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Not bragging, rather pointing out what for several years was a routine maintenance procedure has become unnecessary and potentially creates more risk than benefit. At the outermost user level there is not that much obvious difference between macOS X 10.0 (Cheetah) and macOS 12 (Monterey) but under the hood they are radically different.

Some of the standby maintenance routines we used to follow on our Macs remind me of the very confused young man I saw at the filling station wandering around trying to figure out where to put gasoline in the Tesla he was driving.

Not bragging, rather pointing out what for several years was a routine maintenance procedure has become unnecessary and potentially creates more risk than benefit. At the outermost user level there is not that much obvious difference between macOS X 10.0 (Cheetah) and macOS 12 (Monterey) but under the hood they are radically different. Oh, ok.

Some of the standby maintenance routines we used to follow on our Macs remind me of the very confused young man I saw at the filling station wandering around trying to figure out where to put gasoline in the Tesla he was driving. [/quote] LOL! For real? I once watched a guy drive up to a pump and when he got out he realized his gas tank was on the other side. So he got back in and drove around to the other side of the pump. Same problem! It was so funny to watch.

OK, so Rita erased the MBP's HDD from Recovery (so I couldn't experience the exact slowness she's been complaining about) and shipped it to me to see what I could make of it.

The saga:

1. I booted into Recovery and partitioned the HDD and installed Catalina 10.15.7.
2. I overwrote the clean Catalina installation with the clone I had saved, and cloned in my music/apps/etc. partition.
3. Slow? Close to 20 minutes from chime to desktop and fully populated menu bar, and no less than 30 seconds to respond to any input. Whew!
4. Since the machine had only 4 GB RAM, I ordered 8 GB. (My daughter's got the same MBP, and it runs 10.15.7 just fine with 8 GB.)
5. Crucial linked me to a Newegg seller at a 33% lower price...turned out be, of all things, bait & switch..."They're the same specs as the ones you ordered. Try them and let us how it goes." Not the least bit likely!
6. I returned the RAM and reordered from Crucial.
7. Absolutely zero difference in boot or response times.
8. Ran Repair Disk from Recovery...no issues reported.
9. Ran Apple Hardware Test...no issues reported.
10. Erased HDD and reinstalled 10.15.7 from Recovery, this time migrating data rather than cloning it in (except , of course, for my partition).
11. No difference in either boot or response time.
12. Much head scratching with no inspiration.
13. INSPIRATION!
14. I booted from the clone on my external, and both boot and response times were considerably faster, although still not up to par.
15. That got me thinking that maybe having booted from the external somehow took some "load" off the internal, so I erased my 250 GB partition to see if I could perhaps duplicate my success.
16. Yup! Booting into the internal and subsequent response times were about the same as with the external.
17. Extrapolating, I ordered a 500 GB Seagate HDD for $19.99. Wow, cheap!
18. I installed the new HDD, and VOILA! The MBP now functions as expected!!!

Now, here's the curious part: My plan was to install the new HDD and reinstall the 4GB RAM simultaneously in the hope that the machine would work as expected with that configuration and I could return the Crucial RAM for a refund, BUT...the MBP wouldn't "accept" the RAM...tormented me with 3 beeps each of the 3-4 times I tried to start up after unseating/reseating it.

So, it seems like both the RAM and HDD in Rita's MBP went wonky at the same time...one heck of a coincidence. I wonder if the problem would ever have been solved remotely.

Nice job Artie!!!! I'm gonna say remotely would have been a horribly frustrating failure!

Y'know, it just occurred to me that maybe the RAM isn't bad...that by beeping, the MBP was just telling me that it's insufficient for Catalina (despite the fact that Apple specifies 4 GB)?

If I can work up the ambition and energy to deal with those tiny screws again, I'll borrow my daughter's chips and try them.

"Bad RAM beeps", what a blast from the good old days! The beep indicates the processor does not detect any RAM and is independent of the particular operating system, but that doesn't mean you can put your screwdriver away. The most common causes are:

1. Improperly seated DIMM (remove and reseat the DIMM being sure it is seated all the way to the bottom of the logic board connector. This could also help with items 2 and 3 below and I would try it two or three times before giving up.)
2. Corroded contacts on the DIMM (a soft pencil eraser will clean the contacts)
3. Dirty or corroded contacts in the DIMM connector on the logic board (a puff of canned air to blow out any dust and clean the contacts with a 70% isopropyl alcohol swab or a Contact Cleaner spray)
4. A DIMM module performing at the lower end or below the specification range. (replace the DIMM)

I know that many on this forum swear by (not at) Crucial memory but I have had multiple failures with Crucial DIMMs over the years, but OWC has never let me down yet. (Now that Apple is building the Memory on the same fabric as the processor I do not anticipate ever being concerned about new DIMMs in the future.)

