[OSX-Users] Re: Lion running like a drain

[Hugh Glaser]

Yeah, as I have reported earlier, I have the same problem, since installing Lion.
It is not clear exactly why it grinds, but there are a few hints, some shown by menumeters
Sometimes it thrashes paging, +1K for a looooong time.
VM use goes up a lot. fseventsd increases VM continuously, while still only having a little real memory. Some other demon got to 2.2GB at the weekend, while only using c.70MB other day (I forget which) (as reported by Activity Monitor).
One interesting thing is that MM reports that there are 0.0% cache hits - can't work out if it is just not measuring properly.
Heavy network activity thrashes the CPU.
Safari was crashing when it had been running for a while and repeatably when I then saved a page or clicked on the download progress button.

But it is a pain - I have recently moved to using Skype on my old 1GB macMini (running Snow Leopard) that also runs VPN services, Freeview reception, and VLC display, because my 4GB PB17 doesn't manage to do Skype without sometimes stopping.

I reformatted the disk, and then recovered from TM, in case that helped, but it made no difference.
So I went through the more painful process of creating a completely new user, which I am now using.
This has improved things a little, but not the VM problems; Safari no longer crashes, but Mail does, although very rarely.
The next stage, if I care, would be to reformat and do a clean install, but I would need to pay for a new copy or get a hold of Snow Leopard disks to do that.
So I will be interested if you do manage to get improvement that way!
Be careful - you really do need to be upgrading from Snow Leopard or have a paid for licence to the Apple Store for Lion before it will install on the bare metal.
And you are right, it feels just like Windoze did in the old days, but a modern Windows system is better than this.

Good luck!

On 1 Feb 2012, at 13:28, Hugh C Davis wrote:

> Folks, did we get any resolution from the issue that mc raised earlier.
> 
> I have a McBook Pro 15 and a MacBook Air 11, both running essentially the same portfolio of software.
> 
> Since installing Lion the macBook Pro has ground to a halt. It is displaying all the frustrating features that made me leave Windows. The MacBook Air still seems to be working OK. (Note that there is no sign of any problem with large CPU usage or network usage)
> 
> I'm quite happy to reformat the damn thing and reinstall from scratch, but can anyone assure me that my effort will be rewarded?
> 
> And how do I do this? I saw stuff about USB keys etc.
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Hugh Glaser,  
             Web and Internet Science
             Electronics and Computer Science,
             University of Southampton,
             Southampton SO17 1BJ
Work: +44 23 8059 3670, Fax: +44 23 8059 3045
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http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~hg/