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beck11488 · Jul 17, 2007, 09:41 AM

I am having some serious performance issues right now on my new macbook pro 2.2ghz machine, the slow downs are most notable during use of Dreamweaver CS3, Photoshop CS3, and Flash CS3. Is anyone else noticeing any issues with performance on there machines.

So basically i believe that the only two upgrade i can really do and choose from are the hard drive and RAM. So then i went and narrowed it down to either upgrading to 4GB of memory from the stock 2GB or upgrading the HD to a 200GB 7200RPM HD from the stock 120GB 5400RPM drive.

Any ideas one what might be causing such a dramatic slow down? ( i know its not the top of the line macbook pro but the G5 here in the office can beat my macs performance any day, i thought the intel move was supposed to increase the performance so that the laptops were faster than the G5.)

Also any idea on what upgrade might offer the most system performance increase?

Skip_Intro · Jul 17, 2007, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by beck11488

Also any idea on what upgrade might offer the most system performance increase?

I think that there's something else going on with your machine. I only use Photoshop CS3, and I think it runs pretty fast. I do have the 2.4 ghz model, but I doubt that a .2 ghz bump makes a whole lot of difference.

Are you working with huge files in PS CS3? More memory would help there, obviously. I have upgraded my MBP to 4GB but I can't say that I notice a tremendous difference in speed. Basically, it just gives me more memory headroom.

beck11488 · Jul 17, 2007, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by Skip_Intro

I think that there's something else going on with your machine. I only use Photoshop CS3, and I think it runs pretty fast. I do have the 2.4 ghz model, but I doubt that a .2 ghz bump makes a whole lot of difference.

Are you working with huge files in PS CS3? More memory would help there, obviously. I have upgraded my MBP to 4GB but I can't say that I notice a tremendous difference in speed. Basically, it just gives me more memory headroom.

Not huge files as everything is being prepared for the web and flash so they arent that big.

I have tried reformating the machine three times now and it still runs these applications. But its not just those, safari runs slow alot and crashes and same goes witl mail and xcode.

I am not sure what to do i need my system to run normally.

MacosNerd · Jul 17, 2007, 03:26 PM

Any ideas one what might be causing such a dramatic slow down?

Any way to quantify that. I'm running a 2.4 with 2gig and I've not run into any performance issues.

mduell · Jul 17, 2007, 05:42 PM

Dramatic slow-downs are probably due to swapping (running out of RAM and having to use the disk to fake it). Both upgrades can help (with 4GB RAM you can do more before running out, with a big 7200RPM drive it will be a bit faster when you do run out), but it's hard to say which would be better if you can only afford one. Can you afford both? They're only $260 each (minus about $60 each for selling the old RAM and HDD).

Skip_Intro · Jul 17, 2007, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by beck11488

Not huge files as everything is being prepared for the web and flash so they arent that big.

I have tried reformating the machine three times now and it still runs these applications. But its not just those, safari runs slow alot and crashes and same goes witl mail and xcode.

I am not sure what to do i need my system to run normally.

Are you running a lot of applications at the same time? If you get these problems just running safari, I think you might want to have your MBP looked at.

Otherwise, you could just have some defective memory, which would be fixed by replacing it and going to 4GB. You might want to check that both sticks of your existing memory are seated properly first.

How about heat? Have you checked to see how hot your system is running?

If it isn't any of these things, and you're having this problem just running single applications, it's probably something defective with your machine.

beck11488 · Jul 17, 2007, 11:18 PM

Thanks for all the help everyone,

I decided to go to the local apple store to get the machine looked at and they ran the standered test and found that i have a bad ethernet port so they are replacing the logic board. Hopefully this solves my problem with the slow down and all the crashes.

Currently I can only afford 1 so i am trying to decide between the 4gb and 200gb 7200rpm drive, i most likely will go with the 4 gb just becuase i run alot of mem intensive apps, dreamweaver, flash, photoshop, xcode, and parallels. So i think for now i will try that and then in a about a month or two (before leopard) i will buy the 200GB Drive.

Again thanks for all the suggestions.

PS. 2GB of ram up for sale. $75 + shipping

mduell · Jul 17, 2007, 11:57 PM

Originally Posted by beck11488

PS. 2GB of ram up for sale. $75 + shipping

I doubt you'll fetch a price that high; even new name-brand goes for perhaps $75 every day and $45 after rebate on occasion.

Simon · Jul 18, 2007, 02:57 AM

Originally Posted by beck11488

Currently I can only afford 1 so i am trying to decide between the 4gb and 200gb 7200rpm drive, i most likely will go with the 4 gb just becuase i run alot of mem intensive apps, dreamweaver, flash, photoshop, xcode, and parallels. So i think for now i will try that and then in a about a month or two (before leopard) i will buy the 200GB Drive.

That sounds like a decent strategy. But before you go out and buy the RAM, why don't you check your memory consumption.

After booting your MBP and launching all these apps you use regularly, work for a while and then check how many pageouts you experience. You can do that either in the shell with top or with /Applications/Utilities/ActivityMonitor > System Memory. If you see a large number of pageouts the sluggish behavior is due to swapping and the 4 GB RAM will definitely help. If you see no page-outs at all or only very few, your RAM is sufficient. In that case the HDD upgrade would probably be more appropriate. From what you describe, I'd expect to see a large number of pageouts though.

beck11488 · Jul 18, 2007, 06:08 AM

Originally Posted by Simon

That sounds like a decent strategy. But before you go out and buy the RAM, why don't you check your memory consumption.

After booting your MBP and launching all these apps you use regularly, work for a while and then check how many pageouts you experience. You can do that either in the shell with top or with /Applications/Utilities/ActivityMonitor > System Memory. If you see a large number of pageouts the sluggish behavior is due to swapping and the 4 GB RAM will definitely help. If you see no page-outs at all or only very few, your RAM is sufficient. In that case the HDD upgrade would probably be more appropriate. From what you describe, I'd expect to see a large number of pageouts though.

Whats typically a large amount, i will have to check this once i pick it up from Apple today.

Simon · Jul 18, 2007, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by beck11488

Whats typically a large amount, i will have to check this once i pick it up from Apple today.

Compare it to the number of pageins. A few dozen pageouts is nothing. But if you have 200k pageins and also about a 200k pageouts you're swapping way too much.

raduga · Jul 18, 2007, 03:55 PM

Download MenuMeters, and enable the disk/CPU/memory meters. When you notice your laptop is slowing down, check what the bottleneck is. Low on memory? CPU is overworked?

You can also use the 'top' command in the Terminal to get a per-process view of system resources.