MacBook getting sluggish - should I erase and install

[danb77]

Hi all,

I have a two year old MacBook, which I love. Recently (both before and after Snow Leopard Install), it has started to behave more sluggishly, in particular freezing up a lot in Safari and Mail.

In my windows days, I would need to periodicially erase and reinstall the operating system to avoid this kind of problem. My question - is this the solution here?

Any other tips for a snappy and speedy system?

If I do erase and install and recover my apps and prefs via time machine, is that likely to reintroduce whatever is causing the sluggishness?

Cheers,

Dan

[djellison]

Despite what some people here will try and tell you - a reinstall from scratch of OSX will help. I don't go more than 12 months without doing it.

[Amdahl]

Nope, don't bother. This is normal behavior for Snow Leopard. Use the beachball time to meditate about 10.6.2.

Some tips for Safari though. Defragment the cache, or do a Empty Cache from the Safari menu. If you don't use RSS, go into Safari Preferences, RSS, and set updates to Never. And Remove Now.

From Terminal, this also doesn't hurt if you aren't using RSS:
rm ~/Library/PubSub/Database/Database.sqlite3

Originally Posted by djellison

a reinstall from scratch of OSX will help. I don't go more than 12 months without doing it.

I just use iDefrag.. Much easier.

[tofagerl]

I love me a good reinstall. It's sort of a zen thing for me. I go through all my apps beforehand, and decide which to keep.
Of course, I always have a backup of my home folder laying around so I can copy some of my preferences and App Support files back. I don't really want to spend another five hours configuring Firefox the way I like it.

[brendu]

reinstall could help... id say you should max out your ram though...

[mysterytramp]

The trouble with an erase and re-installl is that it doesn't really solve anything. You could easily reintroduce whatever is causing the sluggishness when you reinstall your software.

I'd suggest putting it off a few days and run your Mac with Activity Monitor active. This way, you might see what's eating up CPU cycles before you nuke your hard drive. You might find the culprit, which could be an easier fix.

mt

[RITZFit]

have you tried the usual stuff? (reset safari, repair permissions, zap p-ram... those usually work for me atleast).

[boston44]

The best way to get your macbook up to speed is to put in more ram.. Erasing and installing should be the latter measure after resetting the normal things.

[brbubba]

Do you mind me asking what is taking up so much RAM in Activity Monitor???

[danb77]

Thanks for all the tips guys. I will hold fire on the reinstall for the moment. A RAM boost is probably the way to go.

Am I write to think that 2Gig is the max officially supported amount of RAM on a BlackBook from 2007?

[t22design]

I believe you can stick 2 x 2GB in, but only 3.3GB is available. This is meant to be marginally better than using a 1GB + 2GB, because of the matching sizes.

Personally, I did a clean install of Snow Leopard on my BlackBook (MacBook 2,1 with 2GB RAM), and it has never run faster.

I did a CCC (Carbon Copy Clone) of the Leopard install, formatted and installed Snow Leopard. Then manually installed the apps - after a 18 months use since the last clean install, I had quite a few apps that I simply didn't need.

If I needed to retrieve anything I could browse the CCC drive or boot into it, and it was exactly like being sat at the laptop before the install. Handy when some of my favourite apps didn't support Snow Leopard.

Mail.app loads so quickly (c.3500 messages in the inbox), and everything is running sweetly. The occassional Firefox crash is my only gripe.

[mysterytramp]

Installing new RAM should zap the PRAM (right?) so it might be worth zapping it first just to know how that affects your computer. More RAM is always a good thing, but it would be good to know in advance.

And I never remember how to do it (from Apple):

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

mt

[roadbloc]

Originally Posted by Amdahl

Nope, don't bother. This is normal behavior for Snow Leopard. Use the beachball time to meditate about 10.6.2.

it isnt. im having no problems with my clean install of sl. them problems only occur on upgrade.

[daneoni]

Have you done basic maintenance stuff like running cron scripts, repairing permissions, clearing cache, make sure your file system/HDD is free of errors or even defragging?

[djellison]

Originally Posted by roadbloc

it isnt. im having no problems with my clean install of sl. them problems only occur on upgrade.

This is a lie. I get regular beach-ballings on a clean install of SL. On multiple machines. Just because YOU don't get problems on your clean install, it does not mean NO-ONE will get problems with clean installs.

[Amdahl]

Originally Posted by djellison

This is a lie. I get regular beach-ballings on a clean install of SL. On multiple machines. Just because YOU don't get problems on your clean install, it does not mean NO-ONE will get problems with clean installs.

Obviously, all these people with 'no problems' are the members of Apple's Secret Snow Leopard Beta Test Squad.

[mysterytramp]

And the people with the problems are all members of the Steve Ballmer Fan Club.

C'mon, admit it! Admit it!



mt

Upgraded to SL. Never had a problem.

[roadbloc]

Originally Posted by mysterytramp

And the people with the problems are all members of the Steve Ballmer Fan Club.

C'mon, admit it! Admit it!



mt

Upgraded to SL. Never had a problem.

good man.

Originally Posted by Amdahl

Obviously, all these people with 'no problems' are the members of Apple's Secret Snow Leopard Beta Test Squad.

I'm new to mac's I'm afraid, having only bought mine in July. But I get your point, and don't worry, I don't mind speaking my mind when something is plainly rubbish.

Maybe I can't see the problems you see because I'm still recovering from vista...