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Advice for different ways to speed up startup times

E

eddyhttp

macrumors regular
Original poster
My start up times used to take 43 seconds now it takes 1 min. 40 secs.

Here are my info and how my mac looks.

Its a unibody macbook pro with 4 gb at 2.53.

1) I have a lot of hard drive space, only using 40 gb out of my 320 gb 7200 rpm.

2) I have no items on my desktop except the Macintosh HD.

3) My dock only has 15 items: finder, firefox, itunes, ichat, word, ical, iphoto, spaces, disc utility, system preferences, Stacks: activity monitor, applications, games, downloads, trash.

4) Log-on items, only 5 - ituneshelper, google notifier, speechsynthesisserver, istat menus helper, logitech control center for mouse.

5) Only 3 widgets.

Before right after the timer or clock in the blank blue screen stopped it would load my whole desktop in a flash. Now after the timer ends it stays in that blank blue screen for a long time, then loads my desktop's wallpaper, then dock, and after a while it finally loads up the top dock (?) dunno what to call it, the one with the time, battery, wifi, etc information.

This is the exact set-up i had before the long start-ups
I still have the same about of ram usage at start up. 3.09 free.
I have ran programs like macaroni to clean up the Unix and left my computer on idle all night so that the Unix will clean itself.
I heard at start up the computer might take longer if its having a hard time finding a internet connection, however all my settings and my college internet is fast to connect and is working fine.
The longer start-up times seems to have started since the newest update 10.5.6
I also ran spyware and trojanware scanners that found nothing but cookies that I have erased.

Do you guys know of any tweaks I can do with instructions or any programs i can d/l to help speed up the process.🙂

If it gets worst should I do a clean system install and just c/p my settings and applications or do a timecapule restore.
 
I'd like to know as well. My early 2008 MBP took 1:30 min to start recently 🙁. I have 4GB of RAM which apparently makes your computer start slower, but when I first put it in, my computer started faster.
 
bartelby said:
Don't shut them down. Then there's no startup time.
Click to expand...

Do you mean do not exit or fully close my programs like firefox, itunes, and word before i turn off my computer?

Or, do you mean just put my computer on stand-by?

Thanks!
 
bartelby said:
Let it sleep rather than turning the macine off.
Click to expand...

Sleeping is rather a flaking thing I have learned from experience and from this forum. I have noticed before that my mbp would wake up and then sleep. But I know its because I sometimes take out the mouse dongle after it fell asleep. One time it was supposed to be asleep and the apple light was off but when i opened the machine it was extremely hot and the screen was blank. I had to do a hard reset to get the screen to work.
So I am a little fearful to let my computer sleep especially when i put it inside a sleeve.
 
eddyhttp said:
Sleeping is rather a flaking thing I have learned from experience and from this forum. I have noticed before that my mbp would wake up and then sleep. But I know its because I sometimes take out the mouse dongle after it fell asleep. One time it was supposed to be asleep and the apple light was off but when i opened the machine it was extremely hot and the screen was blank. I had to do a hard reset to get the screen to work.
So I am a little fearful to let my computer sleep especially when i put it inside a sleeve.
Click to expand...

Well I don't think that's normal. I've put my MBP to sleep for two days straight. It wasn't hot.

And I don't shut down my Mac either.
 
In over 13 years and 7 Macs (including 3 notebooks) the only issues I've had with machines sleeping is when a USB device buggers it up.

I'd say your machine rather than sleep is the problem
 
bartelby said:
In over 13 years and 7 Macs (including 3 notebooks) the only issues I've had with machines sleeping is when a USB device buggers it up.

I'd say your machine rather than sleep is the problem
Click to expand...

True, I hate it when you have your iphone or a mouse connected to the machine when its asleep and it wakes up if you undock your phone or move your mouse.

I think I solved the problem. I just got 53 secs which is close enough i guess. I also just recently subscribed to mobileme and even though i dont have it autosyncing, i just totally turned it off now. I dont find it useful for my needs and the trial was free anyways.
 
Kaupa said:
I would not use any tools like Onyx, macaroni and others...
Click to expand...

I know the computer cleans itself when it is idle usually when you leave it on when you sleep. Is there a particular day? If i remember correctly is it on wednesday at like 3:00am.
 
Install OS 10.4. 😛

My friend's late 2007 starts up from cold in what seems like 5-10 seconds. I haven't timed it, but it starts up several times faster than my Penryn MBP.

Leopard just takes a long time to start. Having more RAM causes the computer to take longer starting up also.
 
Either go back to Tiger or run Vista if you want fast start up times. If you want to do anything useful and easily, but don't mind longer start up times stick with Leopard.
 
I have a similar issue with my late 2008 MBP, it used to start everything very fast, but now I'm getting the same issues as the original poster. I was just ignoring it for now as a minor annoyance, and planning to buy a new (bigger and/or faster) hard drive in a few months with a fresh install, and hoping it would be resolved that way, as I've been adding/removing a lot of stuff whilst I get to grips with Mac OS X (including adding/reinstalling/removing boot camp).

-- Pete.
 
Don't shut t down. Its a total waste of time.

I have never shut down any of my Macs for the past 3+ years and I have no problems whatsoever with them. Letting them sleep means I don't even have to close apps that are running and reopening them again after startup.

Mac laptops drain very little battery energy when sleeping so I don't shut it down when I take my MB somewhere.
 
eXan said:
Don't shut t down. Its a total waste of time.

I have never shut down any of my Macs for the past 3+ years and I have no problems whatsoever with them. Letting them sleep means I don't even have to close apps that are running and reopening them again after startup.

Mac laptops drain very little battery energy when sleeping so I don't shut it down when I take my MB somewhere.
Click to expand...

you don't have problems iwht your unibody mbp waking up? my notebook likes to wake up a lot but i think its b/c a mouse is still connected to the usb and i accidently move it. but then if i dont open the lid the computer will stay on and since its closed the vents are well not ventilating and the computer over heats and then i get the black screen of death.
 
"How can I speed up my startup times?"

"Don't shut it down."

Well that was genuinely eye-opening, wasn't it.

"How can I turn $50 into $50,000 playing poker?"

"Don't. Go rob a bank."

Let's try to solve his question specifically.
 
It's much quicker to stand-by. Mac doesn't take long to sleep or wake up.

Oh and if you're running on a battery power, make sure you unplug all your USB devices before going to sleep. Macs sometimes tend to "wake up" when you are unaware with some of these USB devices connected.
 
fjk said:
"How can I speed up my startup times?"

"Don't shut it down."

Well that was genuinely eye-opening, wasn't it.

"How can I turn $50 into $50,000 playing poker?"

"Don't. Go rob a bank."

Let's try to solve his question specifically.
Click to expand...

Oh, do you have a suggestion or are you just here to flame everyone else?
 
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