Maverick running slow, solutions?

[Fishrrman]

My advice to the OP:

You are not going to improve the operation of Mavericks on the machine that you have now.

Your best option would be to "downgrade" to Mountain Lion. I predict -- no, I'll go beyond that and -guarantee you- -- that ML will run far, FAR better for you than Mavericks does now.

If you're not willing to do this, better get used to the "sluggishness" of Mavericks.

Or, consider getting a new Mac....

 

[oldhifi]

What NON Apple programs are you running??

 

[2012Tony2012]

That would be a good combination that would deal with most threats. It's also good to disable running services you don't need and don't do any internet browsing while logged in as root (don't login as root anyway unless you have to). You can look at the NSA hardening guide for Snow Leopard here which includes some other tips.

How do I turn of running services?

 

[2012Tony2012]

That would be a good combination that would deal with most threats. It's also good to disable running services you don't need and don't do any internet browsing while logged in as root (don't login as root anyway unless you have to). You can look at the NSA hardening guide for Snow Leopard here which includes some other tips.

I have always run my Mac using my admin login. How can I make restrictions on the account?

 

[DeltaMac]

Admin account is NOT a root user account.
You don't need, nor should you want to elevate to that level of user, your admin account will be sufficient to do what you need. (Well, 99% of the time)

 

[2012Tony2012]

Admin account is NOT a root user account.
You don't need, nor should you want to elevate to that level of user, your admin account will be sufficient to do what you need. (Well, 99% of the time)

I have decided to stay with Maverick for security reasons.

So now that decision has been made, any tips in how to remove unnecessary services, e.g print, bluetooth etc? How do I do that?

----------

My advice to the OP:

You are not going to improve the operation of Mavericks on the machine that you have now.

Your best option would be to "downgrade" to Mountain Lion. I predict -- no, I'll go beyond that and -guarantee you- -- that ML will run far, FAR better for you than Mavericks does now.

If you're not willing to do this, better get used to the "sluggishness" of Mavericks.

Or, consider getting a new Mac....

Is Mountain Lion still being supported with security updates etc?

And if I install Snow Leopard, how do I upgrade to Mountain Lion seeing ML is no longer on App store? I paid $20 for ML as well, so where is it, and why not on App Store anymore?

 

[DeltaMac]

And if I install Snow Leopard, how do I upgrade to Mountain Lion seeing ML is no longer on App store? I paid $20 for ML as well, so where is it, and why not on App Store anymore?

If you purchased and downloaded ML through the App Store it will remain listed in purchases. You can download it again from there, assuming you are accessing the App Store on a Mac that is compatible with ML.

 

[2012Tony2012]

If you purchased and downloaded ML through the App Store it will remain listed in purchases. You can download it again from there, assuming you are accessing the App Store on a Mac that is compatible with ML.

Not through App Store, through iTunes.

 

[DeltaMac]

That's correct.
But, the purchase (for OS X Mountain Lion) will show up in your iTunes purchases. Go into your account in iTunes (under the Store menu/View My Account) You'll see it under Purchase History in the Account Information window. Click See All, and all your Apple ID purchases will show, even those you purchases through the App Store.
I've had the same Apple ID for a long time, and my purchases go back to 2007 - way before the App Store was born! My last couple of years has been only the App Store, but both iTunes and App Store purchases all show up on the same list.

 

[2012Tony2012]

I am running ML now Much better than Maverick in speed and efficiency.

 

[lssmit02]

Rebuilding account helped me

I had an account that was hanging, when all other accounts on the machine were fine (shared family iMac). I followed the instructions by Topher Kessler on CNET here, and now seems to be working fine. Of course, be careful and follow instructions.

Edit: Note, the instructions were written before Mavericks came out, but still worked on 10.9.2.

 

[Saturn1217]

I am running ML now Much better than Maverick in speed and efficiency.

Was performance really that bad? I am planning to upgrade I believe the same computer (or perhaps one generation newer) to mavericks from Leopard. This is not my personal machine but a common computer used at my lab which i will need to use temporarily while my Macbook air is being repaired (running mountain lion). I'm installing on a separate partition just to be safe but I was hoping mavericks would be ok for some light use (we really only use this machine normally for a scanner and for Skype chats). Lots of newer software doesn't properly support Leopard anymore and it is certainly a security risk. But i don't want a huge decrease in performance either.

