Late 2007 Macbook slowing down

[vatoriaparker]

I have a pretty old macbook, late 2007 from the serial number. It has been getting slower and slower over the last few months. I realize the computer is on the older side but I'm hoping to be able to use it for another year or so since I just browse around online and use email and stream videos. I brought it to a computer repair place to run a diagnostic and they said the RAM and hard drive are fine. They said there are some corrupted files and are claiming that is the reason the computer is running slow. They are asking $95 to clean out these files.

Is that worth it? Or is it something I can do myself? I'm a little skeptical from what I've read in other threads that this is really whats causing the problem.

Any advice or suggestions?

 

[endlightend]

It could be what's causing the slowdown, but I wouldn't do it. It's something that you can easily troubleshoot yourself, and even then $100 is way too much. For that price I would just buy an old SSD or max out the RAM in it.

3 suggestions:
Have you tried verify disk in Disk Utility?
Have you done a defrag of your HD recently?
Also have you done any scans with Onyx?

Or it could be that your computer is getting old- it could necessitate upgrading the components, doing a clean install of your OS, or just upgrading to a new computer entirely.

 

[trevm999]

First I would double check the hard drive, I don't trust a tech I don't know. Download SMART Utility and see if reports any reallocated sectors, You can run a short and long hard drive test too.

Onyx is a great way to clean up you mac. Just doing a safeboot can help too. Diskwarrior is great, but that costs money.

Do you have a backup? If so, you can get the Snow leopard disc from Apple for $20 and use migration assistant to transfer your data back in after doing a reinstall. Assuming you are not running Lion.