[Will Hunt]

Forgot to mention, it's Mojave 10.14.5.

From putting the password in to get the desktop background rendered: 2m 16s
Rendering desktop icons: +17s
From clicking the taskbar icon to load Chrome: 2m
Even then actually opening a web page then takes ages.

Doing anything at all until it's been on for a bit is a real trial. Opening Excel took about 1m 20s when freshly booted.

[UnkArl]

Sounds like time for a fresh install of the OS (switching to an SSD wouldn’t hurt either)

[Johnny Brown]

4gb is fuck all nowadays. Check if you can double it, it's not expensive or difficult. However some you can't.

[Will Hunt]

Have put in 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. The hardest thing about the whole process was getting the back off the machine. Two trips to the DIY shop to find the appropriate PH000 screwdriver bit. Then that started stripping the heads of two screws which meant I was scared of not being able to get the back off and being permanently stuck with a brick of a laptop and £200 worth of components! Managed to undo the stripped screws eventually.

Second hardest bit was cloning the existing drive - Disk Utility seems to fail when trying to do this now so had to use some 3rd party software.

But now I've just booted up and it took a fraction of the time. It's like a new machine. Everything just...works!

Phew. What a relief! Thanks for the advice, everyone.

[cheque]

 

[Johnny Brown]

Well done!