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We can eliminate some of the usual culprits such as OS updates since I doubt jumping to 10.8.4 would see much of an improvement for most games. My next question would be what games are playing well and which ones are not?
Some games place more stress on the speed of the network connection than others (Second Life) for example. Many games stress both the graphics and CPU systems (WoW for example).
Also can you describe the kinds of slowdowns you are seeing?
BTW which Mac are we discussing here? Some Macs have integrated graphics cards which, in general, do not do as well as machines with dedicated graphics cards.
Photo #1 in your first post tells the whole story. The little window at the bottom (with all of the red in it) shows that something is using up a lot of cpu resources.
You need to go to Activity Monitor (as you already have)...select "All Processes" (not "My Process's" which is selected in the photo) from the drop down menu in the Activity Monitor window. Then look thru the list of process's to see what application or applications are using up so much cpu resources. Then quit those applications.
Let us know what you find.
- Nick
i'm not much of a gamer so take what i am about to say with a grain of salt. From what i can determine there were three different graphics options for that mac (intel 4000, nvidia geforce gt 650m w 512 mb and a 650m with 1 gb). Some of these are listed as boards that are integrated into the logic board. As a general rule integrated graphics boards do not perform as well as similar machines with separate graphics boards.
Do you know which graphics options your machine has? Try going to about this mac under the apple menu and choose more info and post the results.
This is what i found.
What software (including things which launch as login items) is usually running when this happens? Thinking back to before you noticed the problem have you added new software/hardware since then?
Try creating a new user account on the Mac and see if that clears things up a bit. If so it suggests that something in your current user account is the culprit.
Thanks for the screenshot about the graphics. Given your answer to Nicks's question I think we can put that aside for the moment and focus on why kernel_task is using over 300% of CPU power.
I had to do a little research to remind myself what that task covers. Not only does it cover a variety of basic operations it can be called by other operations/kernel extensions. You might give Kernel_task process taking up an inordinate amount of CPU a quick read. It lists several good troubleshooting steps.
What software (including things which launch as login items) is usually running when this happens? Thinking back to before you noticed the problem have you added new software/hardware since then?
Try creating a new user account on the Mac and see if that clears things up a bit. If so it suggests that something in your current user account is the culprit.
As you can see...the "Kernel Task" is taking up 336%...which is certainly slowing things down.
1. Have you tried rebooting the computer?
2. Do you have any 3rd party "OS customization" programs installed?
3. Do you have any external devices connected to this computer?
4. Try an SMC and PRAM reset:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
About NVRAM and PRAM
- Nick
By rebooting, do you mean restarting? cause the same thing always happens
when restart, i only have "cpu speed accelerator" as a login progam. I don have any external devices or 3rd party customization progams.
Yes...rebooting/restarting...same thing.
That "cpu speed accelerator" program IS a 3rd party program. A 3rd party program is a program not developed by the original vendor (Apple in this case). I'm not sure what this program does...but I'm pretty darn sure it is not needed. I would turn it off if possible...or uninstall it.
After doing this...restart the computer...and see if things get better.
- Nick
Did I see you say earlier you did a total reinstall and it's still at 300+??
I have a friend with Windows who LOVED to use so called CPU Accelerator apps. He always had slow downs. Uninstall that thing and see if that makes a difference. There is NO reason to use that on your Mac.