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ivanwi11iams

ivanwi11iams

Contributor
Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
4,507
3,066
Georgia, USA
New to the whole Mac OS/hardware. Just received the unit below, from a friend.
After I setup my profile on it, it updated the OS to Big Sur. Thus, not sure if the unit was faster on the previous OS.

Regardless, coming from a Windows computer, this unit seems very, very slow. Curious, any options to upgrade it, or downgrade to an older OS, that will increase its speed significantly?


1605619677548.png
 
You don’t really have any hardware upgrade options here - you can’t upgrade the CPU, RAM, or GPU. It is possible to upgrade the SSD, but I doubt that’s your bottleneck.

I personally wouldn’t have (and haven’t) upgraded it to Big Sur just yet, so I’ll leave it to others can say how that went. Downgrading macOS might give you a marginal improvement, but I wouldn’t expect miracles. It’s 2015 thin and light (and really, that year’s models were only a small bump from the 2013s). It should be fine for office work, web browsing, and so on, but beyond that, it is what it is.
 
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Since it's a brand new to you computer, I'd suggest a bare-metal reinstall of the original (or oldest available) OS, then bring it up to Mojave or Catalina and stay there a bit. See if it works better that way.

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904 - use the Shift-Option-⌘-R method.

WARNING - I'm assuming as a new-to-you computer there's nothing on it you have any interest in keeping. This process involves wiping the disk and all data will be gone.
 
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Oops, running the process again. Initially, I merely reinstalled the OS, from the Utilities screen.
Now running the process again, after deleting the drive (not the part with the OS), and macOS Big Sur seems to be installing now.

So, 44 minutes and counting. Hold please...
 
teecuptech said:
Oops, running the process again. Initially, I merely reinstalled the OS, from the Utilities screen.
Now running the process again, after deleting the drive (not the part with the OS), and macOS Big Sur seems to be installing now.

So, 44 minutes and counting. Hold please...
Click to expand...

Did you do Shift-Option-⌘-R or just Option-⌘-R per link above. Difference being which OS it installs.
 
deeddawg said:
Did you do Shift-Option-⌘-R or just Option-⌘-R per link above. Difference being which OS it installs.
Click to expand...
I used the Command R option. Thus it is installing Big Sur.
Once complete, I will use the MBA for a moment, to see if it is "fast" or "slow". If the latter, I will follow the process to reinstall the ORIGINAL OS.

Thanks for the assistance. Certainly appreciated...
 
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BrianBaughn said:
To be clear…you reformatted/erased the partition to which you are installing?
Click to expand...
The partition that shows at the TOP of the Window, during the process, in the Utility window.
I hope that makes sense. Sort of looks like the image below (I merely Googled this one)...

macos-catalina-recovery-mode-disk-utility-erase-volume-group.jpg
 
BrianBaughn said:
In Disk Utility, go to menu item View>Show All Devices. I'm thinking you need to get rid of the separate partitions that are shown in your image.
Click to expand...
Sorry, somewhat confused now. Below is an actual image of my MBA drives. The previous image was merely one from online (Google)...

IMG_1647.JPEG


PS: I knew I could use shift+command+3 for taking a screen shot. But, it was another headache to get it to the forums (since I was already logged in, on my Windows computer)...
 
deeddawg said:
No worries about screen shot - can't really do that since to wipe the drive so you can reinstall you need to boot into Recovery mode. Which you haven't.

These instructions may be a help: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496
Click to expand...
Started over, based on the detail in the link you sent (THANKS!).
The partition drive(s) were erased; used the volume group first, then also deleted the second partition that was labeled data (using the minus sign).

Once the above was done, it showed just ONE drive (versus the two, Macintosh HD & Macintosh HD - Data).
Big Sur is now being installed, again :D See you all in 44 minutes...

PS: Despite the prior faux pas with the drive(s), the OS seemed to be working much faster on this MBA.
 
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Unit back up and running with Big Sur. Thus far, it seems MUCH better than prior to today.
Glad @deeddawg suggested a 'revert to factory' of sorts.

Now to configure everything and add my Apple ID to this MBA.
Once I have finished all that, I will setup Time Machine...
 
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