Hello mate,
To be quite honest with you it might just be that its running slow. My MacBook Pro from mid 2010 does the same thing. It seems like with Mac products after a few years they just seem to slow down a bit, without much warning or much you can do.
If she's really looking to boost performance, stick an ssd in there. (but i'm sure you already knew that
)
You could check that the disk is working properly and try repairing the permissions to see if that is slowing things down.
To do that:
- you need to go into the 'Disk Utility' which will be in the applications folder.
- From there you need to select the drive called 'Macintosh HD' and go through and Verify and then Repair as -needed for both the permissions and disk. (Takes a while sometimes from memory)
- Other than that i can't really suggest all that much buddy.
Another idea might be to re-install the OS having done a clean install. There are loads of guides out there for making a CD or USB Drive installer and going through the whole thing.
and it might seem quite intimidating for her to Wipe the HD but its all good i've done it a few times.
That might be a way to clear out all the crap that the OS has picked up.
Oh remember to back it up though
So the iTunes & iPhoto folders/libraries.
Sorry if that was a bit condescending too, not to sure how much you know about the Mac OS
Best of luck.
