MacBook Air suddenly verrrrry sluggish

[Lifeisabeach]

Howdy all. I’ve developed an issue with my MacBook Air (2012 model) in that it is operating painfully slow. Booting up takes far too long, and the fan comes on when normally it doesn’t. When I finally get to the login screen, there is lag in typing keystrokes and cursor movement. When it does log on, the UI loads slowly, as do the startup items. I’ve given up on trying to get fully logged in and running since it obviously won’t be usable.

I am able to boot from the recovery partition, and did an internet reinstall of macOS (current version of High Sierra). This didn’t help. I tried running the Apple Hardware Test, but that failed to run (sorry, I forget the exact error). I’ve reset the SMC and NVRAM, all to no avail.

At this point, it seems I have a hardware issue of some sort. A software related one just doesn’t make any sense at this point. My best guess right now is the battery. The last I checked with Coconut Battery, the capacity was about 75% of new. To me, the extreme sluggishness is akin to, say a toy with drained batteries. Any thoughts? Like I said, this came on rather suddenly. It was working fine last week, last used during Hurricane Florence (yeah, I’m in ground zero), but it wasn’t plugged in when that started up nor was it when we lost power. It was last used to charge our iPhones but worked normally before that point. It was recharged after normal, stable power was restored. My first attempt to use it since was yesterday. Only other guess is humidity got to something on the motherboard that regulates the power.

 

[pm-r]

Like I said, this came on rather suddenly. It was working fine last week, last used during Hurricane Florence (yeah, I’m in ground zero),

My fist question would be how is your ISP and any equipment in your general area???

Are they underwater perhaps or inundated with flooding??

From what I've seen conditions aren't exactly ideal around those parts.

Secondly, how full is your hard drive??

Do you have a fairly recent clone or backup you could boot from that will test if your drive is the cause.





- Patrick
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[chscag]

Hope all is well with you and the family. Looks like Florence has caused some 500 year flooding.

As to your current problem with the MBA, my best guess is a sick hard drive. You're savvy enough to replace it on your own - that's what I would do.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

My fist question would be how is your ISP and any equipment in your general area???

Are they underwater perhaps or inundated with flooding??

From what I've seen conditions aren't exactly ideal around those parts.

Secondly, how full is your hard drive??

Do you have a fairly recent clone or backup you could boot from that will test if your drive is the cause.

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Uh, my ISP and service is fine. Actually had a new line to my house dropped a couple months ago. But it's not my service in question here. Also have plenty of space on the drive. I actually have more free space on it than I'd been working with due to removing the Boot Camp partition about 3 weeks ago. And yes, it had been working fine after doing that.

I do have a clone in fact (freshly made before the storm) and booted off that, but that's slow also. It's a USB 2.1 drive, so slow is expected. I had run First Aid on the internal drive from Disk Utility, to no avail.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Hope all is well with you and the family. Looks like Florence has caused some 500 year flooding.

It was epic, and ongoing with the rivers cresting now. I'm nowhere near a waterway, but my yard flooded just from the overnight rainfall in the immediate aftermath. That has never happened in the 50+ years this neighborhood has existed, according to the people who have lived here nearly all that time. I've got a couple problems I'm facing as a result of it all, but we got an early jump on it and expect to come out fine.

As to your current problem with the MBA, my best guess is a sick hard drive. You're savvy enough to replace it on your own - that's what I would do.

That was another suspicion of mine, but it's one of those blade SSDs that come in the MBA, not an HDD. I'm not familiar with the signs of a failing SSD, but yeah, if it was an HDD, that'd be my top guess also.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Ok, this is weird. After my last replies, it occurred to me that it was booting faster off the backup drive than it was the internal drive, so I booted off that. Sluggish as expected for an external USB drive, but it all came up well enough. DriveDX gave the internal SSD a clean bill of health and eventually I shut it down to ponder it. Just booted it back up off the SSD to see just how long it would take to come back up, and it's working perfectly all of a sudden. I can't even make sense of this.

 

[Rod]

Sounds like the old, "have you tried turning it off then back on" concept. High Sierra and indeed preceding macOS are pretty good at fixing themselves after a shut down and boot process. Of course that could also apply to a hardware issue too.
Have you tried running OnyX ?
And the one that can catch all of us out, the lack of storage space issue?