Also for a new computer (my 2013 MBA) is mavericks worse than ML performance wise? I was planning on upgrading once my screen is repaired.

 

[Dranix]

I wonder how the MBAir runs with Mavericks as it has only 4GB ram... But even the new one have only 4.

 

[2012Tony2012]

Was performance really that bad? I am planning to upgrade I believe the same computer (or perhaps one generation newer) to mavericks from Leopard. This is not my personal machine but a common computer used at my lab which i will need to use temporarily while my Macbook air is being repaired (running mountain lion). I'm installing on a separate partition just to be safe but I was hoping mavericks would be ok for some light use (we really only use this machine normally for a scanner and for Skype chats). Lots of newer software doesn't properly support Leopard anymore and it is certainly a security risk. But i don't want a huge decrease in performance either.

Also for a new computer (my 2013 MBA) is mavericks worse than ML performance wise? I was planning on upgrading once my screen is repaired.

YES, performance is so bad for me on Maverick. hence I went back to Mountain Lion, which runs so smooth and fast compared to Maverick.

Test it yourself and see.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

YES, performance is so bad for me on Maverick. hence I went back to Mountain Lion, which runs so smooth and fast compared to Maverick.

Test it yourself and see.

Me too!

What I did - thread

 

[barnettgs]

I was interested in reading in some threads about Mavericks being sluggish.

However, I have found out today that Mavericks does not like having a very long list of downloaded files in its system! So I did a big spring clean-up earlier today and reduced the list to maybe 30ish from hundreds if not thousands...also making new folders, arranging similar files into them and tagging them.

The result is system being snappy now. And a bit cooler! It seems that finder is very hard on the system resources, especially with hundreds/thousands of files in the same folder.

Another thing is I have uninstalled Blackberry because two or three of their files are always running in the background even through I have uninstalled it so I had to dig deeper and removed the remaining left-overs then restarted. So better stay away from installing any Blackberry software on Mac, apart from Windows!

 

[Saturn1217]

YES, performance is so bad for me on Maverick. hence I went back to Mountain Lion, which runs so smooth and fast compared to Maverick.

Test it yourself and see.

Ok i did try it myself today. I was at work (and thus should really have been working) so i didn't get a chance to test everything or load a ton of software yet but so far mavericks seems ok on the lab's old iMac. I'll see if i can get our equally ancient scanner working with it tomorrow.

Thankfully beach balls have been sparse thus far (i basically fired up chrome, evernote and dropbox and went in and out of a lot of system prefs).

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Mavericks is terrible on HDD's. My father's 2013 iMac with 8gb of RAM runs slower with Maverics than his 2007 Leopard iMac with 2gb of RAM did. I would suggest upgrading to an SSD, or buying a new mac. Apple is purposefully making "old" hardware sluggish, and it's despicable.

 

[yjchua95]

Mavericks is terrible on HDD's. My father's 2013 iMac with 8gb of RAM runs slower with Maverics than his 2007 Leopard iMac with 2gb of RAM did. I would suggest upgrading to an SSD, or buying a new mac. Apple is purposefully making "old" hardware sluggish, and it's despicable.

The 2013 iMacs have 5400rpm HDDs, while the older ones from 2011 and before have 7200rpm drives.

5400rpm drives are slow no matter what.

Besides, Mavericks was never really optimized for HDDs in the first place.

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I wonder how the MBAir runs with Mavericks as it has only 4GB ram... But even the new one have only 4.

It'll run fast and smooth because it's got an SSD.

Quite a number of those complaining that Mavericks runs slow refuse to believe the fact that it's the HDD that's limiting them, and they don't believe that the difference with an SSD is night and day.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Do you really believe that Apple is intentionally slowing Mavericks down on older computers/HDD's? That would be completely wrong, as some computers Apple sells still carry HDDs (cMBP, iMac).

I would suspect it's glitches/bugs in the OS that has yet to be cleared up.

Mavericks is terrible on HDD's. My father's 2013 iMac with 8gb of RAM runs slower with Maverics than his 2007 Leopard iMac with 2gb of RAM did. I would suggest upgrading to an SSD, or buying a new mac. Apple is purposefully making "old" hardware sluggish, and it's despicable.

