Post Your System and El Capitan Experience

[Jcat4]

I've been seeing a lot of people on a lot of different machines experiencing different issues, and I keep wondering myself, are these issues unique to me, or are they dependent on the system I'm using?

ITT, we post our machine, the year it was made, and comments on the following:

• El Capitan Speed:
• El Capitan Stability:
• El Capitan Battery life:
• El Capitan Bugs:
• Overall impressions / comments:

It'd also be useful if people explain HOW they upgraded i.e. upgrade, clean install, reset smc/pram and THEN fresh install, etc. This could help track down potential issues and ensure everyone gets an idea of what they can be doing if they are having any issues.

I'll start us off.

Model: 2014 11" MBA, base i5, 8GB RAM, 128GB ssd
Upgrade Procedure: reset smc/pram, clean install via usb
Speed: No noticeable differences
Stability: Nothing's breaking so far
Battery Life: I've lost about 1-2 hours of battery life
Bugs: Safari is constantly listed as "using significant energy", even with just 1 tab?
Comments: Everything still feels tight from Yosemite, I'm just really bugged over the battery life -- thinking of downgrading

 

[LittleDavid]

- 2012 MacBook Pro non-retina/hi-res/antiglare, 2.6GHz quad i7, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD, 750 GB HDD
- upgrade procedure...ran Onyx (all processes), installed over Yosemite 10.10.4
- running a little bit faster and more smoothly
- no crashes, extended beachballs, or other weirdness so stable thus far
- have only used it plugged in so no observations r/t battery life
- only bugs so far are that in Logic Pro X 10.2.0, all Native Instrument plugins fail to validate (and so are unavailable until NI releases patches)

I've heard that resetting the PRAM and SMC *after* upgrading brings back battery life to previous levels or even a little better. Perhaps worth a try for anyone suffering from loss of battery life?

 

[Jcat4]

- 2012 MacBook Pro non-retina/hi-res/antiglare, 2.6GHz quad i7, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD, 750 GB HDD
- upgrade procedure...ran Onyx (all processes), installed over Yosemite 10.10.4
- running a little bit faster and more smoothly
- no crashes, extended beachballs, or other weirdness so stable thus far
- have only used it plugged in so no observations r/t battery life
- only bugs so far are that in Logic Pro X 10.2.0, all Native Instrument plugins fail to validate (and so are unavailable until NI releases patches)

I've heard that resetting the PRAM and SMC *after* upgrading brings back battery life to previous levels or even a little better. Perhaps worth a try for anyone suffering from loss of battery life?

Thanks for sharing! Yeah, I've tried doing that afterwards, as well. I can't tell if the infamous disk reindexing is actually occurring or not, as activity monitor doesn't show spotlight to be acting up... I'm really not sure what I could do or what the issues is. I've been considering just reinstalling El Capitan to see one last time if it's a bust on my machine right now.

 

[Jcat4]

Just and update...

My problem MAY have been resolved by reinstalling... I reinstalled, and from the past 40 minutes, it's only gone down by 6%, whereas it would be well below 90% by now before. Safari is still being shown as using a considerable amount of energy with 11 tabs currently open, however, the battery is depleting at a reasonable pace... I've really just been browsing the web. I'll see how it handles tomorrow at school -- I should hopefully be able to tell if the battery performance tomorrow isn't on par with my usual school days.

 

[Noble Actual]

MacBook Air 2013
Upgraded through factory reset
Nothing seems really noticeably faster besides booting up from a restart might be quicker. Everything does seem smoother though which I guess leads to the perception that stuff feels faster.
Battery life, have not noticed much difference. Would guess it probably is a little better than Yosemite but still not where Mavericks was.
Mostly no bugs but there are some like apps just not opening after closing. For example Garageband and Notes, close them then try to open them by clicking on their icon. Nothing happens.

 

[skyhawkmatthew]

Model: Late 2013 rMBP 13", 2.8 i7, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD
Upgrade Procedure: Public Beta then GM via App Store.
Speed: No change
Stability: No change (in beta 3 I had a kernel panic on boot due to an old VirtualBox kext I had to remove manually via TDM)
Battery Life: Fantastic, as good as if not better than on Yosemite
Bugs: Safari sometimes won't let me open things from Top Sites; AirDrop is still super flaky, my old joystick stopped working.
Comments: All is well overall!

 

[Aneef]

Model: Mid 2014, rMBP 15 inch, 2.2 GHz i7, 16 GB Memory, 256 GB SSD
Upgrade Procedure: Upgrade through App Store
Speed: Booting is a litttttle bit faster. Window full screen and vice versa transition animations are smooth now. However, the time from the moment you enter the password to the moment when you see desktop is around 1-1.5 second slower.
Stability: No change
Battery Life: Seems an hour less than that on Yosemite. Will try resetting PRAM/SMC
Bugs: On booting, the Apple logo on black screen image at res. 1440x900 sometimes changes to a resolution of around 800x600 (I guess).
Comments: Great upgrade!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Model: 2011-mid 27" iMac, 3.4 quad i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO840 + 1TB Apple HDD
Upgrade Procedure: I just updated using the App Store..
Speed: Huge increase. Best update in years. Apps open much faster (Almost 2x as fast), reboots are much faster (About 2x again), picture previews are instantaneous, Finder is faster, animations are smooth. Everything! I am loving it.
Stability: So far so good. Photos has been crashing several times on me, but that has been the only issue.
Battery Life: Still trying to find the battery on my iMac. Will let you know when I find it.
Bugs: Several minor graphical issues, nothing special really.
Comments: <3 Best update in years. Don't care about the new features, I only care about the speed.

