3 year old Mac Book Pro (2.4GHz/OS 10.6.8) running very slowly.
130 Gb of the possible 248Gb are in use. Is there a reliable way of identifying and getting rid of unused or duplicate files to clear out some room and speed up the processor?
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or Lion and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Other utilities are also available such as Onyx, Lion Cache Cleaner, CockTail, for example.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Backuplist
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
iBackup
JaBack
Silver Keeper
MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
SyncTwoFolders
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Adding RAM makes it possible to run more programs concurrently. It doesn't speed up the computer nor make games run faster. What it can do is prevent the system from having to use disk-based VM when it runs out of RAM because you are trying to run too many applications concurrently or using applications that are extremely RAM dependent. It will improve the performance of applications that run mostly in RAM or when loading programs.
Similar Messages
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my 3 year old mac book pro has started to run much slower, very hot and sounds as though it is running hard....any thoughts?
Login to another User account. Is it faster there?
17" 2.2GHz i7 Quad-Core MacBook Pro 8G RAM 750G HD + OCZ Vertex 3 SSD Boot HD
Got problems with your Apple iDevice-like iPhone, iPad or iPod touch? Try Troubleshooting 101 -
Hello, the fan in my 2 year old Mac Book Pro 13" is running a lot lately. Why could that be? My HD is pretty full.
Start with this comprehensive troubleshooting article:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
Look at this one for possible solutions:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Ciao. -
I recently update my 4 year old mac book pro to Yosemite. I am now getting a pixilated log inn scene from time to time. What do I need to do?
how often does this happen for you?
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2 year old mac book pro gets hot. Causes? Solutions?
2 year old mac book pro gets hot. Causes? Solutions?
Reset SMC. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Choose the appropriate method.
"Resetting SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own".
Info from this article may help.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4543 -
Would you please help me in cleaning my two years old mac book pro
my computer is two years old. i vist many sites and as a result it has
gradually become very slow.is there any advice please?You are posting in the developer forum. This is a quiet corner of the forums where few people will see your post. If you give us some details about your setup, we can get your post moved to a more appropriate forum.
A good way to do that eould be to try a little program I wrote a little diagnostic program to help show what might be causing these problems. Download EtreCheck from http://www.etresoft.com/download/EtreCheck.zip, run it, and paste the results here.
The output from EtreCheck will say what forum your post need to go into and, perhaps, what your problem is.
Disclaimer: Although EtreCheck is free, there are other links on my site that could give me some form of compensation, financial or otherwise. -
Migrated Aperture 3 upgrade from old Mac Book Pro to new Mac Book Pro. Can't open Aperture on new machine because I don't have the original serial number for Aperture 2 program originally installed on the old machine. What is the best solution to this situation
Call Apple and make a appointment.
You have 3 months of care and up to 3 years with paid AppleCare, let them handle it and bring everything in.
Good Luck -
I want to transfer data from my old Mac book pro to my new one using migrate. The old computer doesn't have Thunderbolt 2 and the new one doesn't have Firewire 800. Does the Thunderbolt to Firewire or the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter work to connect them and transfer data?
Thank you!Yes, use a Firewire cable and the FW to Tbolt adaptor.
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imported a slide on my old mac book pro to my iTune i had on it, but it got a new one how can i get my old iTune back with that slide i imported
If this is a question about syncing with iTunes, you might want to post it over in the iTunes forum.
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Greetings
I was wondering what the steps and cautions are to upgrade from OSX 10.4.11 on an old Mac Book Pro (2nd computer for shared use in household for emails, etc.) 2.33 Inel Core 2 Duo to OSX 10.6.8 or highest that I can?You will need to get a 10.6 Snow Leopard retail disk which I don't think are still available from Apple.
Google "buy mac 10.6 snow leopard" to get an idea of current pricing. You'll need updates to10.6.8 in order to upgrade to 10.7 (the early core duo MBPros can not do this) or possibly 10.8 but check the exclusion list to be sure.
MacTracker can give you all the details. http://mactracker.ca/ -
I have a 5 year old Mac Book with OS 10.6.8 and it can not be upgraded to Mountain Lion. I just got an iPad with retina. How do I get an iMovie project onto my iPad?
I have a 5 year old Mac Book with OS 10.6.8 and it can not be upgraded to Mountain Lion. I just got an iPad with retina. How do I get an iMovie project onto my iPad?
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i have a 2004 30gb ipod colour.....it was previously set up so i could manage the music on an old mac book pro g4.....i now have a new mac book pro, but i cannot get the music from my old ipod on to my mac......how do i do this???
See this older post from another forum member Zevoneer covering the different methods and software available to assist you with the task of copying content from your iPod back to your Mac and into iTunes.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2452022?start=0&tstart=0
Once you have successfully done that you can go ahead and choose Erase and Sync when you plug your iPod in.
B-rock -
I want to transfer data from my old mac book pro to my new macbook pro
hi Guys,
i purchased a new macbook pro with retins display and i already started using it. Now i want to transfer the old setting and data from my old mac book pro to the new one.
how can i do that, since the message that pops up when the mac is new that gives you options to chose where to transfer files is gone
please helpyes - it's the same as setup assistant which is the one that pops up when you first set up your macbook.
have a look here: http://pondini.org/OSX/Setup.html -
My 4yr old mac book pro is running slow. Any suggestions?
My 4yr old mac book pro is running slow. Any suggestions?
Examine these articles for possible solutions;
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
You should find them excellent for troubleshooting.
Ciao. -
I have an old mac book pro built in 2006. I just use it in the kitchen to go on the internet--which it does fairly well. It's running OS 10.6.8. Would it be risky to upgrade to the OS 10.7.4 Lion. Or should I leave well enough alone? I was hoping that the upgrade would allow me to use an old version of Kindle for Mac. I need to get the machine into 2012 functionality. If I can't do it, no worries.
The very early 2006 MBPs are limited to Snow Leopard (10.6.8). If your MBP is a model Identifier 2.1 or 2.2, then you can install Lion (10.7.5). Note that the transition to Lion might mean that some applications will not be compatible so updates or substitutions would be needed.
I have a 2006 MBP, Model Identifier 1.2, and it is running Snow Leopard very efficiently. It is just a bit slower than newer ones, especially in the graphics area. Otherwise is is a very good machine.
Ciao.
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