 

[yjchua95]

Do you really believe that Apple is intentionally slowing Mavericks down on older computers/HDD's? That would be completely wrong, as some computers Apple sells still carry HDDs (cMBP, iMac).

I would suspect it's glitches/bugs in the OS that has yet to be cleared up.

And even new Macs with 5400rpm HDDs run awfully slow for my tastes (it takes a good 2 minutes for my friend's brand-new mid-2012 13" cMBP, purchased a week ago, to boot up into a useable state. That's in contrast to the 11 second boot up of my 2011 cMBP with an 840 Pro, and instant usability upon login).

7200rpm HDDs alleviate the problem somewhat, but the performance still lags far behind compared to SSDs.

My take is that Apple still offers HDDs because not everyone can afford SSDs, but there will always be people complaining why their brand-new but HDD-equipped systems run slowly and can't understand that 5400rpm HDDs just don't cut it for a lightning-quick experience.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Do you really believe that Apple is intentionally slowing Mavericks down on older computers/HDD's? That would be completely wrong, as some computers Apple sells still carry HDDs (cMBP, iMac).

I would suspect it's glitches/bugs in the OS that has yet to be cleared up.

Yes, actually, I do. Linux and Windows are very usable on an HDD, but Mavericks is not. Bugs of this nature should not remain this far into an OS release, so at this point I can only assume malice.

If Apple really wanted everyone to have SSD, they would offer fusion drives on all models. But they don't, they use the SSD/HDD dichotomy to upsell.

 

[Tubamajuba]

And even new Macs with 5400rpm HDDs run awfully slow for my tastes (it takes a good 2 minutes for my friend's brand-new mid-2012 13" cMBP, purchased a week ago, to boot up into a useable state. That's in contrast to the 11 second boot up of my 2011 cMBP with an 840 Pro, and instant usability upon login).

7200rpm HDDs alleviate the problem somewhat, but the performance still lags far behind compared to SSDs.

My take is that Apple still offers HDDs because not everyone can afford SSDs, but there will always be people complaining why their brand-new but HDD-equipped systems run slowly and can't understand that 5400rpm HDDs just don't cut it for a lightning-quick experience.

Here's what I don't understand.

Why is it that my mid-2012 13" cMBP with a 5400RPM HDD runs perfectly fine? I don't have any beach ball issues that many people with HDDs seem to have, and I never have any serious issues with Finder. Obviously it would run much quicker with an SSD, but the performance of my Mac is no cause for concern at present.

Understanding that there are plenty of users experiencing both decent and poor performance with HDDs under Mavericks, is the HDD itself actually the issue for people experiencing sluggishness? Or does replacing the HDD with an SSD merely mask the underlying problem by making the increased disk access relatively unnoticeable.

Maybe I didn't do a great job of explaining my point, but I'm curious to see what people think.

 

[Sko]

… is the HDD itself actually the issue for people experiencing sluggishness? Or does replacing the HDD with an SSD merely mask the underlying problem by making the increased disk access relatively unnoticeable.

My bet would be on the 'underlying problem'. It's in line with many years of experience servicing Macs.

I don't remember one single incident where Apple was crippling performance on purpose. Crippling features? Of course, more than once, always.

 

[ABC5S]

And even new Macs with 5400rpm HDDs run awfully slow for my tastes (it takes a good 2 minutes for my friend's brand-new mid-2012 13" cMBP, purchased a week ago, to boot up into a useable state. That's in contrast to the 11 second boot up of my 2011 cMBP with an 840 Pro, and instant usability upon login).

7200rpm HDDs alleviate the problem somewhat, but the performance still lags far behind compared to SSDs.

My take is that Apple still offers HDDs because not everyone can afford SSDs, but there will always be people complaining why their brand-new but HDD-equipped systems run slowly and can't understand that 5400rpm HDDs just don't cut it for a lightning-quick experience.

My 2011 Mac Mini has this so called slow 5400 rpm hdd, but I boot up in 45/50 seconds, not 2 minutes. Yes its slower than an SSD, but I make sure I have only the most up to date OS apple if I can, and it serves me just fine. Next Mini will have the SSD. Mavericks is doing just fine as well. Only a couple of beach balls in the last few days, but didn't last that long.