OS 10.4 - How do I get my Mac to run faster?

NYSpinnerDan · NYSpinnerDan #1 (**permalink**)

10-14-2007, 08:31 PM

How do I get my iMac to run faster?
Hey I have the latest iMac: intel core 2 duo generation 2.
It is amazing, but I have noticed that the time to load the dashboard, time to load up the computer at startup, and time to load up after awakening it from sleep has gotten considerably slower. I researched this, and found something about deleting cache's.
Please tell me how to make my iMac faster, and not loading up so slow.

D3v1L80Y · D3v1L80Y #2 (**permalink**)

10-14-2007, 08:32 PM

http://lowendmac.com/ibasics/05/0706.html

giulio · giulio #3 (**permalink**)

10-15-2007, 08:16 AM

What helped most for me was rebotting once a day. Something about the startup process...

Alexis · Alexis #4 (**permalink**)

10-15-2007, 08:54 AM

1.) Download Onyx and clear caches etc.

2.) Upgrade your memory.

giulio · giulio #5 (**permalink**)

10-15-2007, 10:27 AM

I never understood clearing caches. Caches makes things faster. Why do we delete them?

Get at least 2GB of Ram.
Use DiskWarrior occassionally.
Use the 'Stop Dashboard' widget.
Disable Spotlight.

mac57 · mac57 #6 (**permalink**)

10-15-2007, 01:52 PM

Here is my oft posted recipe for speeding up a Mac:

First, check that your processor is running full speed. Go to Preferences, Energy Saver, Options and look at the drop box down near the bottom called Processor Performance. If it is not set to "Highest", set it to that right away. This maximizes performance, but for notebooks, it may run down the battery faster. Note that not all Macs have this setting - laptops do, and my certainly my PowerMac G5 tower does, but not all Macs do.

Next, download OnyX and run the complete set of clean up and maintenance scripts and then evaluate again. Get OnyX at:

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html

Next, you may wish to check that you have enough free space on your hard drive. Highlight the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop, CTL-click it and select Get Info from the resulting menu. Make sure you have a reasonable amount of space left. If not, a little spring cleaning may be in order.

There are two excellent apps for showing where all of your hard disk space has gone, Disk Inventory X and WhatSize. Get them at:

Disk Inventory X: http://www.derlien.com

WhatSize: http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize

Both do a great job at letting you zero in on your largest disk space consumers, so that you can hunt down any rogue files (and both are freeware, which is good).

Finally, it is possible you may have some processes running that are consuming a lot of idle CPU, thus slowing down your machine overall. I had a bad widget that did this once. Open Activity Monitor and look at your "resting" CPU occupancy when you are not doing anything in particular with the machine. It should be pretty much zero (maybe 1% to 2% at most). If it not, identify the process or processes that are taking the time. What are they? Do you recognize them? Are they needed?

If you find one that is not needed, kill it and see how your machine starts to behave. If this is the cure, you will need to identify the startup item that launches it and delete it.

So, in summary then, take the following steps in order:
1/ Start with ensuring that your processor speed setting is full (applies to many Macs but not all)
2/ Then do Onyx based full maintenance
3/ Then check that you have sufficient available disk space
4/ Finally, search for processes that are consuming an unexpected amount of CPU

mac_yrons · mac_yrons #7 (**permalink**)

11-06-2007, 07:17 AM

thanx! that really helped!

MACGIRL34 · MACGIRL34 #8 (**permalink**)

11-06-2007, 10:50 AM

I love this website for optimizing the performance of our Macs....http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html

stevegate · stevegate #9 (**permalink**)

11-06-2007, 11:02 AM

thanks Mac57,

your tips is marvelous

Del · Del #10 (**permalink**)

11-06-2007, 11:28 AM

Anyone know when/if Oynx will be available for Leopard

husky · husky #11 (**permalink**)

11-06-2007, 11:31 AM

this is exactly what i was looking for as well.. thank you all and thanks NYSspinnerdan for starting the thread

kade119 · kade119 #12 (**permalink**)

