[michael180]

I have Mac Pro 2.93 Quad with 8 GB or memory. It seems to be slowing down a great deal. A friend recommended a program called MacKeeper that would greatly enhance the speed and knock out any viruses.

I could find only a single post here that mentioned MacKeeper.

Any suggestions?

[art_director]

What have you tried thus far? I'd go through the typical troubleshooting steps before trying any software.

[reader50]

Fire up Activity Monitor and see what's using CPU when a slowdown happens. Also, how full are your drives?

[ChrisF]

Originally Posted by michael180 

...knock out any viruses.

It's not a virus.
Mackeeper sounds like it's fixing problems that don't exist; I wouldn't waste your money on that.

[adamsdad]

Hi,
So my playback for Hulu and Netflix has been stalling especially toward the end of the show and coming out of commercials (on Hulu).
I was thinking about getting MacKeeper then I read the thread about it. The suggestion from the Administrator was to "Fire up Activity Monitor and see what's using CPU when a slowdown happens."
I'm a laymen. When I fired up Activity Monitor I wasn't sure what was critical to the proper functioning of the system and what wasn't.
Can someone give me an idea of what to look for?

Thanks

[Waragainstsleep]

Sort the list of processes by CPU usage and see which one is using a lot. Report back and we'll tell you what that means.

[adamsdad]

Here's what I'm looking at while Hulu is playing, sorted by CPU usage.
Does this tell you anything?

Code:
180	 Flash Player (Safari Internet plug-in)	craig	43.7	20	142.9 MB	156.4 MB	Intel	
175	 Safari	craig	4.0	9	35.2 MB	32.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
78	 WindowServer	_windowserver	3.8	5	38.2 MB	58.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
170	 Activity Monitor	craig	3.1	3	15.4 MB	33.5 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
0	 kernel_task	root	2.9	57	125.4 MB	15.2 MB	Intel	
173	 activitymonitord	root	2.8	1	1.3 MB	28.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
177	 Safari Web Content	craig	0.6	6	107.6 MB	209.0 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
131	 BBLaunchAgent.app	craig	0.3	6	2.8 MB	31.6 MB	Intel	
36	 mds	root	0.3	6	26.3 MB	118.2 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
110	 Finder	craig	0.0	7	14.3 MB	26.5 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
94	 coreaudiod	_coreaudiod	0.0	4	1.6 MB	31.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
41	 fseventsd	root	0.0	12	1.8 MB	33.4 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
25	 ntpd	root	0.0	1	1.1 MB	17.5 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
21	 securityd	root	0.0	2	2.9 MB	27.0 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
18	 mDNSResponder	_mdnsresponder	0.0	3	3.5 MB	40.8 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
31	 SystemStarter	root	0.0	2	1,008 KB	29.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
77	 MissingSyncMounting	root	0.0	2	2.0 MB	30.0 MB	Intel	
37	 loginwindow	craig	0.0	2	7.7 MB	32.7 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
49	 blued	root	0.0	2	4.7 MB	29.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
72	 awacsd	root	0.0	2	4.9 MB	29.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
11	 DirectoryService	root	0.0	6	4.5 MB	32.3 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
179	 PubSubAgent	craig	0.0	5	5.5 MB	33.4 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
84	 cvmsServ	root	0.0	2	816 KB	18.9 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
123	 UserEventAgent	craig	0.0	3	5.5 MB	40.8 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
59	 coreservicesd	root	0.0	4	12.7 MB	15.7 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
120	 pboard	craig	0.0	1	844 KB	18.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
118	 Quick Look Helper	craig	0.0	6	5.7 MB	542.5 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
53	 BBDaemon	root	0.0	4	888 KB	29.5 MB	Intel	
114	 fontd	craig	0.0	2	3.9 MB	30.4 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
50	 autofsd	root	0.0	2	936 KB	28.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
109	 SystemUIServer	craig	0.0	3	18.9 MB	52.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
172	 cvmsComp_x86_64	craig	0.0	1	6.3 MB	17.7 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
108	 Dock	craig	0.0	3	17.6 MB	26.4 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
43	 dynamic_pager	root	0.0	1	788 KB	17.4 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
104	 launchd	craig	0.0	2	952 KB	38.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
40	 hidd	root	0.0	2	948 KB	29.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
102	 ocspd	root	0.0	1	1.7 MB	27.0 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
38	 KernelEventAgent	root	0.0	3	1,004 KB	29.2 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
30	 usbmuxd	_usbmuxd	0.0	3	1.6 MB	40.5 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
157	 mdworker	craig	0.0	3	20.5 MB	43.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
154	 cvmsComp_i386	craig	0.0	1	4.8 MB	17.5 MB	Intel	
27	 krb5kdc	root	0.0	3	1.9 MB	28.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
26	 cupsd	root	0.0	4	2.3 MB	40.8 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
23	 racoon	root	0.0	1	1.4 MB	28.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
16	 distnoted	daemon	0.0	2	1.2 MB	29.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
15	 configd	root	0.0	6	3.3 MB	26.0 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
14	 syslogd	root	0.0	4	676 KB	39.2 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
13	 diskarbitrationd	root	0.0	2	1.4 MB	29.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
12	 notifyd	root	0.0	2	592 KB	26.9 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
137	 Music Manager	craig	0.0	18	17.0 MB	39.9 MB	Intel	
10	 kextd	root	0.0	2	2.9 MB	14.9 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
135	 CCacheServer	craig	0.0	2	1.6 MB	40.8 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
130	 AirPort Base Station Agent	craig	0.0	4	5.5 MB	31.1 MB	Intel (64 bit)	
1	 launchd	root	0.0	3	1.0 MB	38.6 MB	Intel (64 bit)

