Best Cleaner For A MacBookPro?

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I've had the "Spinning Beachball" on my 3 year-old MacBookPro practically since I bought it new. I took it to an Apple Genius who ran all kinds of diagnostics in the store while I watched, then said my hard drive connector was bad and replace it while I waited. It continued to have the Spinning Beachball now and then, even when I was running only ONE program or app.

I took it back to the Apple Store and was told then that it needed to be sent to their Service Center in Tennessee, so I left it with them on a Saturday. Four days later they called to say it was back. They said my 250GB hard drive was bad, so they replaced it with a 500GB drive at no charge (AppleCare was in effect then).

I STILL get the Spinning Beachball. I have Sophos and MacScan which I update and run daily and find nothing, and I've run Onyx and Disk Utilities many, many times to no avail.

What in the world can be causing this? It's maddening. I'm not a hard user... the most I do with my MacBookPro is email and WORD documents running the MAC version of WORD 2011.

I will GREATLY appreciate any help you may offer me. My AppleCare has expired and I'm on a fixed income. I just can't afford any expensive service now. Thank you very much in advance for your expertise and help.
 

pigoo3

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I've had the "Spinning Beachball" on my 3 year-old MacBookPro practically since I bought it new.

I STILL get the Spinning Beachball.

What in the world can be causing this?

How often do you reboot your computer?

- Nick
 
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billwill
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Spinning Beachball

I reboot every other day.
 

pigoo3

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Try this:

- Open up Activity Monitor (Utilities Folder).
- Click on the "System Memory" tab at the bottom of the window.

What are the values for "Page outs" and "Swap used"?

- Nick
 

chscag

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I have Sophos and MacScan which I update and run daily and find nothing, and I've run Onyx and Disk Utilities many, many times to no avail.

Both of those programs run in the background and can be using valuable CPU cycles which in combination of not enough memory can cause the spinning beach ball. Do you really need Sophos and MacScan? Since there are no viruses in the wild that can infect your Mac, I would uninstall both and see if that improves things.
 
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billwill
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PageOuts / SwapUsed

PageOuts: 0

SwapUsed: 0
 
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billwill
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Both of those programs run in the background and can be using valuable CPU cycles which in combination of not enough memory can cause the spinning beach ball. Do you really need Sophos and MacScan? Since there are no viruses in the wild that can infect your Mac, I would uninstall both and see if that improves things.

I have 8 GB of memory and I'm running 10.8.4.
 

pigoo3

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425.5 GB Available

73.75 GB Used
 

pigoo3

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73.75 GB Used

Ok...thanks again. That looks good as well.

Another thing to check out:

- Reboot the computer (when the computer has completely rebooted...do not open any applications).
- Open Activity Monitor.
- Click on the "CPU" tab at the bottom of the window.

At the bottom left of the window...what is the "% Idle" value?

- Nick
 
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% Idle = 97.99 (started at 71.95 and up to 97.99 after a minute or so) Is that bad?
 

pigoo3

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% Idle = 97.99 (started at 71.95 and up to 97.99 after a minute or so) Is that bad?

The % Idle and % User values will fluctuate. I would say once the computer has fully booted & no apps open...the values should not fluctuate more than a few percent.

But...in case you didn't know...some applications can "auto-launch" when starting up the computer (rebooting). Many times this includes the two anti-virus programs you have installed (Sophos and MacScan)...so when your % Idle dropped to 71%...this could be because one or both of these apps were doing something.

Ok...so one last thing to check:

- With the computer freshing rebooted (and no apps lauched by the user).
- Open Activity Monitor
- Click on the "CPU" tab at the bottom.
- At the top of the Activity Monitor window (and slighly to the right)...there's a drop down menu...make sure "All Process's" is selected.
- Look thru the list (scroll down as necessary)...and see if there's anything that's taking up a lot of CPU resources.

With the computer freshly rebooted & no apps. lauched by the user...there shouldn't be any LARGE "drains" on the cpu resources.

For what it's worth...when I reboot my computers (and no apps launched)...my % Idle is usually 95-98%. I have no anti-virus programs running.

- Nick
 
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Remove the antivirus software using the Uninstaller. No Mac OS X viruses and safe 'net practices will see you just fine.
 
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billwill
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Am I looking for %CPU, Threads or Real Mem values?
 
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billwill
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All of them are 0.x, except for Activity Monitor which is 5.0 and FireFox which is 4.4
 

pigoo3

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All of them are 0.x, except for Activity Monitor which is 5.0 and FireFox which is 4.4

Technically speaking (for this test)...you weren't supposed to launch any apps other than Activity Monitor (FireFox). But that doesn't should too bad.

As harryb2448 already suggested...try uninstalling those two anti-virus apps...then see how the "beachball" situation plays out.

- Nick
 
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billwill
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I'll do that, Nick. Thanks to you and Harryb2448. MacScan has NEVER found anything and Sophos has found maybe 3 or 4 things in the last year, all of which were cookie trackers. I'll delete 'em both using their Uninstallers. Thanks and have a great weekend.

Bill
 

pigoo3

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I'll do that, Nick. Thanks to you and Harryb2448. MacScan has NEVER found anything and Sophos has found maybe 3 or 4 things in the last year, all of which were cookie trackers. I'll delete 'em both using their Uninstallers. Thanks and have a great weekend.

You are very welcome Bill.:)

Please let us know if things seem better after uninstalling.

- Nick
 
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billwill
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WOW! I uninstalled MacScan 2 and Sophos last night, then rebooted and let it sit all night in standby. I've been on it for the last 4 hours and haven't seen the beachball ONCE!!!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU both for your kindness and great advice. Have a great weekend!

Bill
 

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