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Why do people say OS X doesnt slow down?
- Thread starter Mike225
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same, i have (had) a white macbook from 2007 that ran wonderfully until i switched it to Ubuntu...then it still ran great.
What I love is the fact that when you turn it on and OSX loads, there is no waiting or startup programs like in Windows.
My iMac7,1 came with Tiger and later I installed Leopard on top and Snow Leopard on top of Leopard. My iMac runs very smoothly. What I noticed that some apps leave LaunchAgents or LaunchDaemons even if yu remove those apps with AppZapper or any other similar app. These agents and daemons can and slow boot and even after boot.You should check for those also if HDD free space is low OS X can be slower.
Actually there is (system preferences -> accounts -> login items) but maybe you dont have as many running as in windows. for example, windows users *HAVE* to have antivirus and they take an age to launch. Also, OSX runs services the same as windows so they have to be launched too. But I do find overall macs boot up a lot quicker.
Utilities that launch on startup and antivirus software may hurt startup times a bit, but it is by no means the major problem. FWIW, I have antivirus software installed on my Mac. I also have several Login Items. My boot times can in no way be compared to Windows.
The bottomline is that my Windows computers are not usable until all of that crap finishes loading. Pray to God that there are no security patches to install. OTOH, my Macs are usable as soon as the icons populate my open windows--minutes sooner than in Windows.
As long as you keep the state of your OS in good condition, you shouldn't experience any slow downs. I've been running Windows 7 from Beta to Release Candidate to Retail and I haven't experienced any significant slow downs because I'm careful with what I install and what is starting up in the background.
Whereas, I have a friend who has a late 2007 MacBook and after 3 years, it has grinded to a near halt when you turn it on. I believe is because she's not that familiar with what she's doing and installing and has slowed down as a result. But I'll fix that for her when I get my hands on it
Whereas, I have a friend who has a late 2007 MacBook and after 3 years, it has grinded to a near halt when you turn it on. I believe is because she's not that familiar with what she's doing and installing and has slowed down as a result. But I'll fix that for her when I get my hands on it
Žalgiris;10764927 said:
I migrated my old macbook's SL installation onto my new MBP a month ago, so all of the files and settings transferred over. I was having some battery issues, so I looked at activity monitor to see what was running. I had a bunch of old daemons from things that I though I uninstalled on my Macbook. What's the best way to remove these processes? I use AppCleaner but they were still there. I poked around in a few different directories and deleted some files that may have been the culprit, but is that the best way to go about?
my MBP is nearly 3 years old, and i restart it maybe once every 3 months. it seems just as fast as when i first got it.
in comparison, all the PC's i've ever owned (this was my first mac), slow down considerably after just a day without restarting. i've always had to do a complete reinstall of windows after about 2-3 years because of terrible slow downs and freezes (not due to viruses).
so sure, maybe it does slow down a little, but compared to windows, its nothing.
in comparison, all the PC's i've ever owned (this was my first mac), slow down considerably after just a day without restarting. i've always had to do a complete reinstall of windows after about 2-3 years because of terrible slow downs and freezes (not due to viruses).
so sure, maybe it does slow down a little, but compared to windows, its nothing.
The only times I've ever experienced OS slowdowns, on any version of OS X or Windows, was when I had installed and removed lots of software or let the boot drive get too full for the virtual memory to work effectively.
Now, I tend to only install programs I need and keep my free space above at least 20%. I haven't had my Windows or OS X machines show any signs of slowdown in quite a while.
Now, I tend to only install programs I need and keep my free space above at least 20%. I haven't had my Windows or OS X machines show any signs of slowdown in quite a while.
My parents have a 24" 2.16ghz 2006 iMac. Shipped with Tiger, Leopard installed over that, and Snow Leopard installed over that again. I've noticed no slow-down on this system, and it's still perfectly capable. I'd say another 2-3 years will come out of this now 4 year old machine before it needs replaced.
