1

I have a 3 year old 15" 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MBP that I upgraded to 4 GB of RAM about a year ago.

Before I made the switch to Apple I used to feel the need to upgrade my Windows based laptops every 3 years, that's about when they started to feel sluggish. After paying double what I would pay for a Windows machine, I'd hoped I might be able to squeeze a bit more life out of my Mac, maybe 4 years. But it's coming up to its 3rd birthday and it's starting to feel a little sluggish at times. In fairness, it is mainly when using apps like iPhone 11 and Final Cut Pro X.

I replaced the 250GB drive in it with a 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive about 18 months ago, so I sometimes wonder if that could have introduced a problem that might be causing it to run slow.

So my question is: is there a way to test the HD, RAM or other things to see if there's a problem with my setup that could be easily fixed, or am I just expecting to much of my machine?

Anthony

Improve this question
  • I think it's very unlikely that the hard disk could be the problem; a higher-RPM drive should only make things faster, and if the disk were failing it would cause a variety of problems, but probably not general sluggishness. However, if that is a concern of yours you could try the free trial of SMART utility, which can detect disk problems: volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php – Mitch Lindgren Nov 6 '11 at 20:11
  • Are you sure you haven't dropped a year? I have a similar configuration (160GB original HD), and I bought it in January 2008. It's almost 4 years old. – Andrew Lazarus Nov 7 '11 at 4:31
1

I can't say the drive would have caused issues, as MacBook Pro models form 3 years ago came with 5400rpm hard drives. What does your system say in Activity Monitor? Any additional overhead in CPU or Disk I/O? If it's just system strain, and you have the appropriate amount of RAM, a SSD is the only additional upgrade that comes to mind.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .