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My Mac is Slow!

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Tmeels
Posts: 1009 - Karma: 77
Its less than a year old.  Macbook.  Until recently it was great.  Fast online and just doing stuff with photos,word etc.  However now if I click any program I have to sit there and wait for it to open.  It freezes for like 10 second periods with the swirly thing that is like the hour glass.  Constantly does that online (although that may be the connection) Kicks me off I chat sometimes and its just SLOW.  What can I do to fix it?  I emptied the cache which is all I could think of
Apr 4 2008 9:57AM
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08-Line_Rider
Posts: 641 - Karma: 11
Ccleaner i dont know if it compatible with macs or not i have windows :( but worth checking into
www.filehippo.com

Apr 4 2008 9:58AM
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WV_Skier
Posts: 178 - Karma: 36
I have the same problem with a Macbook i got last july. I found that on Aim i get kicked off about every 10 min or so but I started using MSN Messenger and it works much better. The other problems i havnt figured out yet tho. Good luck
Apr 4 2008 9:59AM
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weenox
Posts: 1568 - Karma: 19
depending on when you got it, it probobly only has 512 megs of ram.  that would be a great place to start.....buy yourself like 2 gigs of memory.  you can get 2 gig sticks for like $50 and they're SUPER easy to put in.  2 gigs is the max for macbooks, so don't go buy like 2 2 gig sticks and think that you can run both.

also, i don't know if you've been a mac user for a long time, but i've seen people do this a lot....make sure you are exiting your programs and not just closing the window.  actually go to the drop down at the top of the screen and click "exit", don't just click the little red x.  seems retarded, but i've seen soooo many people do this.  you don't want multiple applications running at once.  you could also just use apple + q to quit programs faster.

get random shit off of your desktop.  you shouldn't have any more than 10 icons.  and keep your dock small, with as few icons as possible.  just get rid of icons and use spotlight all the time.

go through your applications folder and delete random shit you don't use.
Apr 4 2008 11:12AM
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horner
Posts: 2439 - Karma: 1,578
go to your utilities and open up DISK UTILITY.  Then select your man drive and repair your permissions.  This fixes 85% of my problems.

I repair my permissions about 3 times a week to keep things in order.
Apr 4 2008 12:50PM
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charmander
Posts: 10636 - Karma: 372
to much pr0n?
Apr 4 2008 12:54PM
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St.Steezy
Posts: 4228 - Karma: 20
Repair permissions on your drive will help alot!

Go into application folder -> Untilites -> open Disk Utility

Once in disk utility click on the name of your Hard drive, probably "Hard Drive" Or "Macintosh HD".. Something like that.

Then go to the first aid tab, opens in this window anyway, but just incase.

Then 'Verify Disk Permission" and follow that by "Repair Disk Permissions" Repeat this a couple times and your set.

Let me know how is goes.
Apr 4 2008 1:14PM
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St.Steezy
Posts: 4228 - Karma: 20
Also, how full is your hard drive. If its getting up there, consider going through it and emptying out what you don't need.
Apr 4 2008 1:16PM
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2+2=5
Posts: 3676 - Karma: 18
what does the fullness of your harddrive have to do with speed?

if i were you i would burn all the shit u've got, and reformat your harddrive, which whipes out all the files and programs off of your computer. basically it'll be just like u got it brand new. then put all the stuff u need back on. if you need faster or something, definately go buy some ram.
Apr 4 2008 2:10PM
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charmander
Posts: 10636 - Karma: 372
i did this to mine, its only like 3 months old,

helped good posting
Apr 4 2008 2:25PM
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SHREDDY
Posts: 675 - Karma: 37
Got mine in April and it's in the same boat...ran fast until recently when I'm online I'll get the swirling thing every now and then.  I use Adium, so I have no instant messaging problems.
Apr 9 2008 10:59AM
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miker92
Posts: 621 - Karma: 36
the fullness of your hard drive has a LOT to do with speed. i have one of the first dells to come out with windows xp (from like 2000ish) and it has an 18.6 gig hard drive. for a while i would constantly get messages telling me if i didnt clean it my computer it would crash and stuff. programs run much slower than, music in itunes skips, aim fucks up all the time, etc. i got an external hard drive and almost all the problems are solved, except i only have a usb1.0 drive which makes it hard to run programs off the external.

