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Speed up/advice for a base 2010 MBA 13"?

thadoggfather

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Original poster
Oct 1, 2007
16,336
17,445
2GB ram, 1.86ghz c2d cpu.

on 10.6.8 right now. Person using it complains it beach balls too often. I already educated him and said beach ball is inevitable period but it shouldn't be happening too frequently.

I know specs aren't great, and I don't think there's a chance I'd try to take the Yosemite leap. Especially with graphical changes and lagginess I experienced on Safari on my 2011 MBA, not worth it.

Considering putting Mavericks on there instead, do you think he would benefit performance wise from SL-> Mavs?

I cleared history, and repaired disk permissions. also checked login items, none aside from iTunes helper.

Any other advice you have? His SSD is only half filled up as well, for people who think maybe the storage is near full.

Appreciate it!

Also, its mostly used for web browsing. Nothing hardcore at all.
 
I had issues with apps randomly losing focus and couldn't fix it. So I backed up my documents and did a clean reinstall which fixed it. If the beachball issue is new, then maybe you need a reinstall. Web browsing should be fine on a 4 year old machine with SSD.

Maybe the person uses chrome? Its been known to use a lot of ram. Flash ads can steal a bit of speed. Using a plugin that stops flash from loading until you click it can improve things.

Mavericks was focused on battery life. Most people got an extra hour or two just from the update. I don't think it fixes beachball issues but you can try it. Again, if it is a software issue, you might need a clean install to fix it.

Also check Activity Monitor and look at memory pressure. If it is low or medium, then the 2 GB is just fine.
 
thadoggfather said:
2GB ram, 1.86ghz c2d cpu.

on 10.6.8 right now. Person using it complains it beach balls too often. I already educated him and said beach ball is inevitable period but it shouldn't be happening too frequently.

I know specs aren't great, and I don't think there's a chance I'd try to take the Yosemite leap. Especially with graphical changes and lagginess I experienced on Safari on my 2011 MBA, not worth it.

Considering putting Mavericks on there instead, do you think he would benefit performance wise from SL-> Mavs?

I cleared history, and repaired disk permissions. also checked login items, none aside from iTunes helper.

Any other advice you have? His SSD is only half filled up as well, for people who think maybe the storage is near full.

Appreciate it!

Also, its mostly used for web browsing. Nothing hardcore at all.
Click to expand...


I have the maxed out 2010 MBA. Spec as attached file. I did a clean install on it with Yosemite and the machine run quite smooth with out beachball. I also notice 4+ hrs of web browsing. My worst case for battery life was less than 2 hrs. I encourage you to upgrade to Yosemite. Don't forget to back up first.
 

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thadoggfather said:
2GB ram, 1.86ghz c2d cpu.

on 10.6.8 right now. Person using it complains it beach balls too often. I already educated him and said beach ball is inevitable period but it shouldn't be happening too frequently.
Click to expand...

Not sure why you think beach balls are inevitable. That depends entirely on the software you're using.

thadoggfather said:
I know specs aren't great, and I don't think there's a chance I'd try to take the Yosemite leap. Especially with graphical changes and lagginess I experienced on Safari on my 2011 MBA, not worth it.

Considering putting Mavericks on there instead, do you think he would benefit performance wise from SL-> Mavs?
Click to expand...

What graphical changes?

Mavericks and Yosemite should both be better than SL for a machine with 2GB RAM because they have memory compression, which effectively gives you more RAM.

Some people have claimed that Yosemite is slower than Mavericks. I haven't seen it on any of my Macs. YMMV.

Also I've seen a lot of beach balls in Safari for no obvious reason. I use Chrome and it works well. Many people have the opposite experience. Again, YMMV.
 
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