Mac running slower and slower

regulus

regulus

regulus

Soldato
Joined
18 Aug 2006
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ChCh, NZ
I purchased my current Mac sometime last year. It's a 24" C2D with 2gig RAM. The first 6 months or so it was lighting fast and I couldn't have been happier, but lately it's been annoying with lot of extra load times, Safari crashing at least 3 times a day. All I've been using it for is to play WoW and surf the web, checking emails etc. I've done NO downloading whatsoever so I don't expect it to have any nasty software on it. It just started running slower and slower, almost to the point where I never use it anymore due to frustration. Granted, I link surf like a maniac and sometimes have 3 things running simultaneously and demand more and more from the Mac, and then it just freezes up. This never happens with my Windows PC (in sig), no matter how much I throw at it, which can be heaps at times. Any ideas why? Any programs I can use to get into the inner-workings of the Mac and clean up a bit?
 
Do you leave the computer on after 2am anytime? The built in Mac maintenance scripts automatically run very early in the morning 3 or 4am if I remember rightly. Also, give Repair Permissions on the Disk Utility app (in the Applications > Utilities folder).

How much free HDD space is there?
 
I have 187gig free and only using 110g at the moment.

I had a look at the Disk Utility. Do I just click on Repair Permissions or should I Verify Permissions first?
 
As above repair permissions now and again. Also, one thing I've found, is that now and again running a disk repair/permission repair from the installation DVD seems to speed things up somewhat.

If you boot from the DVD and select the language, you can then see there's the Disk Utility on the menu at the top. Run it from there do a disk-repair and a permissions repair from there.
 
My MP has been doing the same, not crashing apps but some running stupidly slow for its spec!

Ive tried verifying/repairing so many times and hasnt done anything, might have to reinstall OS, which I don't really want to do :/ Its like Windows all over again!
 
Give OnyX a try for cleaning out caches, temp files etc. Some people say it helps speed up a system and others don't. It's free, so it's worth a try.
 
Operating Systems don't just spontaneously get bogged down, be it Linux, Mac OS X or Windows. It's all to do with the user and the choices they make (what software you run and so on).

It wouldn't matter what system I was on. If a computer was once not performing how it was initially I would backup, (Quick) format, and reinstall from scratch. Never preserve settings.

So yes, that is my suggestion. Reinstall and grab the combo update from Apple. Most people don't like doing it even if there is a clear call for it but I quite like backing everything up and reinstalling from scratch.
 
As Feek says use Onyx. My MacBook had a similar problem but it was caused by me installing Safari 4 Beta.

If you have a Time Machine backup then doing a re-install is a walk in the park if nothing fixes your problem.
 
It's even easier if you just do an archive and install. All your stuff is saved anyways - it's not like Windows on that front.

It's worth backing up anyway, obviously.
 
USB 2.0 = 480Mbps (theoretical maximum)
SuperDrive = 84.38Mbps (theoretical maximum for an 8x DVD reading SuperDrive)

You can get your Mac to look for any bootable media at startup by pressing Option.
 
Fillado said:
USB 2.0 = 480Mbps (theoretical maximum)
SuperDrive = 84.38Mbps (theoretical maximum for an 8x DVD reading SuperDrive)

You can get your Mac to look for any bootable media at startup by pressing Option.
Click to expand...

Cool so what the best way of getting the OSX cd over to the USB stick?
 
It's a DVD, it's around 8gb that need to be copied over to the USB stick...

It's a little tricky making it bootable, but it's real handy to be able to install OSX without having to wait so long. :)
 
Feek said:
Give OnyX a try for cleaning out caches, temp files etc. Some people say it helps speed up a system and others don't. It's free, so it's worth a try.
Click to expand...

done it before a few times, still has no effect on overall speed, was much quicker when I bought it!

Will look into copying OSX install to USB
 
I think it's fixed now, with the solution being the dumbest thing ever and probably wrong anyway. All I did was change my homepage from the default Apple website to google. My problems was only with the web browser and not the actual PC. Everything runs fast again.
 
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