still slow as hell (and the memory usage eventually goes back to 3,5GB). 
So I'm not sure it's just a RAM problem, and I'm starting to get out of ideas : apart from the extreme ones such as resetting my mac entirely. 

Anyone got some ideas (apart from the '15 tips to speed up your mac' websites ^^) ?
Thank a lot in advance,

Robin


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## jeffbbt (Nov 13, 2014)

In my experience with Macs I never needed Norton, I always found anti-viruses slowed my comp down. 
Back up your comp and reset it is not a bad idea. If you are 100 percent certain there is nothing running that is clogging your cpu. Try running your terminal and typing, 'top' i believe. you can add a modifier to sort by cpu usage, although it should tell you the same as activity monitor.

Try resetting your SMC

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support

Sorry for the late reply.
j


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## K.allen6 (Oct 31, 2014)

No doubt that resetting Mac settings can boost the Mac performance but before moving towards this phase, have you finished with the file permission repairing, removing junks, duplicates and unwanted items from Mac machine. Managed desktop, removal of unused widgets from dashboard, turning off unused apps also helps in improving Mac speed within few minutes.


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## philmiami (Jun 20, 2014)

*NEVER use NORTON*

I got
3 iMacs, Macmini, Macbook Pro and Macbook
I would NEVER use Norton on there
I got some on 10.9
my 27" on 10.7.5
one old 2006 iMac on 10.6.8 because it won't go any further
I use Avast Mac Security 2015
IT's FREE
I could get Norton from Crapcast and did use it BUT it slowed everything down soo much
ALSO this
this is something most don't say BUT when a Mac is 50% full or more on the hard drive.....it will slow down
OS X is off UNIX, and it does NOT put one file bit in line with the next and you do NOT defrag HFS+ drives
it's just what comes with using a mac
also check in the system pref's/user+accounts and be sure that there are no app's starting up, disable GUEST account
I use Onxy (be sure you have the correct one for your version) it helps
BUT the only way to get fast speeds is to change the harddrive
Apple uses 5400 RPM drives, their "fusion" drive is the same as a Maxtor 4GB SSD/500+ platter drive
I changed my macbook pro to a Crucial MS550 960GB SSD and it flies when booting up, in either OS X 10.9 OR thru boot camp and rEFIT into Windows 7 ultimate
a SSD will make things quick
just get some place to change it out NOT the DUMBASS Genius Bar people


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