What can cause frequent system freezes?

Question

macOS

Hello dear associates.
Given MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011) 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 MacOS Sierra
The essence of the problem Previously (unfortunately I will not say exactly when and under what circumstances the situation changed) if the computer faced a large amount of tasks ( such as exporting photos from lightroom) - the coolers were spinning up, it was clear that the process was laborious, but the system responded and after a while everything was successfully completed. Now, for a similar task (such as exporting a photo from Lightroom), the cursor is displayed in the download mode or is not available at all, and the computer itself stupidly does not show any signs of life. Often only a hard reset helps.
Can anyone suggest what could be the problem? Soft? Iron? Something else? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Iron either (high probability) disk or memory (lower probability and there would be other symptoms).
It is better to carry out a comprehensive diagnosis in the SC, but you can simply load it into the recovery mod and arrange a disk check from the standard utility.

Answer 2

The problem is most likely in macOS Sierra.
Although I will have a Macbook Pro at the end of the 13th, the problem is terribly familiar. Appeared after upgrading to macOS Sierra.
Hangups in the system appeared after the system was hard loaded. My example: two IDEs + at least 20 tabs in Safari + something else small. In this scenario, Safari ate 5 gigs of RAM (this is a scribe, comrades).
I solved the problem like this:
I ran the system on all points in Clean My Mac 3. Now the system has again learned how to properly clean and control RAM.
Moreover, macOS Sierra clearly does not use the disk like regular systems. I have 170 Gb free one minute, and 160 Gb the next. And then at least 180 Gb. That is, something is hard cached on the SSD. Therefore, this factor should also be taken into account.

Answer 3

Utilities has an Activity Monitor app that shows processes and applications and their CPU, memory, and other usage. There and see what exactly eats resources. From there, you can also terminate them urgently, without rebooting.