BY-THE-WAY: nice troubleshooting!

"Bad RAM beeps", what a blast from the good old days! The memory beeps are a firmware function independent of the OS. According to Apple tech NOte HT202768 A beep at 5 second intervals indicates the processor does not detect any RAM, three beeps at 5 second intervals indicates the memory did not pass the integrity test, but that doesn't mean you can put your screwdriver away. The most common causes are:

1. Improperly seated DIMM (remove and reseat the DIMM being sure it is seated all the way to the bottom of the logic board connector. I would try this at least two or three times before giving up as it might also solve the next two problems on the list.)
2. Corroded contacts on the DIMM (a soft pencil eraser will clean the contacts)
3. Dirty or corroded contacts in the DIMM connector on the logic board (a puff of canned air to blow out any dust and clean the contacts with a 70% isopropyl alcohol swab, or use a contact Cleaner spray.
4. A DIMM module performing below or at the lower end of the specification range (replace the DIMM)

I know that many on this forum swear by (not at) Crucial memory but I have had multiple failures with Crucial DIMMs over the years, but OWC has never let me down yet. (Now that Apple is building the Memory on the same fabric as the processor I do not anticipate ever being concerned about new DIMMs in the future.)

The beeping DIMMs (Three beeps, then a 5-second pause, repeating: The memory in your Mac didn't pass an integrity check.) are not the ones I bought from Crucial. They're the OEM DIMMs which came with the MBP and were working to at least some degree when I got it from Rita.

The Crucial DIMMs were working as expected when I got the new HDD, but hoping to return them for a refund, I reinstalled the OEMs, which is when the beeping began.

I gave the DIMMs a light brushing with a plastic eraser and unseated/reseated them 3 or 4 times before giving up on them.

A quick Google search tends to support my guess that it may be an OS problem. Here are a couple of related posts I found:
Furthermore, the MBP in question (13'' Mid 2012) is an unusual machine in that it had an extended (4 year) production run which actually ended after the 2014s had been discontinued, and that could mean that it may not be 100% up to running Catalina, its final viable OS version, again, despite what Apple says.

...all of which suggests the possible relevance of your item "4: A DIMM module performing below or at the lower end of the specification range (replace the DIMM)"

The acid test will be performed in a week or two when my daughter who's got the same MBP brings me the OEM DIMMs I uninstalled when she bought it.

I agree completely that running Catalina on an elderly Mac with only 4 GB of RAM would likely be an exercise in frustration at best. Personally I would never attempt to run anything other than the Apple apps that "come in the box" with macOS on any 4 GB machine, and then I would expect poor performance. My focus on the DIMMs themselves arises out of the fact the "memory test" portion of the boot process takes place in firmware and once the alarm is raised, the boot process stops. The OS itself can't be loaded and therefore cannot be identified or tested so the Mac has no way of knowing what OS is installed.

From the sequence of events, it occurs to me your DIMMs might have been subject to ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) damage. It has happened to me in the past. All DIMMs are vulnerable and strict anti-static measures should be followed to prevent their being fried in handling. Testing using your daughter's DIMMs is a good idea, but under the circumstances, I would review anti-static handling procedures and follow them assiduously to be sure her DIMMs didn't get fried as well. (Now the questions are: "where did I put that anti-static mat and wristband, and do I still have any anti-static spray?" )

I'm still hanging my hat on your item 4: "A DIMM module performing below or at the lower end of the specification range (replace the DIMM)" Even if whatever arcane diagnostic routine a machine goes through pre-boot can't determine which version of macOS it's being asked to boot, can't it still determine that whichever version it's being asked to boot is beyond the DIMMs' capability?

I've worked on HDDs, SSDs, and DIMMs any number of times without having fried anything, which, of course, is no guarantee that I didn't do so this time, but I did handle the 8 GB DIMMs immediately after the 4 GBs "beeped," and I had no problem with them. (I'm sure there's some way to test DIMMs definitively, but I'm equally sure that the means to do it are beyond my ability to access.)

And while we're scratching our heads, here's an interesting question: Assuming that the DIMMs haven't been fried - which I am - why did the machine boot with them before I changed the HDD, but not afterwards?

