Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
increase perfromance
- Thread starter AudiGuy
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Nope, as the others have said. Keep some hard disk space available, repair permissions, and last but not least add RAM add RAM add RAM. Stick a gig stick in that Powerbook. That P4 you have listed would also show an incedible speed boost if you added another 512/1gig. I have greatly increased the speed of aging computers by adding RAM.AudiGuy said:
Well if you have a virus then you would be probably the first person to have one on OS X. Making sure you have HD space open and repairing permissions can usually speed things up.AudiGuy said:
RAM how people can survive with OSX with only 512 on their main computer is beyond me, i have 2GB on my powermac and am upgrading my powerbook soon to 1.5GB
You can repair permissions from the Disk Utility app within your Utilities folder, in Applications.
Leave the computer on overnight to run the scripts automatically. There are apps like Onyx which will do them manually but I find they do more harm than good for most users. They're very powerful apps.
I don't think either of these will help though. Go to Activity Monitor in the same folder as Disk Utility and sort by both processor performance and RAM usage to see if there is a single culprit/process taking all of your resources. The crashing browsers kind of hints that it may be them.
For the record, 512MB of RAM is fine for running a competent OSX IMO.
Leave the computer on overnight to run the scripts automatically. There are apps like Onyx which will do them manually but I find they do more harm than good for most users. They're very powerful apps.
I don't think either of these will help though. Go to Activity Monitor in the same folder as Disk Utility and sort by both processor performance and RAM usage to see if there is a single culprit/process taking all of your resources. The crashing browsers kind of hints that it may be them.
For the record, 512MB of RAM is fine for running a competent OSX IMO.
Alternatively you can run the maintenance tasks via Terminal in your Applications/Utilities folder.
- Open Terminal
1.At the prompt, type the following, exactly as written:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
2. Press Return.
3. Type your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
All three scripts will run in sequence. There is no visual feedback while the scripts execute. You will know they are completed when the Terminal prompt returns.
You can also run the scripts individually. For example, to run just the daily script, you would type the command
sudo periodic daily
in step 3 above.
- Open Terminal
1.At the prompt, type the following, exactly as written:
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
2. Press Return.
3. Type your Admin password when prompted, then press Return.
All three scripts will run in sequence. There is no visual feedback while the scripts execute. You will know they are completed when the Terminal prompt returns.
You can also run the scripts individually. For example, to run just the daily script, you would type the command
sudo periodic daily
in step 3 above.
You guys alway forget to update prebindings.
1. Repair the HD using Disk Utilities or fsck, must be run from the CD/DVD or booting onto another drive -- won't repair an active drive.
2. Repair Permissions using Disk Utilities, must be run by booting normally -- otherwise it'll automatically choose the wrong folder.
3. Update prebindings.
4. Run those scripts.
1. Repair the HD using Disk Utilities or fsck, must be run from the CD/DVD or booting onto another drive -- won't repair an active drive.
2. Repair Permissions using Disk Utilities, must be run by booting normally -- otherwise it'll automatically choose the wrong folder.
3. Update prebindings.
4. Run those scripts.
mad jew said:You can repair permissions from the Disk Utility app within your Utilities folder, in Applications.
Leave the computer on overnight to run the scripts automatically. There are apps like Onyx which will do them manually but I find they do more harm than good for most users. They're very powerful apps.
I don't think either of these will help though. Go to Activity Monitor in the same folder as Disk Utility and sort by both processor performance and RAM usage to see if there is a single culprit/process taking all of your resources. The crashing browsers kind of hints that it may be them.
For the record, 512MB of RAM is fine for running a competent OSX IMO.
Wow...running Onyx would do more harm than good? How about Cocktail? That's what I used to use. I have my reasons for not letting my computer run all night, but if that's what's best for it perhaps I will from now on. (when I get my new one, some time within the next year for my old one is DEAD
) I guess you learn something new every day!!
jadekitty24 said:Wow...running Onyx would do more harm than good? How about Cocktail? That's what I used to use. I have my reasons for not letting my computer run all night, but if that's what's best for it perhaps I will from now on. (when I get my new one, some time within the next year for my old one is DEAD
Okay, well maybe not quite all that bad but powerful apps like Onyx and Cocktail give the user the relatively easy ability to do some pretty crazy stuff to their computer. IMO, it's better for the average user to simply let OSX do its own thing.
Good to know, for I am a tweaker even though I have no clue what I'm doing and unfortunately experienced Mac experts bare the brunt of it.mad jew said:Okay, well maybe not quite all that bad but powerful apps like Onyx and Cocktail give the user the relatively easy ability to do some pretty crazy stuff to their computer. IMO, it's better for the average user to simply let OSX do its own thing.
Your HDD is probably in need of defragmenting.
Although OSX de-fragments files on the fly, it's probably going to run slower if every file you write becomes fragmented.
It's also possible that you simply do not have enough drive space left for VM.
I generally run my computers with at least 2 HDD; one for OS/apps and the other for documents, images, scratch, etc...
This allows OSX threaded access to documents.
ie: both HDD can function at the same time, assuming they are on separate controllers.
It also tends to preserve a large block of space on the system drive for a longer period, since the only thing occupying space is applications.
More RAM is not a bad idea, and it will certainly make the computer more responsive, but it's probably not the root cause of your perceived reduction in speed over time.
ie: if 512MB of RAM ran at satisfactory speed a year ago, but runs noticeably slower now, it's not the RAM causing it.
Although OSX de-fragments files on the fly, it's probably going to run slower if every file you write becomes fragmented.
It's also possible that you simply do not have enough drive space left for VM.
I generally run my computers with at least 2 HDD; one for OS/apps and the other for documents, images, scratch, etc...
This allows OSX threaded access to documents.
ie: both HDD can function at the same time, assuming they are on separate controllers.
It also tends to preserve a large block of space on the system drive for a longer period, since the only thing occupying space is applications.
More RAM is not a bad idea, and it will certainly make the computer more responsive, but it's probably not the root cause of your perceived reduction in speed over time.
ie: if 512MB of RAM ran at satisfactory speed a year ago, but runs noticeably slower now, it's not the RAM causing it.
Download macjanitor and run the program once a week. It cleans up all the log fils and ***** that build up and eventually slow down your mac. It may help.
Simply rebooting is the first, best thing to try for slowing performance, which is often caused by accumulating virtual memory swap files. They will be deleted on reboot. I also recommend repairing permissions, and running AppleJack or similar utility. Buying more RAM is far down the list of things to try for the problems you describe. Given the amount of pain adding more RAM can cause, I'd argue that it should be struck off the list entirely. Frankly, I think it's fairly incredible that anyone is recommending an upgrade from the 512 Mb of RAM you've already got. This is plenty.