Kinda slow?

taylorwilsdon · Jan 13, 2007

Since I got my Macbook Pro, its been crazy fast. However, recently its dropped in perceived speed (loading times, boot time, application sluggishness). After reading that "moody" thread, I installed the Onyx tool and ran some of the optimizers. That didn't seem to help, and my computer is slow as ever.

Its not a slow computer by any means (Core 2 Duo 2.16, 2GB Ram) and I've still got 70GB left on the hard drive.

Any tips for speeding it back up?

??? · Jan 13, 2007

when was the last time you rebooted? what are you running and what widgets are you using?

Evermore · Jan 13, 2007

yeah i am having the same slowness as you and i have the same comp except i have 1 less gb of ram. it was super fast and now it just takes a while to boot up. and it used to be llike someimtes slow start up sometimes not but now it always starts up slowly.

just curious do you have bootcamp installed?

taylorwilsdon · Jan 14, 2007

I reboot a couple times a day. It isn't constantly used by any means, as I've got other computers that serve my other purposes. I don't use widgets (dashboard doesn't run) and right off the block, Firefox and Entourage are slow.

Evermore:

I do have bootcamp installed.

Evermore · Jan 14, 2007

yeah get some cleaing programs like MacJanitor and stuff they sped my computer up a bit. its becuase apple has programs taht clean your computer that are set to run at night since you probally don't leave it on all the time like most desktops these don't get run and the stuff gets stock piles. get this: http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html and run the stuff. it helped me a bit.

rpmgatech · Jan 20, 2007

I have the same problem with the slow boot. The gray screen comes up and sits there for about 20 seconds before the apple logo comes up. Once the apple logo comes up, it starts up quickly. Before, the apple logo would come up within 2 seconds of pressing the power button on startup.

I think the issue is with bootcamp. My computer was fine, then I tried bootcamp and uninstalled it. After that, my computer has always been slow. My question is if there is something to undo what bootcamp did to my computer to slow it down.

kgeier82 · Jan 20, 2007

if u wanna fix your blank grey screen 20sec issue, do this..

open your system prefs
startup disk
simply click on the boot drive, and hit reboot in that window.

i was having this problem, for no reason, and this made the apple pop up RIGHT away

Evermore · Jan 20, 2007

yeah if you don't have a drive selected in your system preferences w/ boot camp installed the computer has to i guess figure out the last one used was and start up on that. so just select mac hd and then it should go to the apple logo immediatly. Also i was having slow boot times but i figured out was it the application called Application Enhancer, so that you can use like clear dock and shapeshifter or the thing to change themes. I hadn't bought these so i just removed them and i was running fast once again.

rpmgatech · Jan 20, 2007

Thank you kgeier82, it has helped so much. I clicked restart after selecting it and it rebooted fast once again. Let's hope it just stays this way...

kgeier82 · Jan 20, 2007

i see no reason why it wont stay fixed, if that was indeed the problem.

cwa107 · Jan 20, 2007

rpmgatech said:
I have the same problem with the slow boot. The gray screen comes up and sits there for about 20 seconds before the apple logo comes up. Once the apple logo comes up, it starts up quickly. Before, the apple logo would come up within 2 seconds of pressing the power button on startup.

I think the issue is with bootcamp. My computer was fine, then I tried bootcamp and uninstalled it. After that, my computer has always been slow. My question is if there is something to undo what bootcamp did to my computer to slow it down.

One of the things I've noticed is that if I have a CD/DVD in the drive, it seems to wait for the disc to spin-up and see if it's bootable. After that, it proceeds to display the Apple logo and boot. No disc, no problem.

Another interesting note is that having Bootcamp seems to delay boot just a bit as well. Since I've been beta testing VMWare Fusion and do the majority of what little Windows work I need to do in there, I decided to remove my Windows partition. Unfortunately, there was no effect in boot speed, although I notice that just before the Apple logo appears, I see a folder icon flash up for a second with a question mark in the middle of it. I assume that some flag was set in flash and it's now looking for a non-existant partition during boot. Does anyone know how to get rid of that? I've dug around the forums, but haven't found anything in regard to that particular (minor) issue.

cwa107 · Jan 21, 2007

cwa107 said:
One of the things I've noticed is that if I have a CD/DVD in the drive, it seems to wait for the disc to spin-up and see if it's bootable. After that, it proceeds to display the Apple logo and boot. No disc, no problem.

Another interesting note is that having Bootcamp seems to delay boot just a bit as well. Since I've been beta testing VMWare Fusion and do the majority of what little Windows work I need to do in there, I decided to remove my Windows partition. Unfortunately, there was no effect in boot speed, although I notice that just before the Apple logo appears, I see a folder icon flash up for a second with a question mark in the middle of it. I assume that some flag was set in flash and it's now looking for a non-existant partition during boot. Does anyone know how to get rid of that? I've dug around the forums, but haven't found anything in regard to that particular (minor) issue.

Well, after doing a bit of digging, I found the answer to my problem. I zapped the PRAM by booting the machine, pressing and holding Command-Option-P-R as soon as the screen turned gray. Then wait for 3 system chimes and allow the machine to boot up. It now boots like it did when it was new and there is no folder-? icon during startup.

Funny that Apple's Bootcamp utility wouldn't have done that itself when you remove the Windows partition, but now boot-up is less than 15 seconds once again.