[SierraDragon]

Make sure you are up to date on OS 10.6.8 or 10.7.2, and on all your applications.

Check your hard drives. A very common cause of slowing operation is overfilled hard drives. Drives slow as they fill and can misbehave as they become overfilled. 70% full is a good maximum guideline, but less full is faster.

Make sure that any external drive connections other than backup are FW800 or eESATA, not USB.
 
At 8 GB, RAM may or may not be an issue.
 
You can evaluate whether or not you have adequate RAM by looking at the Page Outs number under System Memory on the Activity Monitor app before starting a work session; recheck after working and if the page outs change (manual calculation of ending page outs number minus starting page outs number) is not zero your workflow is RAM-starved. When evaluating RAM needs ignore the pie charts and other info in Activity Monitor.
 
If your test showed that page outs increased significantly during operation you can

• Restart and see if the same workflow still pages out. If it does not, one or more of your apps is "leaking" memory. Upgrade the app, lose the app or repeatedly restart.
 
• add RAM
 
• and/or simply try to run any single heavy application by itself.
 
• and/or switch from 64-bit operation to 32-bit operation (which will make some additional RAM space available).
 
HTH
 
-Allen Wicks

[Waragainstsleep]

8GB RAM on a Mac Pro should not struggle to play flaw video from Hulu. full disks will also not cause this. A faulty one might I suppose.

If you have extra disks or peripherals attached you could try disconnecting them and testing Hulu again but if I'm reading your post right flash is only running 44% of a single core. CPU use is therefore not likely to be the cause of the slowdown either.
Something is off if its skipping though. I take it the clips are already well buffered but still skipping? Can you download a flash clip and see if it skips in VLC or in Quicktime using Perian, or Adobe Flash if you have it?

Is anything else slowing down?

[reader50]

It could be a network problem with the ISP, especially if he watches shows around the same time each day. ie - it slows down near the end of the show, which happens to be when all his neighbors are getting home. Perhaps watching shows of their own. Kind of like during Super Bowl commercial breaks, when city water pressures drop noticeably.

During a time you don't normally watch, like morning hours. Shut down Hulu / Netflix / anything else that uses network bandwidth. Go to a speed testing site like Speakeasy or speedtest.net. Choose a nearby test location, and run the test. Write down the numbers, then run the test again, to see if the numbers drop. Down speed, Up speed, Latency (ping time).

Around the time your movies start to lag, shut down Hulu etc again, and go back to the test site. Run the test twice, jotting down the numbers again. If the numbers drop a lot (especially the last test) then network congestion is the likely problem.

Tell us the numbers you get, so we can make a guess based on them.

[SierraDragon]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

8GB RAM on a Mac Pro should not struggle to play flaw video from Hulu. full disks will also not cause this...

Originally Posted by reader50 

It could be a network problem with the ISP, especially if he watches shows around the same time each day...

The OP said nothing about video.

-Allen

[reader50]

We're dealing with two people. The OP (michael180) left, hopefully with problem resolved. adamsdad arrived with a Hulu / Netflix slowdown problem. I haven't split it off to a separate thread because he's made reference to michael180's details.

[adamsdad]

I'll look into all your suggestions next chance I get and let you know.
Thanks

[Waragainstsleep]

Yeah, I missed the threadjack.