My Macbook Air (Early 2015) is too slow after macOS Monterey 12.7.4 installation

Problem: Computer is too slow

Description:

Problem Summary:

My 2015 MacBook Air (MacBookAir7,2) with 8GB RAM and Intel Core i5 1.6

GHz became extremely slow after a fresh macOS Monterey 12.7.4 installa

tion. The system was working fine before then it starts slowing, even

after factory reset and OS reinstall, everything is painfully slow:

Symptoms:

- Applications take 30+ seconds to open

- Chrome and VSCode IDE are extremely slow

- System load average is 30+ (should be under 4.0)

- CPU usage constantly at 70-100%

- Even basic tasks like scrolling are laggy

- Fresh install didn't help - system was slow immediately after OS ins

tall

What I've tried:

- Factory reset and fresh macOS Monterey 12.7.4 installation

- System remains slow even with minimal apps running

Hardware:

- 2015 MacBook Air (MacBookAir7,2)

- Intel Core i5 1.6GHz dual-core

- 8GB RAM

- 113GB SSD with 83GB free space

MacBook Air 13″

Posted on Aug 22, 2025 3:57 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 22, 2025 6:37 PM

"mds_stores 104.54 % (Apple)" meaning that Spotlight was taking up all of the time of one of your two CPU cores, and then some. There was also ""File system: 120.25 seconds (timed out)." This might suggest that Spotlight is re-indexing the entire drive.


You may want to leave the MacBook Air turned on and connected to power for a couple of days to see if Spotlight finishes re-indexing the drive and the performance gets better.

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 22, 2025 6:37 PM in response to codezeroo

"mds_stores 104.54 % (Apple)" meaning that Spotlight was taking up all of the time of one of your two CPU cores, and then some. There was also ""File system: 120.25 seconds (timed out)." This might suggest that Spotlight is re-indexing the entire drive.


You may want to leave the MacBook Air turned on and connected to power for a couple of days to see if Spotlight finishes re-indexing the drive and the performance gets better.

Aug 25, 2025 5:45 PM in response to codezeroo

codezeroo wrote:

<New Report.log>
<DriveDX Report.log>
<Firstaid.log>
Thank you for your replies and suggestions. When erasing my SSD, I wipe it completely.

The SSD health report looks Ok. I was hoping it might have showed some errors.


Your First Aid report is showing a huge amount of overallocation warnings (too many to list even). I am not certain, but I think they may be related to the APFS Container which could definitely explain the performance issues.


So you did select the physical drive to erase and not just the Volume Group of "Macintosh HD" volume as I described in my last post? I'm only asking because it is very unusual to see First Aid errors on a clean install since that usually indicates a hardware issue of some sort.


If there are no external devices connected and the whole physical SSD was erased, then I believe you have some sort of hardware issue with this laptop.


You can try installing macOS to an external USB3 SSD and boot from the external SSD to compare results as this would likely tell us whether the internal SSD is the problem (physical SSD hardware or file system). It would be best to use the USB port on the right side of the laptop since that USB port is on the Logic Board.


Another experiment you can perform is to use the command line to try running the file system check by providing it with the option to override the default behavior so that it can attempt to repair those "overallocation" errors. You will need to do this while booted from Recovery Mode. You do need to make sure that you are booted into the Monterey installer when using Recovery Mode because you must use the most recent version of file system checker or bad things can happen. Also, make sure the physical drive has the device identifier "disk0".


Command to use if booted into Recovery Mode (make sure "Reinstall Monterey" is shown so that the file check utility will be the most recent version):

fsck_apfs  -o  /dev/rdisk0s2


That " -o " section is a hyphen followed by a lower case letter "Oh". With the "rdisk0s2" portion, that is the number zero.


FYI, I only tried running the file system checker this way one time a long time ago, but I think this is all that is needed. I'm only offering it since you don't have any data to worry about since you've already erased the system.

Aug 22, 2025 7:12 PM in response to codezeroo

When you erased the SSD, did you erase the whole physical SSD or just the "Macintosh HD" volume? On Intel Macs, it is best if you erase the whole physical SSD in order to create a new partition table & a fresh file system. Within Disk Utility you need to click "View" and select "Show All Devices" before the physical SSD is shown on the left pane of Disk Utility.


Did you try running Disk Utility First Aid on the physical SSD followed by running First Aid on the hidden Container? FYI, you must "Show All Devices" within Disk Utility before the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk Utility.


Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok", click "Show Details" and scroll through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed.


Run DriveDx (free trial period) to check the health of the SSD and post the complete DriveDx text report here using the "Additional Text" feature which looks like a piece of paper on the forum editing toolbar. Unfortunately with SSDs a manual inspection & interpretation of the SSD's health report is needed since the DriveDx summary of an SSD's health can be misleading (not the fault of DriveDx...same applies for other similar apps).


Run the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. Unfortunately a passing diagnostic result is meaningless here since there may be a hardware issue which is not detectable by the tests.


I suspect there is a power related hardware failure of some sort with this laptop.....most likely with the Logic Board. I think it is time to retire this laptop and get a newer one.


I'm really curious why you reinstalled macOS if you were not having any issues prior to the reinstall?


Edit: I agree with @Servant of Cats to give Spotlight some time to settle down. I only saw their post once I had submitted mine. I had meant to include mention of that as well. Glad @Servant of Cats mentioned Spotlight.

Aug 23, 2025 12:01 AM in response to HWTech

Thank you for your replies and suggestions. When erasing my SSD, I wipe it completely. I reinstalled the OS because it had been working perfectly for years until it recently started slowing down and lagging, prompting me to erase and start fresh. Unfortunately, the performance worsened afterward, leading to our current discussion. Regarding Spotlight, I left the system lid open overnight while plugged in, and I noticed that the indexing has finished. Attached are the reports. I’d love to get a new device, but I need to sell this one to fund a new MacBook Pro.

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My Macbook Air (Early 2015) is too slow after macOS Monterey 12.7.4 installation

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