Speeding up my Mac

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whoriental

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I have a 12' powerbook that I have had for about a year and a half. It has 1.25 gigs of ram. For some reason lately it has been running super slow. I only have about 16 gigs left of disk space. Does that have anything to do with it?

What would be the best way to clean it up a little, just to make it run faster? Would a fresh install of the OS help?

Please let me know, thanks in advance.
 
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whoriental

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Also, are there maybe any programs that would either streamline activities or help me clean stuff up?
 
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todd51

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Good question, I too would like to know this for the future of my Mac's life, even though mine is brand new right now. I want to keep it as free as possible from cluttered up files.
 
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in short, NO. Hard disk space, (or lack thereof), has nothing to do with computer performance. More than likely a program you are using (or dont know is running), is sucking up your RAM. Use activity moniter (Applications->Utilities), and check it out. Use your computer as you normally would for a few hours, then open activity monitor and see how much RAM each program is using. Anything that you dont recognize, that is using over 100MB is suspect.
 
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As for programs that will help you clean up your files, try a program called Cocktail.
 
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That is not entirely correct, the amount of hard drive space that is left on your hard drive can shorten its life, and performance because the hard drive has to work harder to find the information that you are asking it to. However if you have 16gb left, it is very unlikely that is causing your problem.
 
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whoriental

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well.......

What is the problem then. I use the same programs I did, its just going super slow. I just want to figure out of there is anything I could clean up to make it run faster, or any program to streamline it.

The other day, my mac froze, that freak me the f*** out. That has never happened before.
 
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Reset your PRAM and repair disk permissions.

it's the answer to everything.
 
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PowerBookG4 said:
That is not entirely correct, the amount of hard drive space that is left on your hard drive can shorten its life, and performance because the hard drive has to work harder to find the information that you are asking it to. However if you have 16gb left, it is very unlikely that is causing your problem.


That's not true. The hard drive could have zero free bytes, and it wouldnt have to work any harder to find data. A full hard drive lasts just as long as an empty one. The computer puts each piece of data in a specific place, and uses markers to remember the location, so whether you have 200 files or 2 billion, the computer has no trouble finding the location, and retrieving the information.
 
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whoriental

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macdillon said:
Reset your PRAM and repair disk permissions.

it's the answer to everything.

How do I do that, the PRAM thing mainly, I think I remember where the disk permissions thing is.
 
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sixslinger said:
That's not true. The hard drive could have zero free bytes, and it wouldnt have to work any harder to find data. A full hard drive lasts just as long as an empty one. The computer puts each piece of data in a specific place, and uses markers to remember the location, so whether you have 200 files or 2 billion, the computer has no trouble finding the location, and retrieving the information.
No, it is true. Modern computers use vast amounts of virtual memory. If the amount of free space is extremely low then the system will not be able to effectively manage its pagefile, and performance will be degraded.
Or as Apple puts it
Free up disk space—If you're close to maxing out your startup hard drive, your system performance may decrease. Mac OS X relies on free disk space to use as virtual memory when running applications. If you have less than 200 MB of free disk space—even if you have enough RAM—you may get memory error messages.

whoriental, that link above might be helpful, as well.
 
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sixslinger said:
That's not true. The hard drive could have zero free bytes, and it wouldnt have to work any harder to find data. A full hard drive lasts just as long as an empty one. The computer puts each piece of data in a specific place, and uses markers to remember the location, so whether you have 200 files or 2 billion, the computer has no trouble finding the location, and retrieving the information.

If i asked you to look for something in an empty room, then do the same thing with a very messy room, i suppose its exactly as hard to find the "thing" ?
 
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Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Your computer's PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.
 
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technologist said:
No, it is true. Modern computers use vast amounts of virtual memory. If the amount of free space is extremely low then the system will not be able to effectively manage its pagefile, and performance will be degraded.

I was under the impression that hard disk files are all indexed correctly, thus reducing need for the computer "searching" for data....I forgot all about the VRAM.....sorry
 
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does resetting the PRAM NVRAM get rid of any data or settings? It doesnt put everything back to default does it?

and what exactly does it do?
 
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PRAM stands for parameter random access memory. it stores device settings (time,date,display info....), so the mac can access it more quickly. If the PRAM gets corrupted, then it can slow your mac wayyyy down. Resetting it wont corrupt any data. You may have to reset your clock, but that's about it. All your OSX settings and files will still be intact.
 
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i try and keep MINIMUM 20 gigs of free space on my HD because i have noticed a significant slow down if i have any less free space than that

i just back stuff up and keep the absolute minimum needed on my HD

resetting PRAM can help, it didn't help me, however, when my system was slow and kept jamming upon launching applications

i did a clean install so why don't you back up and do the same? it's the best way to refresh your system, really
 
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Check out this Automater app called Maintenance which goes through your hdd and fixes common errors that may slow it down (file permissions, etc). It may help, give it a try :)
 

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