12-20-2007, 11:57 AM

what if there is no pop-up box when i go to system preferences -> energy saver.. to increase processor performance.. i clicked on options to, nothing there... ? im on mac ddesktop 1.4 tiger

rixx03 · rixx03 #13 (**permalink**)

12-21-2007, 09:04 AM

My MacBook's startup and shutdown is also slowing down lately. I wonder what's wrong.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the tips. I'll try them and observe the outcome.

dtravis7 · dtravis7 #14 (**permalink**)

12-21-2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

Anyone know when/if Oynx will be available for Leopard

The Beta supports Leopard and has for weeks. I have been using MainMenu for now as it's Leopard compatible. I am sure the final for Onyx will soon be out.

Here is a URL for Onyx. They updated the Beta.

http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html

karudzo · karudzo #15 (**permalink**)

12-21-2007, 06:16 PM

Recompile the kernel.

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OS 10.4 - How do I get my Mac to run faster?

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NYSpinnerDan #1 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 14, 2007 Posts: 1	10-14-2007, 08:31 PM How do I get my iMac to run faster? Hey I have the latest iMac: intel core 2 duo generation 2. It is amazing, but I have noticed that the time to load the dashboard, time to load up the computer at startup, and time to load up after awakening it from sleep has gotten considerably slower. I researched this, and found something about deleting cache's. Please tell me how to make my iMac faster, and not loading up so slow.

D3v1L80Y #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Feb 02, 2004 Location: PA Posts: 12,455 Mac Specs: MacBook	10-14-2007, 08:32 PM http://lowendmac.com/ibasics/05/0706.html __________________________________________________ Posting and YOU\|Forum Community Guidelines\|The Apple Product Cycle\|Forum Courtesy mac: a waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric MAC: a data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the Media Access Control Mac: a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc.

Alexis #4 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 20, 2006 Posts: 2,255 Mac Specs: Al iMac 20" 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo	10-15-2007, 08:54 AM 1.) Download Onyx and clear caches etc. 2.) Upgrade your memory.

giulio #5 (permalink)
Member Since: Mar 19, 2007 Location: NY USA Posts: 1,813 Mac Specs: iMac 5.1 \| iMac 7.1 \| iPod Touch \| iPod Nano	10-15-2007, 10:27 AM I never understood clearing caches. Caches makes things faster. Why do we delete them? Get at least 2GB of Ram. Use DiskWarrior occassionally. Use the 'Stop Dashboard' widget. Disable Spotlight.

mac57 #6 (permalink)
Member Since: Apr 29, 2006 Location: St. Somewhere Posts: 4,547 Mac Specs: PowerMac G5 Quad, 2.5 GHz, 4 Core, 120 GB SSD, 500 GB HDD	10-15-2007, 01:52 PM Here is my oft posted recipe for speeding up a Mac: First, check that your processor is running full speed. Go to Preferences, Energy Saver, Options and look at the drop box down near the bottom called Processor Performance. If it is not set to "Highest", set it to that right away. This maximizes performance, but for notebooks, it may run down the battery faster. Note that not all Macs have this setting - laptops do, and my certainly my PowerMac G5 tower does, but not all Macs do. Next, download OnyX and run the complete set of clean up and maintenance scripts and then evaluate again. Get OnyX at: http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html Next, you may wish to check that you have enough free space on your hard drive. Highlight the Macintosh HD icon on your desktop, CTL-click it and select Get Info from the resulting menu. Make sure you have a reasonable amount of space left. If not, a little spring cleaning may be in order. There are two excellent apps for showing where all of your hard disk space has gone, Disk Inventory X and WhatSize. Get them at: Disk Inventory X: http://www.derlien.com WhatSize: http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize Both do a great job at letting you zero in on your largest disk space consumers, so that you can hunt down any rogue files (and both are freeware, which is good). Finally, it is possible you may have some processes running that are consuming a lot of idle CPU, thus slowing down your machine overall. I had a bad widget that did this once. Open Activity Monitor and look at your "resting" CPU occupancy when you are not doing anything in particular with the machine. It should be pretty much zero (maybe 1% to 2% at most). If it not, identify the process or processes that are taking the time. What are they? Do you recognize them? Are they needed? If you find one that is not needed, kill it and see how your machine starts to behave. If this is the cure, you will need to identify the startup item that launches it and delete it. So, in summary then, take the following steps in order: 1/ Start with ensuring that your processor speed setting is full (applies to many Macs but not all) 2/ Then do Onyx based full maintenance 3/ Then check that you have sufficient available disk space 4/ Finally, search for processes that are consuming an unexpected amount of CPU My Macs: PowerMac G5 Quad, 2.5 GHz, 4 Core, Mac Pro, 3.2 GHz 8 Core, Power Macintosh 7500/100 My iStuff: 32 GB iPhone 4, 30 GB iPod Video, 16 GB iPod Touch My OS': Mac OS X Tiger, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac OS 8.6, openSUSE 10.3, Win XP I was on the Mac-Forums honor roll for September 2007

