I looked at the previous posts, (some of them) and I need more info.

I tried doing the hardware test by shutting down my computer, turning it back on and pressing "D". I never got the Hardware Test Icon. Instead I got a slowly spinning world globe icon and a "Choose Network" drop down box.

I clicked on the box and there were no network choices except something with 3 dots. I clicked on that and got two boxes. One was preceded by the Wi-fi Icon so i put in our Wi-fi name. The other was preceded by a lock icon. I didn't know what to put so I put my admin name. That didn't work. Then I put in my router number. That didn't work.

I went back to the drop down box and click "choose network" again. This time there was no drop down choice at all, not even the 3 dots. I finally just shut down my mac and started it up again.

Not sure what I am doing wrong.

I believe the box with the lock icon was expecting the password for your WiFi network.

. My password for my wi-fi is my router number. My admin password is different. I tried them both. But, why didn't I get the hardware Test icon which is a picture of a computer?

Hi, Rita,

How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac may help.

Hi Artie!!

That is actually the website I used. I have OS 10.9.5 so I assume I am supposed to use the AHT. I never went onto Yosemite so I'm not sure why it isn't working for me.

Long time no problems, Rita!

If "D" didn't boot you into AHT it sounds like it ought to be on one of the discs that came with your MBP, but since it apparently shipped with Mt. Lion, apparently not; did you look for the referenced disc?

I believe this is dependent on which version of OS X your MBP shipped with rather than which version it's running.

If it's not on a disc, "D" or command-D ought to get you to a dropdown with a list of all available networks from which you choose yours and enter your password as prompted, but that doesn't sound like what you're seeing.

Too bad you can't take a screenshot.

Why don't you try again, but with command-D this time?

It didn't come with any discs!

As I suspected.

In that case, "D" ought to work, but since it apparently didn't, try command-D.

By the way, why are you trying to boot into AHT? What's up with your MBP?

I tried Command D and it just restarted my computer and loaded everything up. I tried Option D and got the same thing with regular D.

My computer has been running very slowly for awhile now. I have quite a bit of
hard drive storage (I am only using 453G out or 500 G.) I haven't added any ram but why should I? I don't plays games and only surf and do email mostly. I used OnyX to clean stuff up but it doesn't help speed things up. I haven't added any new plug-ins in quite awhile. I'm stumped. So, I thought maybe my hard drive was going.

Oops! I meant to say option-D.

Your symptoms don't sound like your HD is going, but it won't hurt to run AHT.

Can you post an iPhone pic of the "D"/option-D screen that's got you stymied so we can see what's happening? There's no apparent reason why you shouldn't be able to boot into AHT.

Before I do that, this is the response I got from another forum. What do you think? Also, is there a way to upload an iPhone pic? If not, I guess I could maybe do a screen shot.


Go to the link below and download the AHT for MBP 9.1. Burn it to a USB thumb drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Utility. Drag the AHT image (after expanding) on the Desktop, or in the Downloads folder depending where you have placed it. W ith the thumb drive in the USB slot, reboot and hold down Option immediately after the chime, and select the full test. The reason your Mac does not do the 'D' process it is just a year too old or so for that to work hence the download method.

As Mavericks is no longer being supported with crucial Security Updates, you might wish to upgrade the operating system. This will also upgrade Safari to version 10.


https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest

try holding "A" or "D" at boot for the hardware test. If it tries to run it over the internet, you should use a WIRED ethernet connection.

As you can see above, "D" didn't work for me. When I get a chance, I will try "A". If no dice, the ethernet trick. Otherwise, I will probably have to try what I mentioned above with a thumb drive. Thanks for your response.

I was going to hold off a bit to see how you made out before responding, but I just flashed on a problem kinda similar to yours that I recently ran into while doing an Internet recovery on my daughter's new MBP, the solution to which turned out to be the old, reliable, easy as pie unplug your router for a few minutes to reset it.

