[brent0saurus]

I just wanted to post this thread for people to give any tips they have on making their mac run better. I've been using some of those optimizers but some of them made my computer act weird and i haven't really noticed a difference. Also, do lots of files on your hard drive slow down your computer? I have 15 gb of music alone. I'm sure everyone will appreciate your posts!

[Cold Warrior]

how large is your hard drive? If you're filling it up fast, remember that a certain percentage needs to remain free. For example, if a 40GB drive has only 2GB free, the system will start to choke.

[Tesseract]

Unlike Windows, on a Mac you shouldn't have to do much "system optimization." I have some doubts about the efficacy of some "system optimizer" programs. Before you use one, make sure it claims to solve a problem that you are actually having. Then ask around or check message boards like this one to make sure it works and doesn't cause new problems - don't use it unless others have done so successfully.

Unless your hard disk is really full - 1 GB or less free - having lots of files shouldn't slow down your system.

[brent0saurus]

yeah, i knew i should have checked if it was good. I hope it didn't break anything. I have an 80 GB hard drive and 44 GB of space left. So i'm not using that much but my friends with new iBooks seem to start up faster. it used to be that when i started up the dock, toolbar and icons would come pretty much instantaneously but now it takes a little while and even when the toolbar at the top comes up, the icons still need to load. Is that stuff normal or did i break my mac? Also, when i run disk utility and "verify disk permissions" the same things always come up saying that it's fixing something but if it was fixed then it wouldnt come up when i ran it again, right?

[tcphoto]

Free up as much hard drive space as possible. I edit my images and then burn a cd asap. Your music is probably better off on a cd and accessed when needed. I have utilized about 10% of my hard drive space and maxed out the memory in order to run efficiently.

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by tcphoto

Free up as much hard drive space as possible. I edit my images and then burn a cd asap. Your music is probably better off on a cd and accessed when needed. I have utilized about 10% of my hard drive space and maxed out the memory in order to run efficiently.

Memory is always good, but whether using 10% or 70% of your drive--it will make no difference. Might as well save yourself some hassle and use the space you paid for.

[kauffee]

Apple has cron scripts that run every night, every week, and every month in the middle of the night. (I think the weeklies run Sunday nights and the monthlies on the first of the month.) They won't run if your laptop is off or in sleep mode, so if you want to schedule them to run some other time, get MacJanitor. If you just want to run them manually from the terminal, they are:

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

[brent0saurus]

so does it matter if you have lots of stuff on your hard drive or not? I'm so confused. it feels like my computer is slower than a new ibook (i have a 15" 1.67 GHZ powerbook) but the ibook that i am comparing my powerbook to has no files on it, but it's defenitely opening programs up faster than my powerbook does.
that poor smiley is getting poked with a stick. ha.

[Randman]

Get ram, first and foremost.

[brent0saurus]

i have 1.5 gb of ram. i added a gig of kingmax myself. But if it was bad ram then my computer would be REALLY slow or would crash a lot, right?

[Tesseract]

Maybe.
You can use the "Apple Hardware Test" CD that came with your laptop to test your RAM.

[brent0saurus]

I've tested the RAM and it's fine. I don't know what is wrong with my computer. Just recently, iChat was acting kind of slow. Like, when i was spotlighting songs, there was lag when i was typing and microsoft word froze when i tried to open a document that my professor posted on the internet. Has anyone else had Word freeze before? I've been using macs for about 3 years but bought my first one in June, and i've never had any programs freeze like that on the macs i used at school. But on my computer i've had itunes freeze before and word just recently. Is this normal?! I'm so scared that my mac is broken. Powerbooks cost so much money and i want it to work as best as possible.
thanks

[I was David B.]

The best speed tips I have are:
- a fast harddrive
- enough RAM
- use classic applications
- use as many terminal applications as possible
- use x11 apps if you need guis

[cambro]

The hardware test CD may not always catch bad RAM.

If you are experiencing qwerky behavior, remove any RAM that you installed and see if it continues.

If that doesn't work. Backup your files and reinstall your system. I know that is a real pain, but it will really help to isolate the problem.

Finally, if nothing else works and you are still getting bad behavior, take your PB to an Apple Store or authorized service person and nicely explain the problems you are having.

And YES...MS WORD SUCKS!!! It crashes on me quite a lot. I've found that bad document files may be part of the problem....perhaps they get easily corrupted by WORD?

EDIT::just wanted to point out that the problems you are having (besides flaky Word) are NOT normal and I have not encountered them on the 4 macs in my family that I take care of (everything PB G3 to PM G5).

