OS X :: How Can I Improve System Performance Without A Fresh Install
Sep 28, 2009
My system (sig) has been relatively sluggish for a few months now. Right now I've only got Firefox, Snak, iTunes and Adium open and it's just prodding. It has a decent amount of ram that should be able to handle relatively easy computing like this.
So, my question is, what can I do? Should I just re-install? I wouldn't really mind doing that. I have all day off, and fresh installs are fun but I have a good amount of stuff on here. I have an external where all of my important stuff is, so a fresh install wouldn't be a bad idea in that way.
This machine is pretty old but I'd like it to be snappy like it once was.
Are there little things I can switch off or something?
I just got my new MBP finally! I'm just in the process of calibrating the battery (first initial charge). When its charged and I can turn it on, would you recommend reformatting the drive and freshly installing OSX? If so, would anyone be kind enough to be able to point me in the direction of useful instructions? (I have an idea, but dont want to mess it up).
I want to install OS x on Macbook pro laptop, I have erase all data through dist utility and when i reinstall os x it will give me message like "You must sign in with an Apple ID that was used to purchase "OS X Maverick"...
I've got an iMac that's a couple of years old, and time (along with software) has taken its toll on the speed of my iMac. I've run Onyx, I've downloaded a utility that lets me set time machine to run once a day instead of every hour, but I'm still not happy with some of the slowdowns I get. So, my question is what will give me the best performance bump?:
1 - Clean install of 10.5 2 - Add more RAM (currently I only have the 1GB it came with) 3 - Upgrade to 10.6 4 - Something else I'm not considering
I am starting to do more and more projects recently everything from illustrations, 3d motion graphics, video work, compositing etc... The laptop seems to be doing okay but I know there is room for improvement. I'm definitely going to max out my ram to 8gb. I'm thinking of doing this option bay thing here [URL].
And putting in a ssd as the main drive and keeping the 750 gb for storage purposes. That or possibly just upgrading the ram and the hard drive to something higher than 5400rpm. Should I just start with ram upgrade, should I just upgrade the hard drive to something with higher rpd or go solid state. Also what brands do you recommend?
Info: MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8), 4gb ram, 2.2 ghz intel i7
I'm looking to improve my gaming performance. I run The Sims 3, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2 and a few other games natively on my MacBook Pro 13". By no I means do I care for getting unrealistically high performance, but I would like to know how an SSD would effect gaming performance. Would it give a notable increase in terms of FPS? or responsive?
I have a macBook pro 2008 15 inch screen (aluminum body)I have a BIG FAT Aperture library now (25000 images+) and the current config (4 GIG working memory) is just squeaking by I have been told you can expand the working memory to 8 GIG with OS X- the manual however says max 4.better a hundred or so for new memory than 2K+ for a new machine?
My MacBook Pro has become abnormally slow after loading Lion OS X. How to improve its speed?, My MacBook Pro has become abnormally slow after loading Lion OS X. It was performing excellently with Snow Leopard. Problem started only after switching over to Lion OS X. How to improve its performance?
I have a 13" mid '09 MacBook Pro. How do I improve it's graphic performance for gaming? I have version 10.7.4. On my buddies system he can go to system prefrences > Energy Saver > Optomize for better graphic performance, but I don't have this option...
I currently have some good headphones and use the front jack. How do I hook up the three speakers? Do they all plug into one jack in the back? And what about the subwoofer, does it need a special jack.Final question: is there something I could purchase to improve the sound that wouldn't be too expensive? I.e. is there some USB extension or sound jack item that I can buy, which will improve sound performance, and plug the speakers into that?
My PowerMac plays most small videos (640p) on YouTube just fine, as well it does an OK job at playing slightly larger videos in Quicktime. I would like to not have to worry about Flash any more. With the new 10.1 beta 2 I notice a nice boost in performance, almost tolerable. If I install a graphics card that supports Core Video will it free up the CPU? How can I tell if a card supports Core Video? As well, what cards do you recommend? Is it difficult to flash a graphics card to work with OS X Tiger in a PowerMac G4?
