Should I system restore my Macbook?

[jake1357]

Hi,

This is my first post, so i'm new to all this forgive me for any mistakes I may make by posting this here.

Anyway I have a Macbook Black 08 Version

Running version 10.6
2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB Mhz DDR2 SDRAM

I have had it for about 3 years now and it seems to be running quite slow especially with 2 or more programmes running or even with simple thing such as 3 or 4 tabs running in Safari. Now i remember when I first bought it, it was speedy and quick even when rendering in such programmes as FCP. I respect the fact that after many years the Macbook will collect and store data which slows down the process of everything. I was wondering would it be a good idea to just re-start the whole Laptop with a system restore and load the programmes back on.

OR is there a more simple approach I can take to clean my Mac internally and get it back to its old ways.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.
Jake.

 

[jake1357]

Sorry bad use of terminology here. I meant to say 'Restore' rather then system restore. Basically I am thinking about restoring it back to factory settings.

 

[chscag]

Generally a Mac should not have to be restored. OS X is not like running Windows where junk piles up and the registry get more bloated over time.

What I suggest doing is get rid of what you don't need on the machine in the way of old documents, photos, music, etc. and move most of that stuff to an external hard drive. Freeing up disk space will speed things up somewhat.

Add memory to the machine. Your machine can take up to 4 GB of memory.

And use a free maintenance clean up program such as OnyX.

 

[jake1357]

Thanks for replying. Its appreciated.

This is what I thought. I recently cleared my hard drive to 100gb free of space (capacity 160gb)

Also downloaded Onyx which I found useful while in the process of clearing my Laptop. Although it has seemed to make my laptop load files quicker. Generally the laptop seems a bit sluggish. I found that deleting a few of the p.list files from the application preferences was a temporary fix for Safari opening faster.

I was thinking about upgrading my Mac with a 500gb Hard drive and a extra 2gb Ram as you said. I know I wont be able to afford a Macbook pro anytime soon this seems to be the only option.