My Air is too slow with Mavericks, need to downgrade

[nexsta]

For my work I have to deal alot with raw pictures and video files and since I updated my Macbook Air (2011, 4gbram) to Mavericks my workflow is intensely crippled.

These are the main reasons:

- this bug is makes me mad

- handling raw pictures in Finder is extemely slow and makes my Air stutter (never had this stuttering before Mavericks, ever!)

- preview of raw pictures in Finder takes much longer

- 1080p videos from my camera are stuttering alot in Quicktime (maybe the worse problem of all) never had this before Mavericks


Mavericks has some nice improvements like the better battery perfomance and some stuff but these problems make my Air feel like a much older Mac. My GFs Macbook Air (2012) still runs Mountain lion and before I updated to Mavericks my 2011 Air felt as fast as the 2012 Air. Now my Air feels like a much slower machine.

Anyone feels the same way? What is the fastest way to downgrade to Mountain Lion?

 

[mariotr87]

Weird, I have the exact same machine as you and it's as fast as always

I must say I don't do the things you mentioned though. Don't have raw pictures, I don't usually reproduce 1080p videos (I usually stream them to the Apple TV, plus they're usually 720p actually).

That said, it still feels like a new mac with the things I use it for.

 

[Jurwin]

Lemme guess. You probably upgraded instead of doing a clean install? Do yourself a favour and do a clean install

 

[mingqing007]

Lemme guess. You probably upgraded instead of doing a clean install? Do yourself a favour

Can you tell me how to do a clean install? Never done it before...

 

[Mac.User]

Can you tell me how to do a clean install? Never done it before...

1. Back up all your stuff to an external drive or cloud storage
2. shut down
3. hold OPTION and when given your drive options choose Recovery
4. Use Disk Utility to reformat your drive
5. Reinstall OS X
6. Restore all your stuff.
7. Have a beer.

 

[Oui]

Lemme guess. You probably upgraded instead of doing a clean install? Do yourself a favour and do a clean install

No clean install here. No issues on the same machine as OP

 

[mingqing007]

1. Back up all your stuff to an external drive or cloud storage
2. shut down
3. hold OPTION and when given your drive options choose Recovery
4. Use Disk Utility to reformat your drive
5. Reinstall OS X
6. Restore all your stuff.
7. Have a beer.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

 

[nexsta]

No clean install here. No issues on the same machine as OP

You worked with raw files and it's as fast as Mountain Lion?

1. Back up all your stuff to an external drive or cloud storage
2. shut down
3. hold OPTION and when given your drive options choose Recovery
4. Use Disk Utility to reformat your drive
5. Reinstall OS X
6. Restore all your stuff.
7. Have a beer.

You mean a Time Machine backup at 1.? I will probably do it now, but to install ML.

 

[w0lf]

Honestly if you're having problems downgrading isn't a bad option.

x.x.0 releases are always going to have the most bugs. If a wipe and install doesn't fix your problems just downgrading and waiting for 10.9.1 or 10.9.2 couldn't really hurt. You're not exactly missing a ton of game changing features with Mavericks.

 

[Mac.User]

You worked with raw files and it's as fast as Mountain Lion?



You mean a Time Machine backup at 1.? I will probably do it now, but to install ML.

Time Machine will work. I use both Time Machine and I copy the files I really want to an external drive just so I know I have two backups incase there is an issue.

 

[Dynamix]

Yes, Mavericks is handling raw pictures in Finder very bad. Everything is extremely slow. I did clean install of Mavericks. It seems there is a bug: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5480494?start=0&tstart=0

 

[nexsta]

Time Machine will work. I use both Time Machine and I copy the files I really want to an external drive just so I know I have two backups incase there is an issue.

So when I use Time Machine now to backup my Air, I can use it after I install Mountain Lion and still have all my applications and don't have to install them again? I have so many installed applications + many plugins, it would take forever to install everything from new when I go back to ML.

Yes, Mavericks is handling raw pictures in Finder very bad. Everything is extremely slow. I did clean install of Mavericks. It seems there is a bug: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5480494?start=0&tstart=0

Thanks for the answer, good to know that I'm not alone.

 

[Mac.User]

You will probably have to reinstall your apps and plugins again. Part of the reason of doing a clean install is to get a clean slate, and the best way to do that is to reinstall everything that you need by hand so that everything not needed is no longer on your machine.


If you do a clean install and then bring back all of your preferences and any thing you really don't use, that defeats the point of doing a clean install.

 

[newagemac]

Clean install means reinstalling all of your app, plugins, and modifications. You'll also have to set all of your system preferences as well as all your preferences in all of your apps all over again. It's mostly pointless in my opinion you've been doing some really bad things with your system files.

The only time I would bother to do it is if I bought a brand new machine. Too much hassle for the extremely limited benefits. This isn't Windows.