Which .kexts are essential

[Blank3]

My MacBook pro has been running slow for a while now. Activity moniter shows "kernel_task" as taking up about half a gig.

I read that deleting some kext files in library/extensions can help with this but I don't know which are safe to delete.

In my extensions folder I have

ACS6x
ArcMSR
ATTOcelerityFC8
ATTOExpressSASHBA2
ATTOExpressSASRAID2
BJUSBload
CalDigitHDProDrv
HighPointIOP
HighPointRR
Hp_io_enabler_compound
PromiseSTEX
SoftRAID

All .kext

Which can be deleted and which are essential? Thanks

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Please whatever you do don't delete any .kexts until someone has had a good look at this. I can't at the moment as I have to go out.

 

[Cory Cooper]

I do not recommend deleting anything in the Library or System folders on your Mac. The kexts you listed are installed by the OS and are only loaded if the hardware they are related to is connected. Deleting them will not speed up your Mac in any way.

The slowness you are reporting is being caused by something else...i.e. anti-vrus software, third-party startup items/background processes, low disk space, permissions that need repaired, etc. We can definitely help you try and get to the bottom of it, but again, I don't recommend deleting things that you are not familiar with, or find information about on the Internet.

Let us know some additional information, such as:

-Mac model and specifications
-OS X version
-Amount of free space remaining on your startup HD
-Any peripherals/devices connected to your Mac
-Any background syncing/backup apps such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Carbonite, Dolly Drive, etc.
-Any third-party utility software installed - anti-virus, MacKeeper, etc. (These are known to slow down Macs)
-What software you usually run
-Anything listed in System Preferences... > Users & Groups > Current User > Login Items
-Anything else that you may have installed just before things started slowing down

C

 

[Blank3]

-Mac model and specifications
MacBook Pro (17-inch, mid 2009)
2.8GHz intel core 2 Duo processor
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3

-OS X version
Yosemite

-Amount of free space remaining on your startup HD
180.5 GB free of 465.49GB

-Any peripherals/devices connected to your Mac
None

-Any background syncing/backup apps such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Carbonite, Dolly Drive, etc.

-Any third-party utility software installed - anti-virus, MacKeeper, etc. (These are known to slow down Macs)

-What software you usually run
Mostly google chrome, word, excel, spotify, itunes, and recently some biochem drawing software but that came after my computer got slower

-Anything listed in System Preferences... > Users & Groups > Current User > Login Items
Just google chrome, spotify, and HP Scheduler

-Anything else that you may have installed just before things started slowing down
Not that I can think of

Activity Monitor usually says something like:
Physical Memory: 4GB
Memory Used: 3.6-3.99BG
Virtual Memory: 5.28GB
Swap used: 72.5 MB

Thanks for the taking the time to help

 

[Cory Cooper]

Thanks for the additional information. I do know that HP Scheduler can slow things down if it is an older version, so check to see if there is an update, or simply delete it from the login items, restart, and see if that helps.. Also, delete all login items and restart...only start apps as you need them to see if that helps. They can always be added again to login items.

Spotify can slow things down a bit as well. Two things that are known to help Spotify:

-Disable hardware acceleration
-Reduce the cache down to 0 GB or something very small

Since you are running Yosemite on an older Mac, try the following:

-System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Reduce Transparency (check the box)
-System Preferences > Extensions - disable any unwanted/unused
-System Preferences > Energy Saver > Power Adapter > Enable Power Nap (uncheck the box)

-What version of Microsoft Office (Word/Excel)? 2008 is known to be sluggish under Yosemite, especially opening documents and quitting the apps (can take up to minute).

Try repairing disk permissions and restarting:

-Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
-Highlight Macintosh HD in the list on the left
-Click Repair Disk Permissions
-When completed, restart

Will give more ideas/analysis tomorrow.

C