Mac Help

My second hand 2009 Mac has become slow and unresponsive. Buffering has become common after never happening in the past. I'm seeing the spinning beach ball more and more often. It is my understanding that there are better free alternatives to Mackeeper type apps. I got a Mac to avoid these kind of things. I'm not really computer savvy. Any suggestions? Your knowledge will be greatly appreciated.

Get the hard drive checked. Sounds like it's failing. Back up immediately too.

a reply to: Oudoceus

a reply to: Oudoceus

do a speed check it might not be your computer lots of people are saying the net is slow right across the globe me included .

Every time there is a swarm of earthquakes this seems to happen ? like you i have not had many problems but of the last 4-5 days it is really slow

a reply to: Oudoceus

Are you running the latest version of Mavericks? Check to see if there are downloads from Apple waiting to be installed. Sometimes this effects things in the way your described.

Might be a good time to start preparing for the worst...

SOMETHING is going to happen to your hard drive or data sooner or later.

Use at least two backup options and I recommend three.

SuperDuper, VS Carbon Copy Cloner

Time Machine Vs SuperDuper Vs Crashplan Vs Carboncopy

Time Machine vs Super Duper vs Carbon Copy

Super Duper vs Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper vs Time Machine Backups

SuperDuper! vs TimeMachine

1 get screw drivers and instructions from ifixit dot com
2 get a 100$ or less new ssd
3 fresh os instal
4 max out memory
5 get external drive enclosure for old drive
6 transfer files
2-300$ 4hrs project

a reply to: Oudoceus

Open a finder window. How much space do you have left on your hard drive?

Have you run Disk Utlity? It is on your Mac already, open click on your hard drive on the left, then verify disk, if that passes, click on verify disk permissions.

Hope that helps.