How to fix a slow MacBook or iMac? Step by step instructions.

Picture of Posted by Geeks Callout London
Posted by Geeks Callout London

@geekscallout

 17th August, 2020

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Slow imac and macbook repair

Your Mac is running really slow? Here how you can fix it by yourself.

There are plenty of reasons for experiencing slow mac related issues. If you know what’s the issue, you can easily fix that problem within no time. You can solve the most common problems that is causing your mac to become slow. Here are some of our simplest tips and tricks that will boost your Apple Mac speed instantly.

Not to mention that hardware problems are different, like if some of the components on logic board are not working correctly or there is some heating issue which requires proper tools and a skilled apple technician to repair. As you might know that apple macs are quite difficult to repair, they need advance tools and equipment to open them up and further an experienced mac repairer to solve the problem. If you have booked a free appointment with an engineer on apple store, they will run full diagnostic on your MacBook or iMac and then they should be able to tell what is wrong with it. If you want apple to repair your computer, then you must pay for it if the warranty period has expired.

Remember!!! You can always book a free appointment on apple store and find out what went wrong with your MacBook. They will give you a quote to repair the machine and should be able to fix it after taking your consent.

Problem with Processor or Graphic Card?

CPU is the brain of computer. No matter how fast it is, if it is not working properly it may freeze, slow down or even may restart on its own. One way to get this information to use the app like GEEKBENTCH to check internal system health.
If your MacBook has dedicated GPU. You can easily test it with tools like Heaven or Cinebench. So, if you notice any problem with your GPU, like you see poor performance of 3D applications, artifacts, and screen glitches. Unfortunately, you cannot do much about to fix the GPU issues rather than replacing your whole mac logic board. In such cases it is advisable to just buy a new MacBook instead of spending money to fix the old one.

Is your Mac Really Old?

Mac speed fully depends on how old it is. As your mac ages you may notice a decrease in its performance. Latest software and programs demand more from the hardware but the hardware inside your mac is still the old and same. So that is why most of mac users do not experience any performance issues within first 2 or 3 years. But after 2 or 3 years your mac will start losing all its speed or may notice getting hot.

Especially if you using macbook pro, macbook air or imac older than 2011, you may not be able to use the latest macOS by Apple called catalina which means you will be missing a lot of features. If you are using an older Mac and want to use it as much as possible, you can try the following:

  1. Always use safari or chrome for browsing because both are optimized for apple it is faster and use incredibly low memory while running compare to other browsers.
  2. Like safari there are many other apps that are optimized for apple devices so, we recommend to use apple apps because they demand very less from hardware. Final cut pro is an exceptionally good example of better performance in apple than adobe premiere of windows computer.
  3. Pay attention on what programs are running in background. Avoid unnecessarily overloading of CPU, Memory and GPU.
  4. Beware of outdated and heavy software. On latest macOS the old applications may be less efficient and consumes a lot of CPU and memory. Avoid running applications that require java Runtime Environment. As they will kill the performance of your MacBook.
  5. Always keep you macOS up to the date. Make sure that your mac is running the latest operating system. Apple has worked a lot to improve the performance of their OS. If your system is not up to date you may be missing some changes that can improve your overall experience.
activity monitor

How to kill an application in your Activity Monitor?

When there are unwanted or dodgy apps running in the background the MacBook or iMac may stop responding or consume a lot of power which ultimately decrease its performance. Sometimes an app may crash, it seems that the app just closed itself but in reality, its running in the background and consuming CPU of your laptop. If you think the application has crashed, right click its icon in the dock, hold the option key on your Mac and then click Force quit. Alternatively, you can also use command + option + Esc keyboard shortcuts to force quit the current application

If you do not know which application is dodgy, or any application has crashed. So, to close that application you can open the activity monitor. Click on the magnifier at the top right and type “Activity Monitor” open is up and click on the CPU tab, find the application using the highest power. If you find something is using more than its sharing. Select it and then press the cross button in the top left corner.
Sometimes when an application or process consumes all the available memory, there might be a performance issue. To view the memory, click the memory tab and rearrange the memory column by scrolling down to see similar results.

You can end those processes just like a crashed application. In the activity monitor, processes that are not in use or stopped are displayed in red with “NO RESPONSE”. You can kill them and restart them. 

Free Disk Space requirement?

MacBook or iMac needs some free disk space for optimal performance. If there is not enough free space on startup disk, the macOS will not be able to run maintenance scripts and background process to keep it running. How much free space should I left you may ask? A general rule is to always keep 15% to 20% of your startup disk available. This number is only for macs having small hard drives. A mac with 3TB drive needs much lower percentage of free space to meet the mac OS requirement.

If you are using large files or making many temporary files like for video editing, the free space on your disk must be as much as the total size of those temporary files. To check how much free space is available on your mac click on the apple icon on the upper left corner then click about this mac. Click on the storage tab to see a breakdown of the current disk usage. You can then have a look and free up some space on your mac. We strongly suggest to always keep your macbook flash storage or macintosh HD drive empty more than 20% for application to run at its maximum capacity. Some suggest having more memory will increase the performance and it does, but if you are not keeping free space on your system HDD or SSD, it will have no difference in speed up of your macOS.

How do you check MacBook or iMac power and capacity?

Your mac has fixed components like processor, Ram, and graphics. If you know how much load you can put on your mac, it will help you to avoid performance issues. Some common tasks that will slow your mac down are

  1. To many tabs open in in your web browser
  2. Unwanted/unused software running in background
  3. Playing graphics intensive 3D games
  4. Using a very heavy video rendering software
  5. Multitasking i.e. Perform two or more intensive tasks simultaneously

To always monitor the health of your mac, open activity monitor and check the CPU load in the CPU tab and memory pressure graphs in the memory tab.

How do you know if your MacBook or iMac having hardware issue?

Only few computers have good resale value like Mac because of their design and aesthetics. But everything has an end, problems can arise. If your MacBook shows hardware problem, there are some checks, you can perform to diagnose the problem. Apple mac has a built-in diagnostic tool that you can run yourself. To do this follow these steps.

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Press the power button to turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold D (Diagnostic mode) on the keyboard.
  3. When you see a screen asking you to choose a language, release the D key.
  4. Select a language and wait for the diagnostic tool to run.

This apple diagnostic tool can only give you a fault code or you can say a reference code. You can check that referral code on the apple database for further information, but do not expect too much. For example, if you have a problem with the RAM you won’t be able to know which specific ram is bad or faulty. This tool is useful for eliminating hardware problems, but not for troubleshooting. For a more detailed report, it is best to book a free appointment at apple or Geeks Callout London mac specialist. Of course, you will not get a detailed advice on how to repair your Mac by yourself either.

mac disk bad sector

How do we check faulty Mac Disk?

Bad hard drives can also be a cause of failure. Most macs have solid state drives (SSD). They are very fast and quick as compared to the traditional mechanical hard disk drives. SSDs usually don’t fail but if it happens to be dead data recovery is impossible. You can follow these simple steps to check the status of your hard drive.

  1. Click on the Apple logo in the upper left corner and select “About this Mac”.
  2. Click System Report and select Storage.
  3. Select your disk drive like labeled as “Macintosh HD“.
  4. Look for “Medium Type” to know if you have an SSD or standard Hard Drive.
  5. Scroll down to “SMART Status” and see what’s written next to it.
  6. If “Verified” is written, hard drive or ssd is fine.

If “Failed” is written, this may be the problem. Apparently, the disk drive is a “Faulty” and you must replace it as soon as possible or you might lose all your stored information and data.

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