 

[benjy660]

Just installed El Capitan on a 2010 MBP. waste of time as USB drives not seen in Disk Utility.v.15. Re-installed Yosemite until fix put in place.

 

[hounsome]

i can't get my USB Superdrive to work on my MacBook pro late 2011. anyone got a fix for it?

 

[benjy660]

i can't get my USB Superdrive to work on my MacBook pro late 2011. anyone got a fix for it?

you are not alone..

 

[tresmith]

Model: 2013 13" rMBP, base i5, 8GB RAM, 256 GB ssd
Upgrade Procedure: update via App store
Speed: faster
Stability: more stable
Battery Life: unknown...I keep it plugged in most of the time.
Bugs: contacts not sinking with iphone
Comments: pretty smooth and stable...fans not turning on as much making for very quiet operation.

 

[fisherking]

- 2012 MacBook Pro non-retina/hi-res/antiglare, 2.6GHz quad i7, 16GB RAM, 480GB SSD, 750 GB HDD
- upgrade procedure...ran Onyx (all processes), installed over Yosemite 10.10.4
- running a little bit faster and more smoothly
- no crashes, extended beachballs, or other weirdness so stable thus far
- have only used it plugged in so no observations r/t battery life
- only bugs so far are that in Logic Pro X 10.2.0, all Native Instrument plugins fail to validate (and so are unavailable until NI releases patches)

I've heard that resetting the PRAM and SMC *after* upgrading brings back battery life to previous levels or even a little better. Perhaps worth a try for anyone suffering from loss of battery life?

try this: http://logic-pro-expert.com/logic-p...alidation-issues-workaround.html#.VhJZMtZOOEI

 

[fisherking]

Model: 2011 13" MBP, 2.4 i5, 8GB ram, 256G HD
Upgrade Procedure: update thru App store (running beta 10.11.1PB2)
Speed: a little faster than yosemite (especially the GUI)
Stability: so far, seems more stable
Battery Life: about the same as before
Bugs: nothing consistent yet
Comments: overall like it better than yosemite; seems fast, light, stable...and all my apps are working

 

[Spyderweb122]

Model: Late 2008 13" MB, 2.0 Core 2 Duo, 4GB ram, 2560 SSD
Upgrade Procedure: Clean install while booted from an external HDD running OSX 10.6.8
Speed: No noticeable change.
Stability: so far, seems stable
Battery Life: about the same as before
Bugs: nothing to note yet
Comments: Old hardware is still running smooth. The SSD was a huge improvement as well.

 

[Traverse]

Model: 2013 15" rMBP with 750M
Upgrade Procedure: Clean install via USB Disk, manually dragged over files from Time Machine (but not preferences)
Speed: Slightly better than Yosemite with a much improved Mission Control
Stability: Finder's crashed twice, nothing too major though.
Battery Life: About the same.
Bugs: Excluding Office:2016, the Finder has crashed, when I close the iTunes window that's behind other windows, it brings the application to the forefront which is annoying. iTunes froze when downloading a movie. Hasn't fixed the bug where some PDFs open fuzzy until you manually resize them.

Comments: the overall improvement with system performance is nice, the new system font is much more pleasant than Helvetica Neuve and it fixes the worst bug that made me want to punch my screen:

I have a Dell ultrasharp 2415H that I use when in clamshell mode. Under Yosemite, my monitor would randomly blank out and come back on for unknown reasons. I would have to unplug it, switch display ports, etc to make it work and when I turned the monitor off, the system recognized it as a disconnect and moved all of my windows over to another monitor. I thought it was the display so I almost threw it out because it was so bad. Ever since updating to EC on Wednesday, I have had no blink or flash. No disconnection, nothing. I'm using the same setup, the same cables, and the same ports. Maybe it's dumb luck, or maybe EC fixed some kind of graphic driver? I wasn't expecting a monitor fix, but this has been a great surprise. This bug fix alone is enough to make me endure any little bugs present in the .0 release.

EDIT: the UI tweaks are welcome as well! I'm partially color-blind, and Yosemite's harsh all flat with white buttons on light gray gradients didn't work well for me. Maybe it's just me, but grays seem slightly darker, buttons now have a slight bulge to them, and there appears to be a greater use of drop shadows.