I wonder if this qualifies as a "unified" theory of all that was wrong with Rita's MBP: I've already established - by both booting from my external and deleting a large chunk of data from the MBP's internal - that "offloading" "load" from the HDD improved performance, so I'll extrapolate from there and guess that the debilitated HDD diminished the OS's performance threshold by enough to raise it above the DIMM's performance threshold...self-cancelling errors, so to speak.

And I think I'm going to copyright that as a pretzel recipe!

Where is V1 when we need him? Too bad he doesn't check in any more. (It would be nice to give him - and let him know he's got - his own forum, same as MMT3 used to have, so he can check in periodically and immediately see if we could use his help.)

During the Intel boot process one of the very first steps is the memory test and any condition tht would raise an alarm immediately terminates the boot process so nothing is loaded.

QUESTION: are you getting a single beep or double beep every five seconds? A single beep indicates NO RAM detected, a double beep indicates RAM is detected but it fails the RAM performance test.


When I worked for Texas Instruments, even the software engineers were required to take annual ESD training. Part of that training demonstrated quite clearly that static discharges below the level humans can sense will fry a DIMM and even with good ESD procedures, accidents happen. As far as I know HDDs or SSDs are not subject to ESD damage. (getting hit by lightning excepted, but that would also result in significant physical damage as well.) Again when I worked for TI, we had equipment that could throughly test the entire performance range of DIMMs. Each test station cost 500 to 750 thousand dollars and that was half a century ago. I can't imagine what a DIMM test station would cost in 2022 but I know it is a bit beyond the range of amateurs.


All I can speculate is "stuff happens."

1. There are any number of reasons and ways an HDD can negatively effect performance that would be mitigated by "off-loading" major chunks of data.
2. Virtual memory swap files on that same HDD are critical to the operation of machines with small amounts of RAM
3. Improving the peformance of the HDD will significantly improve the overall system performance of any computer, but especially on machines needing to make heavy use of VM swap files
4. Could potentially make the difference in whether or not a given app can/will run
5. Apple made significant changes in memory management techniques in Catalina including the switch to APFS for the boot drive and VM swap volumes
6. APFS is optimized for SSDs and actually reduces the peformance of HDDs which exacerbates the previous negative performance factors
7. under the circumstances off-loading files from the HDD would almost certainly result in improved system performance
8. replacing the HDD with an SSD would have even more effect
9. additional RAM would be even more efficacious

More like a Gorgon's knot.

Trying to post an uncomplicated response here...

I was getting the repeating 3 beeps. (The item 4 I keep referencing was listed under your description of that scenario.)

I wasn't suggesting that HDDs or SSDs can be fried, but entire machines can be fried if you don't discharge before trying to work on them.

I've been careful over the years and never fried anything, and I'm confident that I didn't do it this time either.

Granted that 16 GB RAM rather than 8 GB and a SSD rather than a HDD would greatly enhance the MBP, but there's a limit to how much money I was willing to invest in a machine that's already two versions of macOS beyond its limit and is going to spend virtually the entirety of the rest of its life in a drawer.

If it had been a Gordian pretzel, Alexander could have chewed his way through it...maybe even dressed it with mustard and sauerkraut.

I've finally gotten hold of my daughter's DIMMs, and they work a treat...no noticeable slowdown in either startup or response time.

Happily, I've got 2 or 3 days left in my Crucial window and was able to set up a return for a refund. Phew! Great timing.

Considering how many times I've handled DIMMs with no ill effects, I'm certain that Rita's original DIMMs died on their own, but, of course...

[quote=artie505]I've finally gotten hold of my daughter's DIMMs, and they work a treat... Have you been watching Britbox a lot lately?

I've never heard of Britbox, but I can guess...

It's just a Brit expression that I've run across many times over the years and have always liked. I've used it many times in FTM posts.

Yes, it's a Brit thing and maybe other places. I didn't know you had ever used it.


I've never heard of Britbox, but I can guess...

It's just a Brit expression that I've run across many times over the years and have always liked. I've used it many times in FTM posts. [/quote]

You don't read every FTM post, so there are MANY to which I've responded that you've never seen.

It's just a Brit expression that I've run across many times over the years and have always liked. I've used it many times in FTM posts. [/quote] [/quote]
You don't read every FTM post, so there are MANY to which I've responded that you've never seen. [/quote]

You're right. About the only posts I've seen of yours are answers to my questions. Otherwise, I don't spend a lot of time on FTM. I guess I only get to see one side of you! LOL!

Then there's a coupl'a other sides that you're missing.

Or, as the case may be, not missing at all!