Don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier. :duh:

Do you mean unplugging my router would make the "D" protocol work?

It may correct your inability to connect to your network, which, I believe, is your "D" problem. (Give it around five minutes, and good luck! )

Wow, I hope that's all it is. Otherwise I have to buy a thumb drive and go through a bunch of steps.... I'll do it later. I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. Thanks, Artie.

You've also got V1's "A" and hard-wired Ethernet to try before you go the thumb drive route.

Oh, right. I already forgot. Told you I was over whelmed. I will make a list!

Hard-wired Ethernet may be no more than a workaround for unplugging a wonky router.

OK. Lots to try. I'll let you know how it goes.

I hooked up the Ethernet Cable and that took care of it. I also got a clean bill of health as far as hardware! I just wish I knew why it's running slow, freezes at times and also the rainbow beach ball shows up a lot.

What finally worked was hooking up the ethernet cable. Thanks for your suggestions. I never would have thought of that.

That sounds like low memory to me. Especially the spinning beachball, which indicates the computer has run out of RAM and is using the hard disk as RAM.

How much RAM do you have?

4 gigs. Could it have to do with the fact that I usually have a lot of tabs open?

Nice to hear that your AHT problem is solved, but I'd love to know if unplugging the router would have worked.

Under any circumstances, though, you should always keep unplugging the router in mind as a potential fix for any sort of Internet connectivity problem.

Assuming your Safari 6.0.5 works similarly to my 10.1, yeah, every open tab eats its own ration of RAM.

It sounds like tacit is right on the mark about insufficient RAM despite the fact that Apple deemed it sufficient when they set the specs for your MBP, and you'd really do yourself a favor upgrading from 4 GB to 8 GB, but you can try closing tabs and unnecessary apps to see if it helps enough to get you by.

If you are referring to tabs in Safari, yes. Each of those is like an open page in the web browser, and they could each be receiving data updates all the time from a server.

But even closing almost all tabs may not give you the improvement you seek. As pointed out above, 4 GB of RAM is the bare minimum for your setup.

Hi Artie:

I DID unplug my router first. I tried all the suggestions except the thumb drive. That would have been last. I looked at the Activity monitor and I was using 399 out of 400 gb RAM. After I closed some tabs I couldn't tell much difference but this morning there is some difference.

I learned about wonky routers last year when things started going awry, so I've unplugged and restarted several different times and it always worked. I thought I might need a new router but then all the problems stopped. It's always a mystery.

Hi Ira:

After closing tabs things are faster now after I rebooted my computer this morning. I like having a lot of tabs open so I may have to invest in more ram. I didn't know it was so expensive until I looked. I watched a video about how to replace it and it looks pretty simple. The video said my computer could take up to 16 GB of ram even though the Apple website says 8 B. They tested it and said it works flawless with 16 GB. Of course, 8 GB would be cheaper!

It wasn't clear from your posts that you had, Rita, so I asked just to be sure. (I wonder why unplugging your router didn't work for you but Ethernet did?)

I don't know where you looked for RAM, but there are any number of sources with varying price structures. I've always bought from Crucial.com, whose prices are on the high side, but others can direct you to reliable, less expensive sources. (Crucial charges ~$80 for a 2 x 4 GB upgrade for an MBP of your approximate vintage (2011?) and ~$128 for a 2 x 8 GB upgrade. By way of comparison, Apple charges $200 for a 16 GB upgrade for their latest MBPs...and you've got no choice from whom to buy it! )

I don't know whether you really need 16 GB or will be just fine with 8 GB; that'll have to be your call, but hopefully you'll get some assistive input from other posters. To give us some perspective, how many tabs are you likely to have open at any given time...high end?

I found it for less. I didn't really shop around but I still thought it was high. Since my computer is mid-2012, I was concerned that paying that much just to have something else go terribly wrong (like having to replace my computer) would be a waste. If I do decide to do it, I think 8 GB is plenty since I usually have no problem with 4 GB.

