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Mac getting very sluggish

C

cjddrum1

macrumors regular
Original poster
I dont know why but my macbook pro has been getting very sluggish. I have 2.16 w/ 2GB 100HD. Im not sure why. Anyone know any reasons of macs being slow?? Not sure if my memory is being hogged by something or not
 
do you shut it down at night, or leave it to sleep? There are maintenance scripts which run in the early hours of the morning, and skipping these can make the computer run slow.
 
my computer never shuts down...its always on unless its idle for 3 or more hours then it goes to sleep, and im up till about 2 every night anyways so it should be on around the time it would run those scripts
 
hmm... maybe try repairing permissions and see how that goes.

If you dont know how to repair permissions, go to Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, single click the hard drive volume in the bar on the left, and click Verify Disk Permissions. When that scan finishes, click Repair Disk Permissions. 🙂
 

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Repairing permissions is unlikely to help, and with Tiger, the Mac no longer has to be on in the middle of the night to run the maintenance scripts.

What will almost certainly help is a reboot.
 
i agree that a reboot can always help but repairing permissions for me clears up RAM usage (i always have more RAM available after repairing permissions). restarting has the same effect as repairing permissions, though, in the sense that i always have the most available RAM after restarting.
 
yeh Reboot.

I usually can leave my MacBook Pro on for about 3/4 weeks, and then it really needs a reboot. It starts feeling incredibly sluggish and the genie effect/general graphicsy stuff gets very slow and jerky...
 
You may also want to try Tiger Cache Cleaner or Main Menu, available at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
 
Just a little tip. If you want to know if something is using a lot of RAM or CPU, open Activity Monitor. It's in Applications/Utilities.
 
Onyx

I use Onyx to run my maintenance scripts. It's pretty much the perfect culmination of a lot of other programs, along with a bunch of other handy things.

Give it a look.
 
bump...

noobie question here.......

does repairing the permissions erase the drives? I have some very vital files that are too big for me to back up (8-900 GB total) and I can't risk losing them, but my G5 has been acting funny such as programs closing unexpectedly, compressor not opening at all, FCP closing when trying to export, and all around sluggish proformance.....

let me know...

thanks!


ps: she's a G5 2.5 quad, 6.5 GB ram, 1000 GB storage....
 
hardhatmac said:
bump...

noobie question here.......

does repairing the permissions erase the drives? I have some very vital files that are too big for me to back up (8-900 GB total) and I can't risk losing them, but my G5 has been acting funny such as programs closing unexpectedly, compressor not opening at all, FCP closing when trying to export, and all around sluggish proformance.....
Click to expand...
No it does not erase the drive. repairing permissions does just that makes sure that all the files have the correct access rights and if they don't changes them to be correct.
 
I find my mac gets a bit slower if i keep it on a lot. I tend to restart it every 2-3 days which helps a lot.
 
hardhatmac said:
how do you check the access rights and what is correct? sorry, I'm new to this...
Click to expand...

It's done automatically by Disk Utility. Repairing permissions used to be an important maintenance routine for OSX, but not so much since Tiger. There's no penalty for trying, but I agree with the above advice that rebooting the Mac is the first step for dealing with sluggish performance.
 
hardhatmac said:
does repairing the permissions erase the drives? I have some very vital files that are too big for me to back up (8-900 GB total) and I can't risk losing them, but my G5 has been acting funny such as programs closing unexpectedly, compressor not opening at all, FCP closing when trying to export, and all around sluggish
Click to expand...

If they are vital files they should be backed up to protect against hardware failure. As three 320GB Firewire/USB externals cost about £300 (which isn't much compared to the cost of the Quad) it's money well spent, especially as your G5 is playing up.
 
Probably a memory hog that you are leaving on.

If you are running a mozilla app, safari, torent, etc. that you leave on all the time -- it may be one of those apps.

In fact Apple used to note that to improve sluggish performance, either reboot or log out and back in.
 
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