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Sounds like the old, "have you tried turning it off then back on" concept. High Sierra and indeed preceding macOS are pretty good at fixing themselves after a shut down and boot process. Of course that could also apply to a hardware issue too.
Have you tried running OnyX ?
And the one that can catch all of us out, the lack of storage space issue?

Oh it was shut down and restarted several times while troubleshooting. And I hadn't tried running Onyx because I couldn't get fully logged in to do so. And storage space wasn't an issue. Anywho, it's still working flawlessly since its miraculous recovery out of the blue late last night. Actually I'll tell you what changed... I started running a dehumidifier in the living room yesterday afternoon (AC is out indefinitely and we had water intrusion into the ceilings so we're drying out one room at a time to keep moisture levels down). Maybe the MacBook was afflicted by humidity after all.

 

[pm-r]

Maybe the MacBook was afflicted by humidity after all.

Definitely possible, especially according to google and this fellow and also some others at various other sites.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/314047/MacBook+Pro+Is+Prone+to+Condensation!





- Patrick
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[Rod]

Hmm, the article is interesting especially considering my wife and I live in Bali up to 9 months at a time. Obviously humidity is an issue and until a few weeks ago my wife was using a 2011 MBP with no problems other than a failed HDD a couple of years back and no moisture problems found at that time.
There are some noteable differences though.
We don't get a cold damp winter.
She never turns the device off.
She has been using Mac's Fan Control for years and we run an air conditioner most nights for a couple of hours before bed.
So keeping the device warm, increasing internal ventilation and providing a dry atmosphere for a short time prior to sleep seems to have worked for her.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I thought I should post a followup to the problem I was having with my MacBook Air. The problem resolved completely once we had HVAC back and the household climate was under control. I wound up replacing the battery since it was at a reduced lifespan anyway, but it seems pretty clear that the problem was indeed the humidity.

 

[pm-r]

but it seems pretty clear that the problem was indeed the humidity.

Maybe the next time you are inside the Mac, give the logic board a spray of WD-40 or similar, which are electrically inert and provides a moisture barrier to any excess humidity.

Sure cheaper than running the AC HVAC system.



- Patrick
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[pigoo3]

...but it seems pretty clear that the problem was indeed the humidity.

I didn't realize the "Republic of Neptune" had such high humidity!

- Nick

p.s. Thanks for the update.

 

[pm-r]

I didn't realize the "Republic of Neptune" had such high humidity!

Well gee, not exactly surprising Nick, considering in Roman Mythology Neptune is the god of water and of the sea. Both pretty damp areas I'd say. Also close to our Pacific Wet Coast. But probably much cooler temperatures. ;D

EDIT:
PS: I didn't realize that the Republic of Neptune had their own webpages:
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=neptune
https://www.nationstates.net/nation=neptune_republic



- Patrick
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[Rod]

Patrick, those links have kept me entertained for the last hour. Having said that I've never had a humidity problem as mentioned, in Bali with any of the MBP's I've used over 6 years.
I didn't mention the other classic offenders, background activity. The Activity monitor is always woth checking. iStat menus is terrific for this rather than looking for the native Activity Monitor I can just click on the menu bar icons for CPU processes, Mem, or SSD for an instant breakdown of what is doing what at any time.

 

[pm-r]

@Rod

Patrick, those links have kept me entertained for the last hour. Having said that I've never had a humidity problem as mentioned, in Bali with any of the MBP's I've used over 6 years.

Actually Rod, and to be quite honest, I will admit that even though I have never been there, I certainly thought of you living in Bali and the thought of high humidity dancing in my head and what the OP posted.

Yet a google on "high humidity and Mac" certainly provides lots of hits, but not a concern to Apple according to the specs they provide that would be hard to exceed in most places:

Operating Requirements
Relative humidity: 0% to 90% noncondensing
Operating temperature: 10° to 35° C (50° to 95° F)
Operating altitude: tested up to 3000 metres (10,000 feet)

I would think the operator is going to expire and give up before the computer under most of those conditions.



- Patrick
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