Slow Mac when watching anything online - help?

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I bought a MacBook Pro about a month ago and everything has been fine except that when I watch anything online it lags really badly and then makes the trackpad slow and almost unresponsive.
I have 60gb free space on the hard drive and never have anything else open while trying to watch something. I booked a genius bar appointment and was instructed to change my web browser from Chrome to Safari assuming that would solve the problem but it hasn't at all.
Can anyone please help?
Thank you
 
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have you checked your internet speed?
 
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chas_m

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a. Having "60GB free" doesn't really tell us much. If that's 60GB out of a 750GB drive with 8GB RAM, that would be considered very low.

b. What precisely do you mean by "watch online?" YouTube? Hulu? Something else?

c. The advice to switch browsers was meant to help you figure out if the problem was due to web caches. Doesn't seem to be the issue.

d. Have you updated to the latest versions of: Flash player, Flip4Mac WMV Player and Perian?

e. Finally, try this: open Activity Monitor, set it to monitor CPU use and then keep an eye on it while you try to play a video. Let us know what you find out.
 
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Yes, the internet speed is fine. I never had this issue with my old computer and it doesn't seem to happen to other computers in my house.

It is 60GB free out of 250GB which is reasonable space. It's also a 4GB ram.

By watching online I mean YouTube and Megavideo. I started noticing it while watching TV shows online but then it even began happening to 3 minute videos on YouTube.

I have downloaded the latest flashplayer and it didn't seem to help at all.

When I went to see the genius bar they looked at the activity monitor and showed me that when using Chrome it was using a lot of CPU% and to change to Safari. It took a little while longer to show but the same thing now happens to Safari when watching anything.

Is this likely to be a hardware issue or something I can fix myself?
 

srp


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Have you checked the Activity Monitor to see what your CPU usage is when attempting to watch videos?

Out of curiosity, how does your Mac behave when watching movie trailers from either trailers.apple.com or from iTunes? Have you tried? Same issues?

But certainly open Activity Monitor and see what your CPU is doing. I usually have it set to show my CPU usage in the dock. It makes it easier to monitor. Just go to View > Dock Icon > and Show CPU Usage.

Let us know something.
 
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When I watch a video on Megavideo the CPU usage gets up to 65% when it's going terribly slow and the track pad begins to be unresponsive.

I just watched a couple of trailers where you recommended and it's peculiar that it runs fine? The CPU usage was extremely low as well. Why might this be?

Since speaking with Apple about this issue I have had the Activity Monitor in my dock for convenience.

Thank you for the help
 
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chas_m

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Sounds like a flash issue. Welcome to the reason why Steve is not a big fan.

For YouTube, try switching to the HTML5 edition and see if that makes a difference.
 

srp


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I agree with chas_m. It definitely sounds like an Adobe Flash issue. I noticed you mentioned using both Safari and Chrome, but have you tried the new Release Candidate for Firefox 4? I've personally noticed that some media that relies on Flash behaves a bit better in Firefox than both Safari and Chrome. So you might can try that to see if it helps you.
 

robduckyworth


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ClickToFlash

this is a safari extension that blocks flash, and lets you set the default video format to H.264.
 
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...edit...

Is this likely to be a hardware issue or something I can fix myself?

Check hardware by playing a DVD disc, or a known good video file on the machine itself.

Can video,graphics,audio,etc run as intended, or does it display the online symptoms you mention?

If the machine plays without fault, then the hardware can be eliminated from the equation?

Just a guess. (From a bad hardware experience)

Hope you get it sorted.
 
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I just downloaded Firefox 4 to see if that made any difference and unfortunately it didn't.
When playing a DVD it is completely fine so I think you might be right about the Adobe Flash issue. I've downloaded the latest one twice now and it hasn't helped so I'm not sure what else to do with it?

I booked a second genius bad appointment so I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what Apple say...
 
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chas_m

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I hope you'll take my above suggestion and try the HTML5 version of a YouTube video and compare that. It would really help us narrow down what's causing the issue.
 

robduckyworth


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I hope you'll take my above suggestion and try the HTML5 version of a YouTube video and compare that. It would really help us narrow down what's causing the issue.

I agree with chas_m, sounds like a flash issue.
 
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Have you got the iStat pro widget for the Dashboard? This is great for monitoring you macs performance whilst running applications.
 
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Hey dudes,

Last night my computer became ridiculous and the system CPU % was running at 90 with only 0.56% without any applications open??? So I screencapped this happening to show Apple today. I just got back from the Genius Bar and they ran a diagnostic test on it and it found that the fan was not working and that's why it was running so impossibly slow.

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions though!
 
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chas_m

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Wow, that sure explains the problem -- ESPECIALLY when using something that really runs the fan like Flash.

Good job, Apple Store geniuses! :)
 

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