Mac issue - help needed

beed84

So for the first time in four years, my MacBook Pro is having issues. For reference, it's a late 2012 intel i5, 500gb SSD, 8gb RAM and running Sierra.

The issues: 

First I noticed it was taking a little longer to boot up. Then apps started taking a little longer. I also wondered why every time I turned it on, the backlit keyboard was on about a third of the way - I never use it. Then iTunes started to glitch randomly stopping and starting every so often. Lately, after about a month or so of noticing these issues, the Mac has progressively got slower and is beach balling frequently.

Tonight I've tried PRAM and SMC resets to no avail. Then I thought to reinstall the OS via recovery mode, but it wants me to unmount the disk first and suggests going to disk utility. To make matters worse I can't do what it asks because it's in a frozen state of decrypting. I can't erase the disk or restore from a back up for similar reasons. I feel like I'm at a dead end. Anyone got any bright ideas? I'm at a total loss.

ChrisMusic

No Mac expert I am afraid, but I keep my steam powered old Macs up and running, just about.  Activity Monitor is very useful to keep an eye on what resources are being used and by what, often showing what is causing the stress.  Maybe consider booting up from an external disk and trouble shooting from there?  I have absolutely no idea if that will be of any help to you though.  Good luck with getting it sorted.

strumjoughlamps

how full is your HDD? and how many login items do you have?

beed84

Thanks @ChrisMusic, me too!

@strumjoughlamps I've used about 150gb and I've turned all login items off; however, they keep coming on again. Just when I find motivation to do some writing it does this. It's doing my head in!

strumjoughlamps

boot it up whilst holding down the 'shift' key, when its booted up restart the machine.

beed84

I'm trying that now and it's just a hanging loading bar doing absolutely nothing.

Danny1969

If you can get it running make sure everything is backed up as I suspect the SSD is failing .... if so back up, new drive .... yours is still 2.5" I think from memory so easy to source 

Danny1969

If you buy a new drive and install you can boot from the net, load fresh OSX and then connect old drive via USB and browse it IF it's still functional 

digitalscream

I wonder if there's a heat problem here which is throttling it...? I seem to recall that the 2012 MBPs had a common problem with heat (but my memory's not too good these days...and I tend not to pay much attention to Apple gear).

Axe_meister

Don't get just any SSD. Unfortuntatly the apple SSDs are custom and I believe TRIM (which is what what does wear leveling over the SSD) is disabled if you stick in a generic SSD

Danny1969

If you want to check the fans then unscrew the bottom cover screws, make a note which one goes where are there's a difference . The fans can be unscrewed and easily cleaned ..... touch a rad or similar earthed point before you go in there ...a small brush can clean the heat exchanger 

I doubt it's heat though as the design of the unit in terms of heat conduction means it can operate with no initial extra  cooling as the heat will spread through the metal construction of the laptop .... once that has heated up it obviously does need fan cooling etc like any other laptop but for the first ten mins or so it doesn't

SSD's are wonderful in terms of speed and power consumption but the failure rate is high ..... and in my experience the recovery rate of data on a failed SSD is woefully low.

I personally wouldn't trust one for more than 3 years or so of normal read \ write use 
 

beed84

Well it's still dycrypting albeit incredibly slowly. It's moved about a hairs width in the last couple days; in terms of speed it's still sluggish. It could be a long waiting game, and even then there's no guarantee I make the sod speed up, especially if, as @Danny1969 points out, the HD is knackered. If I don't get any further with it in the next day or two I'll give up and see about getting it sorted under consumer law.