mac_yrons #7 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 09, 2007 Posts: 23	11-06-2007, 07:17 AM thanx! that really helped!

MACGIRL34 #8 (permalink)
Member Since: Sep 01, 2007 Location: USA Posts: 451 Mac Specs: 24" iMac 2.8 GHZ/2GB/320GB/Leopard	11-06-2007, 10:50 AM I love this website for optimizing the performance of our Macs....http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html .Leo my mac kitty... 24" iMac 2.8GHz, Macbook Air 1.8GHZ/2GB/80GB, iPhone 3G 16GB White , iPod Classic 80GB, iPod Nano... MAC CHAT: macgirl3434 see profile My site: see profile

stevegate #9 (permalink)
Member Since: Oct 02, 2007 Posts: 106	11-06-2007, 11:02 AM thanks Mac57, your tips is marvelous

Del #10 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 24, 2006 Location: N. Ireland Posts: 900 Mac Specs: Mac Pro 2xQuad core 2.8GHZ	11-06-2007, 11:28 AM Anyone know when/if Oynx will be available for Leopard

husky #11 (permalink)
Member Since: Aug 15, 2007 Posts: 46 Mac Specs: MBP, 2.2 GHz, 2gb RAM, 120gb HD	11-06-2007, 11:31 AM this is exactly what i was looking for as well.. thank you all and thanks NYSspinnerdan for starting the thread "even in our darkest hour you must remember, never despair." - Harry Vardon

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)

kade119 #12 (permalink)
Member Since: Dec 20, 2007 Location: Louisiana Posts: 48 Mac Specs: 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon :: 5 GB 667 Mhz DDR2 FB-DIMM	12-20-2007, 11:57 AM what if there is no pop-up box when i go to system preferences -> energy saver.. to increase processor performance.. i clicked on options to, nothing there... ? im on mac ddesktop 1.4 tiger

rixx03 #13 (permalink)
Member Since: Mar 27, 2007 Location: NPA - No Permanent Address Posts: 229 Mac Specs: White MacBook 2GHz Intel Core2Duo 1GB 667MHz DDR2SDRAM 120GB HD \| iPod Video 80GB White \| iPhone 8GB	12-21-2007, 09:04 AM My MacBook's startup and shutdown is also slowing down lately. I wonder what's wrong. Anyway, thanks to everyone for the tips. I'll try them and observe the outcome. \|\| i BOUGHT MY MACBOOK ON MARCH 24, 2007 \|\| \|\| WHiTE MACBOOK 2GHZ iNTEL CORE 2 DUO 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 120GB HD \|\| \|\| iPOD ViDEO 80GB WHiTE \|\| iPHONE 8GB \|\|

karudzo #15 (permalink)
Member Since: May 27, 2006 Location: Concord, NC Posts: 445 Mac Specs: Macbook Pro 17" 2.6GHz 4GB RAM	12-21-2007, 06:16 PM Recompile the kernel.