[brent0saurus]

Thank you very much Cambro! As soon as i come home from college i'll take out my tiny 00 screw driver and pull out the RAM and see if it makes a difference. Otherwise i'm hoping that the people at the apple store will help me. The people that work there are nice but i have a feeling that if i want them to go through some system optimization procedures and make my mac run more smooth they will want me to buy ProCare, since it's not an issue like my hard drive failed or my firewire ports aren't working or something like that.
But maybe ProCare is worth it. Even though i think it should come with AppleCare!!! soo...much....money.
and if my ram ends up being bad do you suggest getting ram from apple?? I have a lifetime gaurantee on my kingmax so returning it shouldn't be too much of a problem, but paying like, 500 dollars for a gig of ram might be a problem.

Thanks again! I really appreciate it.

[NYGEO18]

I had similar issues and I reformatted my HD and reinstalled OSX and my apps. It has made a pretty dramtic difference. Id say it was the single best thing I have done (erase and install) for my mac in terms of performance. I have 1.25gb ram so it runs pretty fast at this point.

[sadpandas]

Hey guys,
Regarding Cron scripts running at night. Should I try and not put my pbook to sleep on some nights so these run? I am pretty sure i have never left it up and running throughout an entire evening so that would mean that the crom scripts have never run. What is the best way to keep it awake? Anyhelp would be greatly appreciated.

[Dewaine]

I spent $9 and got Tiger Cache Cleaner. Easy to run the Cron anytime you want, clean all cache areas, and a ton of other stuff. There are free programs that do parts of what TCC does, but TCC does it all. I think TCC is worth $9, but you can also google and get free stuff. Even though I have had my Lil' Mac only a month, I noticed a difference when I ran the utilities in TCC.

[brent0saurus]

okay, so i removed the ram and the problem persists...i called applecare about my volume buttons being laggy and how my computer just generally runs slower and he said that the volume thing is completely normal and that the more files you put on your mac, the slower it's going to get. But i've never encountered lag in the volume keys on any other mac and i don't have THAT many files on my computer. I still have about 40gb free so i don't know what he's talking about. Also, i ran tech tool deluxe (that disc that comes in the applecare box) and it failed the volume test. So i guess there's problem in my hard drive volume...and i told the guy at applecare and he said that they don't support tech tool deluxe....which doesn't make sense considering they give it to you when you buy applecare. i told him this and he just told me that their marketing team throws it in there but that apple doesn't support it and that i shouldn't trust what it tells me...but there is definitely something wrong with my computer!!! It just isn't running as well as it should be, and it's a powerbook, so it should run awesome!!
should i just back up all of my files and do a clean install?

[Tiresias]

Opps... it's being discussed here and stupid me started a new thread about harddisk maintenance...

Anyways, I too have noticed a performance lag on my one-month-old PB. especially after using Acquisition , which I've since ditched.

I've only got 512 Ram, but then again I've got 80GB and over 54GB free.

My symptoms are:

* Slower than usual application start-ups (icon bouncing slowly in dock).

* Appearance of spinning beach ball before executing certain commands.

* Messy start-up sequence (black flash-frame and "click" with broken lines before Apple icon appears).

* iPhoto library appears empty for several seconds -- about 5 or 6 -- after start up (I have over 800 photos, but this did not happen until recently).


Re the automatic Cron Scripts. Midnight where? I'm not in the States. Plus, if it doesn't work if the computer is sleeping to avoid staying up all night proding your computer (which, of course, sleeps automatically) do you reset the sleep preferences or do you need to be using it/on-line at the time?

Is there an easy way to prompt a Cron Script?

Given my symptoms, do you recommend I re-install OSX?

Edit: Typo

[Randman]

Add ram.

[brent0saurus]

you can run the scripts using programs like Tiger Cache Clean up, or MacJanitor. I would recommend macjanitor because it's free and a small program. but yeah, definitely add more ram and check your hard disk for errors by using the disk utility. These are all things that i've done that have helped, but i think i should still be running faster. I am thinking about doing a clean install of osx (which i guess wipes everything out). if you don't have a lot of files, or have an external hard drive or an email address that you can email lots of files to, then just re-install osx. It can't hurt. Just make sure you back up any files that you want to save.

[jimrski]

I am a new Mac bubba and reading through several topics I get lost and I need to ask a few questions, such as:

- a fast harddrive is 7200 rpm or 10,000 rpm?
- enough RAM I have a 1GB in a PowerBook G4, is that enough?
- use classic applications - What are these?
- use as many terminal applications as possible -same as above
- use x11 apps if you need guis - What are these?