theyre also selling dell "vostro" desktops for like $450 with 2 gigs of ram, 180 gig hard drives, and windows xp (since vista was such a flop). i got one and its amazing.

also i was really surprised by this thread because i hear nothing but good thins about macs.
Apr 9 2008 10:13PM
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Tmeels
Posts: 1009 - Karma: 77
Thanks for the suggestions guys, I did all the stuff you suggested and it did little to nothing.  I guess I can feel a little difference but its not enough for me to be satisfied.  I guess I can attribute it to having 4 full length ski movies saved on the HD?
Apr 9 2008 11:14PM
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St.Steezy
Posts: 4228 - Karma: 20
^Can you give me specs of your system.

Processor Speed
Operating system
Capacity of Harddrive/ space left
Ram
ect.

Also, have you ran a system update recently? If not, do one and see what needs to be updated.
Apr 10 2008 1:16AM
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]-AvaPro-[
Posts: 21 - Karma: 10
Hey kid...

I'm a computah...stop all the downloadin...
Apr 10 2008 1:01PM
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Raoul_Duke
Posts: 584 - Karma: 17

Epic.
Apr 10 2008 3:57PM
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Itsbackfliptime
Posts: 18901 - Karma: 75
Fullness technically has nothing to do with speed. An empty hard drive will perform the same as a half or 3/4 full hard drive.

A full hard drive can only effect speed when theres no room for virtual memory. I'm not entirely sure how OS X does it, but I believe the space for swapping memory is already allocated and filling your hard drive won't affect it. Some programs write stuff to the hard drive while they're running, which could cause some problems but in most cases the program will crash before it can do anything to the OS.

Unless your hard drive is FULL, like less than a few hundred megabytes the problem is most likely something else. Reinstalling the OS is the easiest fix. Its pretty easy to do also. Just make sure you back everything up that you want to keep because everything will be erased.
Apr 10 2008 7:14PM
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miker92
Posts: 621 - Karma: 36
my computer had 286mb free. windows essentially died every time i turned the computer on.
Apr 10 2008 8:25PM
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Itsbackfliptime
Posts: 18901 - Karma: 75
Windows does something different with virtual memory.
Apr 10 2008 10:32PM
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TWoods
Posts: 10014 - Karma: 8,385
try turning ot off every once in a while. A lot of people don't let their computers shut down, that helps sometimes.
Apr 10 2008 11:48PM
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drippynuts
Posts: 137 - Karma: 10
well you should have gotten a PC then..
Jun 25 2008 5:11PM
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Jmanski
Posts: 1152 - Karma: 13
ive heard for your mac to run best you need to keep 10% of your hard drive free
Jun 27 2008 12:24PM
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joanna
Posts: 99 - Karma: 10
still faster than a windows!
Jun 27 2008 12:43PM
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Jmanski
Posts: 1152 - Karma: 13
that is very untrue
Jun 27 2008 4:54PM
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TWoods
Posts: 10014 - Karma: 8,385
you need at LEAST that much for any computer to run well.


Jun 27 2008 5:05PM
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.jr
Posts: 5313 - Karma: 356
Im such a noob.. where the hell is my application folder.. Is it the applications under places on my HD? If so I cant find any utilities.. Im also on a version 10.5.3 so maybe its different? or Im just dumb..
Jun 27 2008 5:34PM
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Jmanski
Posts: 1152 - Karma: 13
click the little magnifying glass thing in the top right of your screen and search for DISK UTILITY
haha
Jun 27 2008 5:41PM
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KarmaInitiative
Posts: 2028 - Karma: 174
i hate when people think that their computer is invincable cause its a mac and fuck it up
Jun 27 2008 8:25PM
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