Next time you see a Macintosh that you say has slowed down, check how much RAM it has, how full the hard drive is, have a look in Activity Monitor, and help these people making their Macs faster.
There are probably some Intel Macs still running that were sold with 512 MB and have never been upgraded. £36 in the UK gets you 2 GB of RAM for the oldest Intel MacBook; not getting that is stupid. Two more things that slow a Macintosh down: A hard drive that is almost full, and a hard drive that is on its way out. Again, £55 gets you a 500 GB 7200 rpm hard drive. And many older Macs will just look slower because you put them side by side with a new one. But mostly, look in Activity Monitor what is going on. All that said, my May 2006 MacBook runs as fast as on the first day; faster actually because the OS is faster, it has more RAM, and a faster hard drive.
You can actually make _any_ computer run faster by buying a bigger hard drive. If you have 20% free on a 120 GB hard drive, and replace it just with a 320 GB, the hard drive will be substantially faster.
For example the last encounter was a unibody 13" MB with 1GB ram.
I neeed to install Windows on it but literally every window switch took over 20 seconds. It was completely ridiculous. So I went to exit as many program as possible but to do that alone (which still oin the end didnt help much) took probably 2 minutes.He wasnt running any particularly intensive programs either.
Did he need a restart? Then you always have people saying that OS X rarely/never needs to be restarted to keep it running "fresh"
I'd listen to the people above; their comments on memory and HDDs are spot on. Also, I seldom turn off my MBP except when I need to. It runs fine with a week or more of uptime, and some people have even longer uptimes with no issues.
Actually, my Mac Pro runs faster now than when I got it..... the addition of 8GB of RAM is what did it.
I think, to answer the OP's question, one needs to qualify that some Mac owners claim that OS X doesn't slow down. Mine certainly hasn't. And I believe it's because I don't download and install anything that isn't really required. I used to install a whole bunch of "things" that were supposed to make things better, faster, smoother. In time I found that they just caused problems. Now that I keep my system clean, I have no issues.
I think Windows owners are particularly bad for adding crud and cruft (simply because there are some many cool sounding apps that are marketed for Windows). I suspect that if a Windows installation was kept as clean as I keep my OS X it would run fine too for a long time. Except for the AV of course. This is just a theory 'cause I have no need for Windows so can't test.
I think, to answer the OP's question, one needs to qualify that some Mac owners claim that OS X doesn't slow down. Mine certainly hasn't. And I believe it's because I don't download and install anything that isn't really required. I used to install a whole bunch of "things" that were supposed to make things better, faster, smoother. In time I found that they just caused problems. Now that I keep my system clean, I have no issues.
I think Windows owners are particularly bad for adding crud and cruft (simply because there are some many cool sounding apps that are marketed for Windows). I suspect that if a Windows installation was kept as clean as I keep my OS X it would run fine too for a long time. Except for the AV of course. This is just a theory 'cause I have no need for Windows so can't test.
Agreed, was just pointing out that someones statement that Macs don't have startup problems wasn't exactly the case.
I haven't run a Windows machine in several years so I can't really say much in the way of comparisons now, but with my iMac I rarely ever deal with start up slowdowns because I rarely start my iMac--so all I ever really wait for is it to run daily routine after it awakes from sleep. I only have 2GB RAM and it continues to do a fine job of memory management freeing up memory as needed without the need to reboot. My iMac seems more stable now after two 1/2 years than ever.
just noticed i used the words "startup problems" when i really meant startup slowdowns/pauses. sorry
I think OS X's biggest shortcoming is the lack of uninstall management. When you drag an application (or anything else) to the trash, you should at least have the option of selecting associated files for trashing.
There should also be a "never ask this" option, in case you actually want your computer to be bloated and useless.
Most common reasons for slow down:
- capacity of boot drive is nearly reached
- too many login items/ startup agents
- too many small apps running in the background
- not enough RAM for ever increasing SW requirements
- slow HDDs which will multiply above reasons