 

[aevan]

Model: 2014 iMac 5K M290X, i5, Fusion Drive
Upgrade Procedure: upgrade from Yosemite to GM to full version
Speed: dramatic fps increase of UI in Mission Control, Preview animations, PDF, minor speed increase in general, consistently fast and smooth
Stability: Very stable
Battery Life: N/A
Bugs: Photoshop CC scrub zoom is broken. Press to hold on buttons in Photoshop is broken. Wacom drivers are a bit buggier than on Yosemite
Comments: So far, El Capitan is great. It fixes the one issue that iMac Retina had and that is UI lag that made the computer feel slower than it is. It addresses this issue completely.

Model: 2013 15" MacBook Pro Retina, GeForce 750M
Upgrade Procedure: upgrade from Yosemite to GM to full version
Speed: slight fps increase of UI across the board, PDF scrolling speed increase, minor speed increase in general, consistently fast and smooth
Stability: Very stable
Battery Life: Feels the same as on Yosemite
Bugs: Same as on iMac
Comments: Same as on iMac

 

[Jcat4]

I see some people have been including multiple systems... I might as well contribute.

In addition to my MBA,

Model: 2009 Mac Pro flashed to 2010, 6-Core Xeon W3690, 16 GB 1333Mhz DDR3 RAM, Galaxy GTX 680 2GB flashed with EVGA Mac ROM , Booting from 250GB Samsung EVO SSD
Upgrade Procedure: reset smc/pram (of course ), beta --> gm candidate --> update
Speed: Same, if not better
Stability: Same
Battery Life: >desktop
Bugs: Nothing yet. Though, I wish I could use my stat bar programs
Comments: That updated mission control, tho

 

[LittleDavid]

try this: http://logic-pro-expert.com/logic-p...alidation-issues-workaround.html#.VhJZMtZOOEI

Yes, I know about this, but thank you. I have saved the old auvaltool on a separate partition in case NI drags their feet about patches.

 

[mattDC5R]

Model: 2009 15" MBP 2.8 C2D, 8GB RAM, 1TB 7200rpm drive.
Upgrade Procedure: Clean install from 10.8.5 via USB drive, manual copy user files onto new install.
Speed: Does feel that bit quicker opening apps and new windows etc.
Stability: spot on, couldn't tell its a new OS
Battery Life: Improved. original battery with nearly 800 cycles on it and life looks to improved by about 45 mins or so.
Bugs: nothing to report.
Comments: I've been tardy keeping up with the updates so usually stress a little about whether to upgrade. Definitely no issues for me OS wise and on its own merits I'd recommend it for older computers. Biggest pain for me is the move from iPhotos to Photos, my ~140gb overfilled photo library needs a bit of massaging as the face detection started crunching the system after converting the original library so will work through a manual import.

 

[arncalars]

Model: Late 2013 iMac 27", 3,5GHz i7, SSD, 780M.
Upgrade Procedure: Upgrade from Yosemite via Appstore.
Speed: Geekbench 3: Single-Core the same - Multi-Core +200. Blackmagic: Writespeed the same - readspeed +25.
Stability: Same
Battery Life: Desktop
Bugs: None yet
Comments: I made a clean install of Yosemite approximately one month before upgrading to El Capitan and I have no issues. Everything is in perfect condition or what I do on a daily basis is without issues. I might be lucky but I'm careful with my machine.

Regards Lars

 

[ayushsrk]

Model: 2014 11" MBA, base i5, 4GB RAM, 256 GB ssd
Upgrade Procedure: Simple upgrade (no clean install )
Speed: Very noticeable differences. Mission control much more smooth. Safari extremely responsive and snappy. Write speeds showing nearly twice the difference. From 170-250 mb/s to 490- 520 MB/s. I really dont know how this is even possible.
Stability: Nothing's breaking so far
Battery Life: I've gained about 1-2 hours of battery life. I would say it now is actually getting to what Apple originally claimed for the laptop!
Bugs: Few bugs with safari , notes and scrolling in files containing large sized picture files.
Comments: El capitan seems to be quite a rock solid upgrade for me. Battery life back to Apple claims. I really can't wait for further improvements with El capitan!!!

 

[rmeulen]

Model: Mid 2011 iMac 27 inch, i7, 8Gb RAM, 250GB SSD 850 EVO, 1TB HDD
Upgrade Procedure: Clean Install SSD
Speed: Very speedy. Didn't have the SSD prior to El Capitan so no compare possible.
Stability: Nothing crashing so far
Battery Life: When placing the SSD I saw a battery on the logic board but that does not count I guess
Bugs: So far no bugs appeared for me.
Comments: 10.11 looks good, feels good and overall is a nice experience. No complaining here. Xtrafinder needs to update in order for me to have folders on the top and please microsoft fix the onedriveforbusiness to make me 100% happy.

 

[cscheat]

Model: Late 2009 iMac 27 inch, C2D, 8Gb RAM, 1TB DIY Fusion
Upgrade Procedure: From APP STORE
Speed: Boot time faster, running temperature dropped by 2C, animation more smooth, app opening time faster (especially PHOTOS)
Stability: Nothing crashing so far !
Battery Life: Not running on battery
Bugs: So far no bugs appeared for me.
Comments: only problem is MS OFFICE 2016