Slow Mac

[ktalebian]

Hi there
For some reason, my Mac is slow now! I constantly get that rainbow wait icon. I ran the CD and went to Disk Utilities, and asked for it to fix the permission, and the disk, but no good happened.
My questions: should I install a fresh copy? If I do so, nothing would happen to my Windows Partition right?

Thanks

Kousha

[bluedoggiant]

Hi there
For some reason, my Mac is slow now! I constantly get that rainbow wait icon. I ran the CD and went to Disk Utilities, and asked for it to fix the permission, and the disk, but no good happened.
My questions: should I install a fresh copy? If I do so, nothing would happen to my Windows Partition right?

Thanks

Kousha

nothing, just as long as you install it to the mac partition which you would have to because leopard cant be installed on the windows partition due to the format.

[ktalebian]

so should I format it? or is there an alternative to fixing it withou format?

[bluedoggiant]

so should I format it? or is there an alternative to fixing it withou format?

how big is your disk, and how much space are you using?

[ktalebian]

I have 70Gb for Mac, and I have 53Gb free!

[bluedoggiant]

I have 70Gb for Mac, and I have 53Gb free!

7200 RPM or 5400 RPM?

[menthol moose]

How is the disk speed relevant to a sudden slowdown?

Back up your data and reinstall Leopard on the partition it was on before. A good thing you can also do is max out your RAM. If it supports 4GB, get 4GB of RAM.

[macsrules]

I am assuming you probably have an old mac or a mac mini, do to the size of your hard drive which tells me a couple of things.

First, there are alot of thing that could cause your computer to slow down, but there is probably one variable that stand out above the rest, what are you doing with your computer?


1. First, are you trying to run programs like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro that are memory intensive applications? If so, you need to have a hugh external tied to your computer to use as it's disk cache.

2. Have you installed a bunch of stuff on your computer?

3. Is it an old mac?

4. If it is a new mac, how much ram do you have installed?

5. How much empty disk space do you have after your partition and all your software is on your computer?

Some of the more intense applications require space for disk cache to run smoothly.


Without knowing all the information on your computer here is what I would recommend to get the most out of your mac.


1. First, this is the first step I would take, find out exactly which model of Mac I have by doing this:


Goto About this Mac, and under where it says Mac OS X, it will say the version of your operating system.

Click twice on the word version, and it will bring up your serial number. Note this, then goto

http://support.apple.com/specs/

and type in your serial number. It will bring up your corresponding machine, and model number.

2. Once you know exactly which Mac you have, it will tell you the Maximum Ram your machine will take, it will also tell you which kind you need.

3. Then you should Max out the Ram. Here are two good sites that you can compare the price of Ram.

http://www.otherworldcomputing.com/

http://www.crucial.com/

4. Then, yes, I would zero out the Mac Partition and Reinstall the operating system.

5. And no, it should not destory the other partition as long as you don't install anything or pick that side when you are erasing the hard drive.

This should give you the Max Speed you can get out of the model Mac you have.

MacsRules