Thanks, Artie.

You have 4 GB of RAM? Oh, yes, that definitely explains your slowdown and other problems, no question. I'm surprised you can get anything done at all!

For example, right now on my laptop as I type this, my Web browser (Google Chrome) is using 5.87GB of RAM--which is to say, more memory than your computer has total.

That's huge immense! (By my standards, anyhow.)

How many tabs have you got open?

Yes, nowadays I guess 4 GB isn't that much. But like I said, I only surf the net and do email. Not much else. Luckily Safari only uses 511.3 megabytes. I wonder why Google chrome uses so much more.

With 3 tabs open, FTM + 2 x eBay, my Safari 10.1 is using ~1 GB Ram; how many tabs comprise your 511 MB?

Right now it's at 526 megabytes with four tabs open. I have one FTM, a holistic pet site, an audio book website and a free books online site open.

Well, that's reasonable; I wonder how many tabs comprise tacit's 5.87 GB?

So how many tabs do you have open when your MBP slows down and beachballs?

Probably about 10. LOL!

I have 21 windows open, each with 1-5 tabs.

It's not the windows and tabs that I find amazing (well, yes they are), but more so that Tacit is doing all of that on the small screen of a laptop.

Do you use any window management software?

Are you talking to me (plantsower) or Tacit? If me, the answer is no.

Oh man, I just bothered to really look at your avatar and figure out what it meant. Turning gold into lead! LOL!

I don't use any window management software. And yes, I do do all that on a laptop screen.

And if I'm not mistaken, it's only a 13"er!

Your ~6 GB of Chrome RAM usage seems awfully high, though, unless there's an awful lot of images in the open pages. (An eBay page with 96 small images uses only about 200 MB in Safari 10.1.)

I attempted to post this yesterday but my ISP was making like a Yo-Yo — constantly going up and down, mostly down — but I thought data informative, so I am posting it now even though the thread has somewhat moved on.

Admittedly it is a slightly different browser (Safari Technology Preview Release 26 (Safari 10.2, WebKit 12604.1.12), and a different Sierra version (MacOS 10.12.5 beta (16F43c), but Activity Monitor is giving me a more detailed breakdown of memory usage that may be helpful in seeing how much memory Safari uses and for what purposes. For example with four tabs open...

• Safari Technology Preview — 234.7MB
• Safari Technology Preview Database Storage — 6.4MB
• Safari Technology Preview Networking — 37.7MB
• Safari Technology Preview Web Content — 16.0MB
• https://finetunedmac.com — 95.0MB
• https://www.xxxx.com — 100.2MB
• http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com — 82.1MB
• https://www.xxxxxxxxx.com — 58.7MB
• SafariCloudHistoryPushAgent — 2.1MB
• SafariNotificationAgent — 43.7MB

For a total of 532.7MB. So it would seem Plantsowner's 4GB should be more than adequate for her described uses. In fact if my four tabs are typical that would only be an average of 84MB per tab. She could open 6 more tabs and still be using only 1TB 1GB of memory.

When you say ONLY 1 TB of memory, that sounds like a lot as I only have 4 GB of ram and 500gb of storage on my whole computer! Am I missing something? Did you mean 1 GB?

Hmmm? I did say 1TB didn't I? You are of course absolutely correct, I meant 1GB and I will correct my error. I'm putting it down to the pain killers I am taking for the stress fractures in my leg. Better that than I am just getting old.

Just remember that as we age, we tend to....oh, never mind, I forgot what I was about to say.

Well you just made me laugh though I am sorry about your leg!

Trust me, I can relate!!!

Heck, Rita, gold to lead is just an after dinner trick!

On a good day, I'm fully capable of bankrupting Apple by just buying 100 shares of their stock.

My main use for RAM seems to be uptime. The longer my computer goes after a reboot, the more memory gets pigged away by kernel_task or something else, until it's time to reboot to recover it. (sometimes PURGE in terminal works...)