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+--- Thread: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ (/showthread.php?tid=183286)
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - onthedownlow - 09-23-2015
Adware Medic is now Malwarebytes for Mac (which is a good - even better - thing).
Download it directly from here: https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/
(the old Adware Medic download will update, but eventually will cease to update with new signatures)
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - jdc - 09-23-2015
mrlynn wrote:
If malware or corrupted files are the problem, you'll be reinstalling those files. . .
/Mr Lynn
Then your not doing it right? Thats not how a nuke and pave should work.
Ugh.
Im sure adware medic or whatever does a fine job at whatever it does, but WTH does everyone here who has an issue with their Mac get this generic advice?
malware! malware! malware! Its like the internet game "first!"
Has anyone actually had their mac display the same symptoms -- slow and tons of beachballs, run adware medic and then all the sudden it runs as good as new? yeah. :RollingEyesSmiley5:
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - sekker - 09-23-2015
jdc wrote:
[quote=mrlynn]
If malware or corrupted files are the problem, you'll be reinstalling those files. . .
/Mr Lynn
Then your not doing it right? Thats not how a nuke and pave should work.
Ugh.
Im sure adware medic or whatever does a fine job at whatever it does, but WTH does everyone here who has an issue with their Mac get this generic advice?
malware! malware! malware! Its like the internet game "first!"
Has anyone actually had their mac display the same symptoms -- slow and tons of beachballs, run adware medic and then all the sudden it runs as good as new? yeah. :RollingEyesSmiley5:
I had a glitch with my Mac yesterday. Ran adwaremedic, and the machine is quite a bit faster.
Don't understand the rest of the memo, however.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - jdc - 09-23-2015
Not trying to be a pain, but Whats a "glitch"?
You ran it, but did it actually find anything? Did you restart... cause that usually fixes 'glitches' and slowdowns.
adware medic reminds me of "rebuild your desktop" from OS 9 or "repair your premissions" from OS X. 99.9% of the times useless.
Used to have a stupid "mac" tech guy that visited us every once in awhile back in the 90's. He sat down and rebuilt the desktop on every ones mac every time he came in, like it was something special. Of course, if there ever *was* a problem with a mac, he would always say "its either a font or the motherboard -- let me call apple right now..." clueless.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - ka jowct - 09-23-2015
4GB of RAM is not helping the situation. There's a diagnostic tool called EtreCheck that can sometimes point you toward bottlenecks: remnants of MacKeeper, bad antivirus software, etc. Worth a try. If the owner has ever downloaded software from the likes of cnet or softonic, or from torrents, there could be malware or crapware installed. But the skimpy RAM and possibly not having enough free HD space could certainly be the culprit. Regardless of Apple's system requirements, 4GB is not enough for Yosemite to run well. Plenty of reports along those lines in Apple Discusssions.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - Robert M - 09-23-2015
JPK,
I haven't seen anyone recommend creating a new user account and seeing if the issues affect the machine while logged into it. Definitely a useful tool for troubleshooting issues. If the issue affect the main account _and_ the test account, then it is likely a system-wide problem. If the issue vanishes while logged into the test account, then it's more likely specific to the primary account.
Robert
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - GGD - 09-23-2015
Robert M wrote:
JPK,
I haven't seen anyone recommend creating a new user account and seeing if the issues affect the machine while logged into it. Definitely a useful tool for troubleshooting issues. If the issue affect the main account _and_ the test account, then it is likely a system-wide problem. If the issue vanishes while logged into the test account, then it's more likely specific to the primary account.
Robert
GGD wrote:
What OS?
How Much RAM
How much disk space used, how much free?
What operations are slow?
Have you looked at Activity Monitor to see what the system is doing?
Have you tried logging out of this user and logging in as a Guest or test user? Does the performance change?
Have you tried doing a Safe Boot (shift key down), and choosing Shut Down when it gets to the login screen, and then restarting?
Have you looked at the Console Logs to see if anything strange is being reported?
As others mentioned, check SMART status with SMART Utility.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - anonymouse1 - 09-23-2015
Ok.
1. How full is the hard drive?
2. Have you tried creating a new user and seeing if if affects the performance?
After those two, if neither works, you're down to checking the RAM, and after that, nuking the HD, installing the OS from scratch, and reinstalling the apps and docs from your backup.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - sekker - 09-23-2015
jdc,
Had an unusual effect where an email via my exchange server would crash Apple Mail.
During that time, my machine felt sluggish too.
Ran adwaremedic, found one new adware. Removed it. The sluggishness fixed.
The issue with Mail was resolved by deleting the toxic email from the exchange server via Outlook (email was wonky but could be read in Outlook).
Apple Mail could then open without crashing.
Glitch(es) resolved. Machine runs fine right now.
Re: I have not had to troubleshoot a wonky Mac in many years........ - space-time - 09-24-2015
GGD wrote:
[quote=Robert M]
JPK,
I haven't seen anyone recommend creating a new user account and seeing if the issues affect the machine while logged into it. Definitely a useful tool for troubleshooting issues. If the issue affect the main account _and_ the test account, then it is likely a system-wide problem. If the issue vanishes while logged into the test account, then it's more likely specific to the primary account.
Robert
GGD wrote:
What OS?
How Much RAM
How much disk space used, how much free?
What operations are slow?
Have you looked at Activity Monitor to see what the system is doing?
Have you tried logging out of this user and logging in as a Guest or test user? Does the performance change?
Have you tried doing a Safe Boot (shift key down), and choosing Shut Down when it gets to the login screen, and then restarting?
Have you looked at the Console Logs to see if anything strange is being reported?
As others mentioned, check SMART status with SMART Utility.
give him some slack, he's a new Daddy and probably falling short on sleep
