Clicky and Slower

ThirtyThr33 said:

Hey guys,

I'm still pretty new to Macs, and I absolutely fell in love with my MBP 15" (2.0ghz 500gb 5krpm HDD)

However recently it's a little more bogged down, and the hard drive seems to be clicking non stop even when I'm not downloading anything. I get the beachball more often and apps dont snap open like they used to.

What can I do to speed it up? I'm a long time windows user and if it were a windows I'd just defrag it and run some antivirus, but with a Mac, I'm not really sure what to do... Help Plz!

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By clicking do you mean something that doesn't sound normal to come from a hard drive? Any noise other than usual access noises (which you shouldn't even hear) coming from a hard drive is usually sign of an impending failure of that device.

Dave

Sounds like a faulty HDD. If you can, take it back to Apple and get them to check it over for you.

ThirtyThr33 said:

However recently it's a little more bogged down, ... I get the beachball more often and apps dont snap open like they used to....What can I do to speed it up?

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Performance tips for Mac OS X

ThirtyThr33 said:

the hard drive seems to be clicking non stop even when I'm not downloading anything.

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If a drive is constantly active or your CPU utilization is high (possibly with increased temps and fan speed) when you're not running any apps, check to see if Spotlight is indexing by looking at the Menu Bar icon: (not indexing) (indexing)

Also, Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then click on the CPU column heading once or twice, so the arrow points downward (highest values on top). Then look to see what may be consuming system resources.

ThirtyThr33 said:

if it were a windows I'd just defrag it

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You don't need to defrag on Mac OS X, except possibly when partitioning a drive.

About disk optimization with Mac OS X

You probably won't need to optimize at all if you use Mac OS X.

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ThirtyThr33 said:

run some antivirus

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ThirtyThr33 said:

I almost suspect a virus

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You don't need any 3rd party antivirus app to keep your Mac malware-free. Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released 10 years ago. You cannot infect your Mac simply by visiting a website, unzipping a file, opening an email attachment or clicking on a web link. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which cannot infect your Mac unless you actively install them, and they can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install. Also, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion have anti-malware protection built in, further reducing the need for 3rd party antivirus apps.