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there was something on here a while ago about doing something to speed up macs. I can only be that vague I'm afraid.. anyway I can't find the post so what can I do to speed the old girl up a bit?
Ta
Probably not what you were thinking of, but I've just been pricing up some upgrades for my 2007 MacBook Pro:
8GB RAM (might only support 6GB, need to test)
256GB SSD
750GB 7.2k RPM SATA drive (in opti-bay)
OSX Lion upgrade
£600! Was going to try to get work to pay for it but even though it's 25% cheaper than a new laptop I doubt they'll go for it. Might have to reset my sights somewhat.
What makes you think yours is going slow?
somebody will recommend you use an application (e.g. Onyx) which runs the scheduled tasks or repairs permissions, but don't bother doing that
[url= http://www.switched.com/2009/02/19/how-to-turn-off-startup-programs-on-your-mac-os-x/ ]Quick 'n' dirty tips[/url]
somebody will recommend you use an application (e.g. Onyx) which runs the scheduled tasks or repairs permissions, but don't bother doing that
applejack.
been using it for years, seems to help when my macs get a bit 'sticky'
it also sorted out a friends apparently 'dead' MBP
you only have to see the long list of permissions that get changed to see that it's worth running. you can do it from disk utility but that doesn't do the cache cleanup or removal of temporary files.
[url= http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php?sid=440740237a9e3656f533d680b748aad1 ]Onyx[/url] will sort you out. Make sure you download the correct version. Works well for me.
Avoid that spammy Mac Cleaner (or whatever it is) ad that appears with every search. Had a v bad reputation.
MrSmith - Member
it also sorted out a friends apparently 'dead' MBP
you only have to see the long list of permissions that get changed to see that it's worth running. you can do it from disk utility but that doesn't do the cache cleanup or removal of temporary files.
But that's different, if there is a problem then yes occasionally repairing the permissions may fix it. What I'm sceptical about is that it can do anything to improve performance generally - either a file can be accessed or it can't. It's not like one of the permissions you could give it allows access but only after 10 seconds. You could always run chmod -R 777 ./ to make really fast though ...
As for clearing caches, what's the first thing that happens when you browse the web, use Mail or search? The caches all have to get repopulated. Again, pointless unless there is an actual problem, e.g. corrupted file causing a crash or lockup. The whole reason for caching is that you avoid using a slow resource by keeping data locally on disk.
And the scheduled tasks are automatically executed when needed, again simply no point in running these manually unless there is some weird problem.
i'm not just talking about web cache's, i print from huge 16bit tiffs at A2 and to clear the print spool files is a job for terminal (i'd rather not go there) plus a lot of the stuff that osx does in the background gets done when the machine is idle, only i don't leave it idle, i also don't want it to start doing them when i am running the machine hard (why i have spotlight indexing turned off for most things)
it's easy to run applejack periodically and doesn't do any harm. in my case it gives the machine it's 'snap' back.
you don't have to use it, it just happens that i prefer to.
(i'll probably run it after tonight's osx update)
Download and run ccleaner for Mac once in a while...
[url] http://www.piriform.com/mac/ccleaner [/url]
It's brilliant. It does all that Onyx does, and more, and it's totally intuitive to use.
Also, be wise to repair disk permissions once in a while (can also be done through ccleaner), and applejack can be good for saving an otherwise useless machine too if it gets that far.
Avoid that spammy Mac Cleaner (or whatever it is) ad that appears with every search. Had a v bad reputation.
Agreed. Heard lots of bad things about it, and it only allows you a trial iirc, and then wants you to pay lots of money to carry on using it... No thanks!
Probably not what you were thinking of, but I've just been pricing up some upgrades for my 2007 MacBook Pro:8GB RAM (might only support 6GB, need to test)
256GB SSD
750GB 7.2k RPM SATA drive (in opti-bay)
OSX Lion upgrade
Hate to piss on your chips, but if your MBP is of 2007 vintage, it's more than likely it can only take 3 or 4GB of RAM maximum.
Your best bet, honestly, is to get it in A1 condition then sell it (should get £400 or so, maybe more depending on spec) and buy a new one... I was going to upgrade my old 2.16 C2D machine, but it was already struggling on modern software with a 7200rpm drive and 3GB of RAM. Decided that as it was best part of 5 years old, was time to buy a new i7 machine before Christmas, and it's a whole other level of performance, and now I've upped it to 8GB of RAM nothing troubles it. Next (if I ever have any money ever again!) will be a 750GB Seagate hybrid drive.
MrSmith - Member
i'm not just talking about web cache's, i print from huge 16bit tiffs at A2 and to clear the print spool files is a job for terminal (i'd rather not go there) plus a lot of the stuff that osx does in the background gets done when the machine is idle, only i don't leave it idle, i also don't want it to start doing them when i am running the machine hard (why i have spotlight indexing turned off for most things)
it's easy to run applejack periodically and doesn't do any harm. in my case it gives the machine it's 'snap' back.you don't have to use it, it just happens that i prefer to.
(i'll probably run it after tonight's osx update)
I guess it is pointless discussing this further but anyway the maintenance tasks which actually need to be run take moments, (8 seconds total for daily, weekly and monthly on my Macbook according to the logfiles) I would guess they run at reduced prio too. But anyway as I said, a lot of the caches which those utilities clear are counter-productive. The kext and boot caches for example will absolutely slow down bootup.
To the OP, the easiest and actually effective ways of speeding up a mac are fitting a faster hard disk (or better still - an SSD if you have Lion) and adding memory (which is really cheap now).
I guess it is pointless discussing this further
if you are trying to persuade me not to run it then it probably is. 🙄
i take my mac advice from this chap [url= http://www.thedigitalplumber.co.uk/ ]http://www.thedigitalplumber.co.uk/[/url]
some useful mac info if you read the articles and the lists of recommended software/utilities
[url= http://www.thedigitalplumber.co.uk/pages/thelist.html ]http://www.thedigitalplumber.co.uk/pages/thelist.html[/url]