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Macbook getting slower by the day

T

thomaspassmore

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hi
MY macbook is about 9 months old.
It used to be really fast. Now it is just getting slower and slower.
Its a base level macbook, but i do have about 35 gig of HD free, so thats not it.
I have repaired disk permissions and the disk. What's the problem? Might I have to do a reformat?

thanks
tom
 
how much RAM do you have?

if you dont know how to check, click the apple in the upper left corner, and go to about this mac.
 
Do you have a backup? If not, get one quick. There's a chance your drive's on the way out. When machines start crawling it's usually an early warning that the hard drive is about to fall over.
 
Also Make sure you don't have a bunch of startup apps.
 

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Tom - - When you're finished using an application do you close the app (like clicking the red close button), or do you quit the app (like doing a command+Q)?
 
Fresh OS X installs are always fast because there's virtually nothing on the machine.

What types of applications do you run? Do you multitask frequently?

Like said before, check your startup items. Background processes rob memory and CPU cycles. Keep in mind too that Spotlight indexes EVERYTHING on your machine and can make things slower as you gather more files. Also, check your Dashboard widgets. These cause slowdowns too, if you have a lot of them installed.

Consider upgrading your RAM (it's not too expensive). 1GB is very marginal for Tiger/Leopard and a lot of newer applications.
 
thomaspassmore said:
Its a base level macbook, but i do have about 35 gig of HD free, so thats not it.
Click to expand...

That could be it. What's your total HDD space? If you're up to ~80% full on your HDD, you might be suffering symptoms of fragmentation.

Also, after you've had your computer on for a while, you might like to check Activity Monitor and look at your Page Ins and Page Outs under System Memory (at the bottom). If you have any Page Outs, then you might consider upgrading your RAM.
 
Hi
thanks for all the replies
i do keep my desktop empty just so its looks neat.
Its not that the computer is dying. Its just that little things all take a bit longer. Boot up isnt so snappy etc
I generally close tings witht he red x, but only really use email, internet and word - so no big one there. Is there any way of deleting allthe settings files and things tht I dont ever use any longer?
I am trying to delete lots of installed programs, but I am sure I must be leaving loads behind
thanks again for the help
 
TH-Gunner said:
That could be it. What's your total HDD space? If you're up to ~80% full on your HDD, you might be suffering symptoms of fragmentation.

Also, after you've had your computer on for a while, you might like to check Activity Monitor and look at your Page Ins and Page Outs under System Memory (at the bottom). If you have any Page Outs, then you might consider upgrading your RAM.
Click to expand...

Is there an onboard defrag app on OS X, like on Windows, or do I have to find a 3rd party app to do it? The mac mini I'm using is about 90% full and I'm moving stuff off to an external drive, but I'd like to clean things up and defrag afterwards.
 
pdxflint said:
Is there an onboard defrag app on OS X, like on Windows, or do I have to find a 3rd party app to do it? The mac mini I'm using is about 90% full and I'm moving stuff off to an external drive, but I'd like to clean things up and defrag afterwards.
Click to expand...

MacOS X automatically defragments files every time they are accessed. There is third party software available, you can buy it, but if you do that you might also be interested in a bridge that I have to sell rather cheaply.

Seriously: Open "Activity Monitor" and check out what your Macintosh is doing. Any suspicious CPU activity, as others said check page-ins, page-outs.
 
Traditional "defraging" is a huge waste of time. Simply buy an external HD (which you need anyway for backup) and first format the external, then dupe the internal to the external with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, then change your startup disk to the external, then boot from the external, then wipe your internal and reformat it and then dupe back the same way as you did before except from external to internal, then set internal to be boot disk and then reboot. Voila! Instant and perfect defrag and also you now have a complete backup. (Also, you can pay to buy SuperDuper and get automatic updating--there are other programs that will update as well.)

PS When nothing else seems to speed it up, do a "archive and install" reinstall of the OS. You will have almost everything as it was with some system customizations that you'll need to redo. It will speed things up generally if something is corrupting the process of computing.
 
pdxflint said:
Is there an onboard defrag app on OS X, like on Windows, or do I have to find a 3rd party app to do it? The mac mini I'm using is about 90% full and I'm moving stuff off to an external drive, but I'd like to clean things up and defrag afterwards.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, there is no pre-installed defragger for OSX. The only one I know of costs money. I hear, though, that fragmentation is only a problem after the drive hits around 80% full, depending on the size of the drive.

gnasher729 said:
MacOS X automatically defragments files every time they are accessed.
Click to expand...

I've read up on this before, and there are certain requirements that a file must meet in order to be defragged upon opening. One of these, I believe, was that the file had to be 20MB or under. I'll try to find the source where I read this.
 
Thanks TH-gunner, gnasher and spinne1. Your answers help a lot. I'm a Mac OS X novice using a borrowed macmini. Luckily, I've ordered a refurb Macbook Pro, so I have lots to learn. My previous Mac experience was a few years of systems 6-9, then a few years getting by with Win2k and XP, but the former Mac experience doesn't seem to help me much with OS X.

I do remember how nice it was to be able to boot from an external drive, and think this new Mac experience will be an eye opener. Thanks again.
 
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