Why is my Mac running slowly?

[sionharris]

Since installing the latest security patch, Safari has been painfully slow. Can anybody suggest why?

Other than that, I thought it might be useful to collate a list of reasons, however trivial, that your computer might be running slowly, along with ways to fix it. Hopefully one will work for me.

I'll start the ball rolling:

Check how much space is left on your computer. It is recommended that you keep at least 10% of your HD free for optimum performance and to avoid major system crashes.

Also, Safari has a habit of running slowly if you have too many bookmarks.

 

[trainguy77]

Check how much space is left on your computer. It is recommended that you keep at least 10% of your HD free for optimum performance and to avoid major system crashes.

I have an amazing 1.6 gbs left on my mac pro.😀 I am picking up a second 320 gb hard drive today as soon as I head home.

 

[Scarlet Fever]

too many widgets open
too many apps open
not enough RAM
bad RAM

remedies:
repair permissions
get more RAM
clear some HDD space
quit unneeded apps, including widgets
restart the computer

that should get the ball rolling a bit faster 🙂
EDIT; this thread should potentially be a sticky. there are way too many "my macs running slow" threads

 

[sionharris]

too many widgets open (common mistake for newbies)
too many apps open
not enough RAM
bad RAM

remedies:
repair permissions
get more RAM
clear some HDD space
restart the computer

that should get the ball rolling a bit faster 🙂

It should be noted by newbies that restarting will not immediately speed up your computer because everything will be slightly slower the first time you use it.

How do you repair permissions?

 

[Scarlet Fever]

How do you repair permissions?

like this 🙂

 

[Shadow]

Try fscking stuff up! 😀

 

[XP Defector]

I know it's drastic, but a completely clean install speeded up my Mac no end. I found that as it was my first Mac, I was installing all sorts of programs and probably not deleating them properly and probably just running things I didn't need. I swear, my OSX boots up in like 15 seconds flat now!

 

[Andrew05151]

Try OnyX.