Apple Care Said You Should do a PRAM Reset After Major Updates.

[Traverse]

I had a question for the more technically skilled members her. I installed Yosemite and everything went fine, but I just remembered that a few years ago when I had issues with Lion, Apple Care phone support told me that after every major update (even incremental ones like from 10.10 to 10.10.1) you should do a PRAM reset.

That seems unnecessary unless you're actually having trouble. Was this advice really helpful?

They also told me to occasionally boot in safe mode to clear system caches, which again seems unnecessary. I have very low expectations from their phone support, but I was wondering if there was any validity to these suggestions.

 

[mikecwest]

You might as well repair your permissions and reset your SMC at the same time.


On that note, I remember in the past, it was often recommend to zap the p-ram 3-5 times in a row. Is that really more effective that just once, or is it like continuously pressing the "walk" button at a traffic signal?

 

[UncleSchnitty]

I had a question for the more technically skilled members her. I installed Yosemite and everything went fine, but I just remembered that a few years ago when I had issues with Lion, Apple Care phone support told me that after every major update (even incremental ones like from 10.10 to 10.10.1) you should do a PRAM reset.

That seems unnecessary unless you're actually having trouble. Was this advice really helpful?

They also told me to occasionally boot in safe mode to clear system caches, which again seems unnecessary. I have very low expectations from their phone support, but I was wondering if there was any validity to these suggestions.

Umm it can't hurt to do a pram reset. Is it necessary? If you're not having fan issues or anything then no not really but like I said it can't hurt.

As for clearing the caches it won't really make that much of a difference. Your computer cleans its self automatically. If you like to take charge and do it yourself then you can get the program ONYX to manually do your clearing and cleaning though they don't have an update for Yosemite (last year it took a few weeks). Again NECESSARY? Not if you're not having issues.

Hope that helps

 

[Apple_Robert]

If everything is working as it should after an update, what purpose would it serve resetting to factory default settings, which could be different than what they need to be for the new update? Not being snarky. It is an honest question.

 

[Traverse]

If everything is working as it should after an update, what purpose would it serve resetting to factory default settings, which could be different than what they need to be for the new update? Not being snarky. It is an honest question.

I agree with you. I didn't do anything, I was just recalling what an AppleCare person told me a few years ago.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I agree with you. I didn't do anything, I was just recalling what an AppleCare person told me a few years ago.

Sounds to me like the technician was making a point to be very thorough with the one answer covers most typical user engaged scenarios.

Good thread topic. I always enjoy a chance to learn from more knowledgable users.

 

[MUrhino]

On the topic of outdated advice...

Since we're on the topic of outdated advice, is there any point to do a clean install of the OS anymore?

I'm running a late 2013 rMBP w/ Mavericks right now and haven't had any issues. Ya just never know what all those third party programs have added to the system over the year(s)....then again I don't really want to reinstall every program over again.