Speeding up my Macbook?

[Kidman13]

So I have my Macbook for about 3 months now, and well I notice that it is now running quite slower then when I got it new. I went to the apple store a few days ago to and played with a Macbook there and I definately saw a great difference.

Now I know that you need more RAM, and I'm still stuck on the 512MB (I'm going to upgrade that to 2Gigs, but not right now).

So I was wondering what I could do, to maybe speed up my Mac a bit? (On the PC you can like Defragment etc)

Thanks in advance!

 

[cwong5]

I am on a Macbook too. And really the best upgrae you can do at this point is add more ram. So save up. Or in this upcoming holiday season, let all your friends/family/everyone knows you are establishing a "Speed up my Mac - RAM" fund.

 

[Shadow]

One word: MainMenu.

 

[evangelion-01]

Just add 2gigs of ram, the thing will fly.

 

[gauchogolfer]

So I have my Macbook for about 3 months now, and well I notice that it is now running quite slower then when I got it new. I went to the apple store a few days ago to and played with a Macbook there and I definately saw a great difference.

So I was wondering what I could do, to maybe speed up my Mac a bit? (On the PC you can like Defragment etc)

Macs generally don't experience the same kind of 'system rot' that sometimes happens with Windows. Make sure that you leave your computer awake overnight maybe once a week, such that the system processes can run. Other than that, have you installed any hacks or themes? Those are about the only things I can imagine causing a big slowdown compared to currently-available Macbooks in an Apple store with your same specs.

 

[Osarkon]

The macbook's on display in stores normally have 1Gb of RAM in them. That could explain why it seemed faster than yours.

 

[Kidman13]

I checked the one and it had the identical 512MB.

And nopes, I have no themes or any Hacks installed whatsoever.

 

[ripfrankwhite]

Macs generally don't experience the same kind of 'system rot' that sometimes happens with Windows. Make sure that you leave your computer awake overnight maybe once a week, such that the system processes can run. Other than that, have you installed any hacks or themes? Those are about the only things I can imagine causing a big slowdown compared to currently-available Macbooks in an Apple store with your same specs.

What are these processes you speak of? I've heard something about them before, but, don't really know what they are. Could you explain? Thanks.

 

[ripfrankwhite]

What are these processes you speak of? I've heard something about them before, but, don't really know what they are. Could you explain? Thanks.

Nevermind. I found it.

 

[Kidman13]

Would you care to explain these processes to me?

 

[ddrueckhammer]

From Macrumors Guides: "Mac OS X runs maintenance scripts at 0300 (3:00am), which performs tasks such as clearing log files."

http://guides.macrumors.com/Maintenance_Scripts

"You can use third party applications such as Cocktail, MacJanitor, or Onyx to run these scripts [manually]."

Personally, I use Cocktail on my Mac at least once every couple of weeks as I let my computer sleep at night. Many people like Onyx as it is freeware and Cocktail is shareware but after I bought Cocktail a long time ago and I find the UI better and it is also easier to uninstall as Onyx uses an installer. In addition to the "Cron Scripts" described above Cocktail has a tab that also cleans all caches, deletes all rotated log files, updates prebinding for programs, repairs permissions automatically, and restarts/shuts down etc. This all can be done manually or scheduled.

By any chance, has your hard drive been making any strange noises? If you run one of these programs and your computer is still slow then either you just don't have enough Ram or your hard drive is failing. You should run "Repair Disk" from Disk Utility off of the Apple Install DVD. If "repair disk" fails for any reason then you might try Alsoft's DiskWarrior but it is kinda pricey. If it requires Disk Warrior then it is probably time to go to the Genius Bar...

Good Luck