Snow Leopard slowed my Mac down

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Hi, -

recently I upgraded to Snow Leopard from Leopard as one has to have Snow Leopard in order to upgrade to Lion. The upgrade to SL made a number of applications run incredibly slow. Notably Firefox and Netbeans, which I use all the time.

I suspect this is because I didn't erase the disc before the install. (The install procedure never prompted me with an option and just proceeded to upgrade).

I want to re-install to get the speed back. Can anyone recommend it? Has erasing the disc and installing SL from scratch worked better for anyone than upgrading?

Thanks!

/ rubyist

PS. I have a MacBook 2.2 GHz Intel Core Duo, purchased 2008.
 
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recently I upgraded to Snow Leopard from Leopard as one has to have Snow Leopard in order to upgrade to Lion. The upgrade to SL made a number of applications run incredibly slow. Notably Firefox and Netbeans, which I use all the time.

I suspect this is because I didn't erase the disc before the install. (The install procedure never prompted me with an option and just proceeded to upgrade).

I want to re-install to get the speed back. Can anyone recommend it? Has erasing the disc and installing SL from scratch worked better for anyone than upgrading?

PS. I have a MacBook 2.2 GHz Intel Core Duo, purchased 2008.

Core Duo, or Core 2 Duo? Lion is not compatible with the Core Duo.

If you are going to upgrade to Lion, why not just go ahead and install Lion clean to a new partition? Once done and you find it to your liking, you can work on removing Snow Leopard. See this post for the procedure I outlined for another member:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os...leopard-lion-partitions-same-hd-question.html

P.S.: How much RAM do you have?
 
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Core Duo, or Core 2 Duo? Lion is not compatible with the Core Duo.

It's Core 2 Duo - sorry.

P.S.: How much RAM do you have?

1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Would you still recommend installing Lion to a new partition given the above data? Also, what guarantee is there that Lion will be faster - I thought if anything, SL would be faster than L but in fact the exact opposite happened.

:\
 
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It's Core 2 Duo - sorry.

1 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Would you still recommend installing Lion to a new partition given the above data? Also, what guarantee is there that Lion will be faster - I thought if anything, SL would be faster than L but in fact the exact opposite happened.

Your biggest handicap is your RAM. 512 MB was the minimum required for Leopard, so you were at double the minimum recommendations. 1 GB RAM is the "minimum" requirement for Snow Leopard, and Lion requires 2 GB RAM. Running with the minimum requirements isn't generally a good idea for any OS. It'll work, but just barely. Ideally you should bump it to 4 GB.
 
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1 GB RAM is the "minimum" requirement for Snow Leopard, and Lion requires 2 GB RAM.

Ah, I see - that's why it's gotten so slow. Maybe I should look into upgrading RAM before anything else. Still it would be great to know how to install Lion with a clean install (erasing the disc) - is there a good tutorial for that?

Thanks!
 
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Still it would be great to know how to install Lion with a clean install (erasing the disc) - is there a good tutorial for that?

There are a few different ways. You can either follow my advice in the thread I linked to, or make a Lion install disc, instructions here:
OS X Lion: How to Do a Clean Install

Apple will also be making Lion available for purchase on a USB stick next month.
 
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Your biggest handicap is your RAM. 512 MB was the minimum required for Leopard, so you were at double the minimum recommendations. 1 GB RAM is the "minimum" requirement for Snow Leopard, and Lion requires 2 GB RAM. Running with the minimum requirements isn't generally a good idea for any OS. It'll work, but just barely. Ideally you should bump it to 4 GB.

Granted this is because the "minimum" here is representing what was available as the base line on any compatible machines... Lion you will definitely want a bit more RAM for, though.
 
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how to do clean install after already installed Lion

Hi,

I was reading your posts above as I have a similar problem. I installed Lion and my iMac is dragging now. after reading your threads I am sure its due to not enough ram, which I was already suspecting. sooooo, how should I proceed in updating ram and I would like to do a clean install again for Lion? any suggestions you can provide would be much appreciated!

Thanks!
sdramins
 
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No the install will be just fine. Simply go to OWC or another seller of Mac compatible memory and make a selection. Cannot held further than that sdramins as you have not included model details. Select your iMac model from here:-


http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/iMac
 
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Granted this is because the "minimum" here is representing what was available as the base line on any compatible machines... Lion you will definitely want a bit more RAM for, though.

Well Apple was hardly going to ship new Macs with less RAM than what was necessary for the OS that came on them.
 
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There are a few different ways. You can either follow my advice in the thread I linked to, or make a Lion install disc, instructions here:
OS X Lion: How to Do a Clean Install

Apple will also be making Lion available for purchase on a USB stick next month.

Awesome! Thanks for all the info.

Cheers, rubyist
 

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