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Aluminum · Dec 24, 2003, 08:54 AM

How often do you guys wipe your drive and reinstall your system? If not what apps do you use to keep your powerbook hd and OS in top notch shape? Only utility I have found that helps a bit is macjanitor. Any suggestions and recommendations would be welcome. Thanks for your time.

Phat Bastard · Dec 24, 2003, 03:05 PM

Quite unlike Windows systems, Macs don't suffer from performance slowdowns that can really only be fixed by formatting and reinstalling the OS. The only reason why I have ever reinstalled Mac OS (9 and up) is for the sake of repartitioning the hard drive. I've never needed to format and reinstall because of performance slowdowns.

When my main computer was a Peecee, I had to reinstall every 6 months it seemed. I even had a CD burned with everything I would need to get quickly back up and running after a reinstall. No need to do that on a Mac!

Having said that, there is software out there that will clean up your system, as little that is actually required. I run Macjanitor, repair permissions using the Disk Utility, and I have occasionally run Diskwarrior to defragment the HD. Only repairing permissions is absolutely necessary to have OS X run in tip-top shape.

Aluminum · Dec 24, 2003, 03:09 PM

and repairing permissions is only really neccesary after you install apps correct? I was playing around with virtual pc and windows xp, when I got an error message and I scrambled around to erase all the crap it installed. I believe I tracked it all down and tossed everything I could find. However when you install apps like that doesnt it leave an imprint and can lead to slowdowns? I don't know if this is factual or not however I guess I could use a disk fragmentation tool such as diskwarrior, now if they only made a version thats compatible with 10.3.2.

NYCFarmboy · Dec 24, 2003, 03:45 PM

My sister-in-laws 677mhz G4 laptop was ultra sluggish.

She had me take a look at it declaring it was very messed up.

I looked at it...and discovered she stored every file on her desktop. I moved all her files to her home folder, and after about 3 hours of the computer gurgling (you could hear the processor running) it settled down and ran perfectly...and snappy again.

It turns out she had over 6,000 photo files, and I guess when you leave something on the desktop the processor has to run thru them everytime you do something?

Aluminum · Dec 24, 2003, 04:40 PM

hmmm thats interesting if thats true, where all the files in one folder? or covering the desktop like margarine? I store most of my files in my home folder, however my games and icons are stored with my system folders etc, anyone else have any factual evidence here?

David Hagan · Dec 24, 2003, 04:45 PM

Originally posted by NYCFarmboy:
My sister-in-laws 677mhz G4 laptop was ultra sluggish.

She had me take a look at it declaring it was very messed up.

I looked at it...and discovered she stored every file on her desktop. I moved all her files to her home folder, and after about 3 hours of the computer gurgling (you could hear the processor running) it settled down and ran perfectly...and snappy again.

It turns out she had over 6,000 photo files, and I guess when you leave something on the desktop the processor has to run thru them everytime you do something?

Maybe in OS 9. This shouldn't be a problem in OS X.

Maflynn · Dec 24, 2003, 05:03 PM

There was some threads here or macworld a while ago stating that if you had an excessive amount of items on your desktop it will degrade performance on OSX.

Mike

fuddman · Dec 24, 2003, 09:32 PM

Your kidding me right?? I have all my project files in folders on my desktop just so i can easily access them... is it true that it can slow down my computer??

Aluminum · Dec 25, 2003, 01:21 AM

someone in here must know an answer to this question about desktop files, but more importantly if you install and erase a lot of applications there must be a way to clean up the drive and get rid of files that arnt being used, the files that were left over. There has to be some app that will optimize the drive and keep it in top notch shape.

Phat Bastard · Dec 25, 2003, 11:23 AM

Again, you're thinking like a Windows user. When you install an application in OS X, most of the files installed are in the directory with the application executable (usually in /Applications/whatever). Additional files can be in ~/Library or /System/Library, and in ~/Preferences or /System/Preferences.

But these files don't contribute to making your computer sluggish, like a Windows machine! There really is no need to delete these files, other than to save hard drive space. Trust me, getting rid of these files will have no impact on the sluggishness of your computer!

Originally posted by Aluminum:
someone in here must know an answer to this question about desktop files, but more importantly if you install and erase a lot of applications there must be a way to clean up the drive and get rid of files that arnt being used, the files that were left over. There has to be some app that will optimize the drive and keep it in top notch shape.

NYCFarmboy · Dec 26, 2003, 05:40 PM

Originally posted by Aluminum:
hmmm thats interesting if thats true, where all the files in one folder? or covering the desktop like margarine? I store most of my files in my home folder, however my games and icons are stored with my system folders etc, anyone else have any factual evidence here?

The photoes (about 6,000) were in one file on her desktop.

I just moved them to the home area of her user area and after a while her computer worked as good as new.

No other changes. Before, when the photos were on her desktop in the one desktop file, her computer was unbelieveably sluggish. AFTER I moved them to her home area it now works like a new computer...very fast. Not sluggish in the least.

I don't know why, but it really did fix her "sluggish" problem completely.