For the record I have and still am a PC Bubba but feel the need to expand my horizions and doing so with a Mac seemed a good idea. I also got the PB G4 for a steal at an Estate sale, $500.00. It is an older model, can someone tell mehowto determine what model year it is or however, Macs are determed.
I will read all I can but will probably ask a fewmore stupis questions so please be patient.

TIA

Jim

[Tesseract]

For a laptop, a fast hard drive is 5400 or 7200 rpm. The 7200 rpm ones are rare and expensive (similar to 10 or 15k rpm disks for desktops).

512 or 768 MB RAM is adequate, 1 or 1.5 GB is considered optimum from a price/performance standpoint. More is always better if you can afford it - but if your system is running fast enough for you, then you have enough RAM.

Classic applications are Mac OS 9 and earlier applications. They run in a special OS 9 environment inside OS X. This environment used to be installed alongside OS X by default, but with Tiger you must install it separately if you want to use Classic apps. They are not very common any more, and they tend to run slowly.

"Terminal applications" are really text-interface Unix apps such as vim, nano, pine, lynx, etc. They tend to be "lighter weight" than graphical apps. There's really no need to use them unless you want to. If your system is slowed down so much you are compelled to use these apps rather than the graphical ones for performance reasons alone, something's wrong with your Mac.

X11 apps are graphical Unix applications that run "inside of" X11.app (the 'X server'). (Unix geeks: yes, I know this is a gross simplification.) They are often not very well integrated with the OS, can be harder to use than Mac apps, and do not necessarily consume fewer resources than the corresponding Mac apps. Again, you should not feel compelled to use X11 apps for performance reasons (and whether using X11 apps alone would result in a performance increase is uncertain).

[Barry]

the applecare supplied tech tool deluxe does NOT workk with Tiger (os X 10.4.x). it can actually damage a 10.4 install.

I would run disk first aid from the install disk 1 utilities menu. Also repair permissions. if these get messed up it can slow down the computer. Download either Onyx or Tiger Cache Cleaner and 1) run the maintenance scripts ( the weekly script takes some time to run) then do a deep clean of all caches/logs. Download the 10.4.2 comboo updater from apple and run that.

have you tried reseting the PRAM??

if disk first aid cannot fix you rproblem, backup your data. you might need a program like Disk Warrior

[NateEssex]

Originally Posted by Barry

if disk first aid cannot fix you rproblem, backup your data. you might need a program like Disk Warrior

Disk Warrior is great! I highly recommend it.

[sfgiantsfan]

i agree^^

[benwhanlee]

disk warrior is a good program, but i wonder if a bad directory is what's causing your problems. but if you have access to it, use it to check your disk. when you select your drive in disk utility, what does it say in terms of S.M.A.R.T. status? if it says verified, you're probably ok. if not, you're hard drive is going bad - you can tell the applecare people that and they'll put in a new hard drive.

i'd suggest creating a new account, then log into it and see if you have the same issues. if you don't, then it's probably a bad user preference file. if you still do have bad performance, you can rule out that it's an account specific issue.

you could try resetting your pram.

you could also boot from your software cd and run disk utility's disk repair function. if it finds any problems, keep running it until it doesn't find any. if there's a problem you can't fix, then diskwarrior is a good choice to fix it.

otherwise, i really would suggest doing a reinstall. backup your vital stuff. when you boot from your software cd, run disk utility first and zero out all the data before reinstalling. every once in a while, i wipe my computer clean and just start over. there's a lot of muck that just accumulates after time. that's why i'm real paranoid about what i install on my machine. programs that install crud all over the place are to be avoided, if possible. of course, if it's something you need, there's no getting around that.

whoa...long reply. sorry.

[Rob van dam]

Originally Posted by kauffee

Apple has cron scripts that run every night, every week, and every month in the middle of the night. (I think the weeklies run Sunday nights and the monthlies on the first of the month.) They won't run if your laptop is off or in sleep mode, so if you want to schedule them to run some other time, get MacJanitor. If you just want to run them manually from the terminal, they are:

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

without starting another thread on this what i wanted to know is does an app called mainmenu (which i have installed) peform the "crons" and other tasks effectivly or is macjanitor better.Im getting alot of spinning beach ball on my G5 imac and it's annoying

[Randman]

I was having that dreaded 10.4.2 lag and zapped the pram and all seems to be snappier.

[Rob van dam]

Originally Posted by Randman

I was having that dreaded 10.4.2 lag and zapped the pram and all seems to be snappier.

still on 10.3.9 no money for tiger. but i will try zapping pram

[olePigeon]

brent0saurus, if you can get to an Apple Store and have an Apple Genius take a look at it, I think that's the best way to go. It's so much easier to do demonstrate the problems in person with an actual technician.

[GenoG]

nice thread!