My MacBook is almost three years old and is getting very sluggish. I will be upgrading to a MacBook Pro next year but in the meantime, would a clean install improve the speed? I have all my files backed up on an external hard drive. I'm not necessarily looking at restoring from backup, as I think it would be nice starting out "new" and only copying over things I need need from my external. What do you think? What are the pros and cons of a clean install?
I jsut did a fresh install. wanted to use my SL DVD but the MBP i5 refused to star with it so I used the original DVD (10.5) and upgraded with the SL DVD to 10.6. However after the initial SL Installation, it tried from the SL DVD and this failed. I did a manual restart, starting from the HD and everything ran fine. however today I note there is a locked file on the HD named Mac OS X Install Data. It contains 181 .pkg files.Now I suppose this should have been moved or deleted as part of the install process. Can I move them to a file where they belong?
Info: MBP, MM, MBP - 10.6 + Windooz XP on a hard partition
I'm currently a Windows user and I'm researching for buying a Mac (I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy it).
My question is how often do you have to do a fresh install, if at all? I do a fresh install every couple of months on my Windows desktop to keep things speedy. i also defrag every 2 weeks. Do you all do this with OS X?
My other question is how often do you reboot or shutdown? I reboot my desktop maybe 3 times a week and the rest of the time its in sleep when I'm not using it.
i just got a used mac g5 dual with no hard drive, thus no os.
I bought a sata drive, used macdrive on my pc to format it to hsf extended. installed it in the mac tower.
put in my osx 10.4 install disk (after holding down mouse button at startup), and i'm looking at - not an install screen - but a screen with a folder icon in the midle that flashes the mac finder icon.
i'm guessing the disk is not being seen for the install.
i tried pressing 'c' at startup, i get a gray screen for a moment and then it goes to the folder screen again.
my question is: how do i do a fresh install on a mac? do i need a certain os version to start from scratch?
I just replaced my boot drive, only to realize that I am not even able to boot to the OSX install disk with the GTX 285 installed... I had the same symptom when I first got the card, because you have to install the evga drivers prior to installing the card.
So... the question... is there anyway to do a fresh OSX install with the GTX 285 installed, ther than putting a card Apple supports?
So yesterday I decided to reformat my new MBP. I had it dual booting with Win7 and I just didn't like how hot my MBP got so I got rid of it. So I decided to reformat and pop in a fresh install of OSX, but I'm not sure if I reinstalled it properly. The reason why I say this is cause traditionally when reformatting my previous macs I would just follow the steps of the CD where then formatting the drive option was part of the step if I remember correctly. This time after putting in the OSX cd once it reboot.
I had to go to the utilities option select my drive to format or it would just reinstall the OS over top what was already there. After installing I noticed I had to rename my drive as well cause it was unknown. I never had to rename my drive before, so I'm not sure if I did this properly. So did I correctly format my MBP? Is there another way to do this to bring it back to exact factory specs? If not can someone let me know how to properly format my MBP?
I have a 500mhz iMac G3. I just got it so it has a fresh install of 10.3.9, but when I try to put it to sleep the screen goes off, and then comes back on immediately.
considering upgrading to Leopard over the holiday weekend. I have quite a few programs already installed in 10.4 so I'm considering an upgrade. Coming from the Windows world recently, a fresh install was always better. What about OS X, same thing?
Also, can you load the install disk/image onto a USB stick, boot from it and install from it? Is that easy/possible?
I bought a new uni, & I' gave my dad my old MB....I want to do a fresh install of Leopard so that it is like new. I put the disc in ran the install but it still has my desktop pic, files, etc. It never gave me an options as for installing? How do I install it to make it just like new?
-MB 2.4ghz -new Leopard disc 10.5.6 -leopard 10.5.6 is installed on it now
My G4 graphite is acting strange, I put in a hard drive the size of 160 GB, yet when trying to install mac os x server it reads it as thirty, what would cause this ?