Re-installing Snow Leopard or Lion Advice!

[jessnichole85]

I need some help. A couple months ago I upgraded to Mountain Lion on my 2010 White Macbook. Ever since, it's been running super slow... I can literally count to 5 after I click on something before it does anything. It takes an Application way to long to open up. iTunes and iMovie are ridiculously slow. I get the 'rainbow wheel' at least 30 times a day over simple things, like switching already open programs such as iTunes to Safari, etc. I'm up to my eyeballs in frustration. Being less than 3 years old, it shouldn't act this much like a PC. Basically, is there anything I can do to make Lion run faster? Or if not, how do I re-install Snow Leopard so I can get my 'old' Mac back? Please please please help me. I can't afford to get a whole new laptop and this one has to last me at least another 2 years.

Thanks a ton,
Jess

 

[chibiterasu]

First thing is first I would upgrade the ram the 2010 only has 2gb as stock so you will want to go up to 4gb or 8gb. Secondly if your already on lion then I would recommend moving up to mountain lion (and doing a fresh install at the same time and using time machine to back up your data) mountain lion is like what snow leopard did for leopard e.g faster and more features. After you have done these simple and relatively cheap ways to speed up your mac then you may want to look into a ssd which will make multitasking, opening programs and files quicker.

Hope this helps

 

[minifridge1138]

First, make sure you're running the latest version of Lion.

Re-installing Snow Leopard shouldn't be too hard. You'd just need to use there recovery disc that came with your Mac. The hard part will be getting all of your files and applications back.

Do you use time machine?
Have you used time machine since updating to Lion?

The suggestion for more ram is a good one. More ram won't hurt anything (except maybe your startup / shutdown times).