Upgrade Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Yosemite - good idea?

[AnnieGee]

I'm wondering if an upgrade to Yosemite from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 is a good idea. I get the rainbow ball of death all the time when a Game Manager is open. I thought maybe it was because the OS is to old.

 

[Slydude]

Before we can give good advice we need to know your system specs. We also need to know which tasks are producing the beachballs / errors.

 

[AnnieGee]

Thank you for your response, Slydude. I'm not sure where to find the system specs. I bought my Mac in 2011. It came with Snow Leopard. I didn't know if I should mention the name of the Game Manager as that might me mistaken for an advertisement of some sort. When the GM is open for a while, I get the rainbow wheel and everything I have open from Mail to Safari seizes. Most times I have to shut the Mac off as even the Apple on the top left of screen will not open a window so I can Force Quit or Shut Down. I love my Mac but that is driving me crazy. I guess you can tell that I don't know much about it.
A.

 

[pigoo3]

I'm wondering if an upgrade to Yosemite from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 is a good idea. I get the rainbow ball of death all the time when a Game Manager is open. I thought maybe it was because the OS is to old.

Nope...not the OS. In fact (before knowing your system specs)...I bet upgrading to Yosemite would just make things worse.

- Nick

 

[AnnieGee]

Thank you, Nick. I have no TV so the Mac is my means of finding out what is going on around the globe. Most times I think that I'd be better off not knowing. I belong to a game site so that I have something else to do besides read and do volunteer work. Some new games would not play so the Game Co. told me that it might be my system was too old to play them. That sounded bogus but what do I know. I'm old! And I do enjoy going to that Co.in person to beta test games once in a while. I do have some kinda life.

 

[pigoo3]

What was mentioned in your first post:

"I get the rainbow ball of death all the time when a Game Manager is open. I thought maybe it was because the OS is to old."

This is a VERY different situation that what you just posted...which was:

"Some new games would not play so the Game Co. told me that it might be my system was too old to play them."

Getting the "rainbow of death"...and not being able to run certain games because of the OS being too old...are very very different situations. And are caused by different things.

One thing is for sure...the OS version you are running (OS 10.6 Snow Leopard)...is pretty old. But this most likely is NOT the problem with the "rainbow"...but could be the problem running newer games.

- Nick

 

[AnnieGee]

I am sorry for the confusion. The only reason I thought to ask the Co. was because I was pretty sure the rainbow wheel was freezing my Mac because of the GM being open. I will put the upgrade aside and learn to live with it or at least remember to close that window before opening my Mail or Safari. Thank you for your help.

 

[pigoo3]

I am sorry for the confusion. The only reason I thought to ask the Co. was because I was pretty sure the rainbow wheel was freezing my Mac because of the GM being open. I will put the upgrade aside and learn to live with it or at least remember to close that window before opening my Mail or Safari. Thank you for your help.

You didn't tell us your computer specs...we still may be able to help you.

- What model Mac do you have?
- Approx. how old is it?
- What are its specs (go to the Apple menu & select "About This Mac")? Tell us what's there.
- How full is your hard drive (gigs used & gigs free)?

* Nick

 

[AnnieGee]

I have a 2011 Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I have no idea how to find out how full my hard drive is but I would love to know how to find out. Processor - 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory - 2 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

 

[pigoo3]

I have a 2011 Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

What model Mac??

I have no idea how to find out how full my hard drive is but I would love to know how to find out.

Right-click on your hard drive icon on the desktop...and choose "Get Info". Tell us the "capacity" value...and the "Available" value.

I can also tell you that 2gig of ram is pretty low...and you would probably benefit from a ram upgrade.

- Nick

 

[AnnieGee]

The capacity is 313.4 GB.
Available is 84.1 GB.
Wow. Even I can tell that 84.1 is not very much.
Ok. Time to buy some ram or delete lots of games that I have not bought but are just sitting there waiting for me to try.
Thank you for all your help.

 

[Engage]

Hi guys,

I have a related question. My specs are:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook5,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.13 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB52.0088.B06

I tried Mavericks on my machine, and it didn't go well. Should I expect anything better from Yosemite? I'm guessing I just don't have enough RAM.

My reason for asking is that I really need to explore the text dictation built in to OSX. Not available on Snow Leopard. If I could get text dictation working in a partition running Yosemite, that would be enough. I'm fine with Snow Leopard for everything else.

Many thanks for any comments!

 

[pigoo3]

Memory: 2 GB

There's really nothing majorly wrong with Mavericks or Yosemite. But to give either OS a "fair chance"…you need more ram.

- Nick

 

[chas_m]

Engage: sadly, I don't think your MacBook can work with any more RAM (well, maybe 3GB, but that's it). If I'm not mistaken that's a 2007 MacBook (white or black) with a very weak GPU that can't be upgraded, and a limit of 3GB of RAM.

Like any computer that is that old, what you really need is a new(er) one. The speech dictation function MIGHT work if you upgraded to Yosemite, but the overall experience would be really terrible as Yosemite is designed for at least 4GB of RAM and decent graphics. I upgraded to a 2012 MacBook Pro and put 16GB of RAM in it and the difference is nothing short of astonishing.

 

[dtravis7]

Chas first thing a late 2007 Macbook will support 6GB RAM. The early 2007 3GB.

I looked up 5,2 on everymac and it will take 6GB RAM.

MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.13 13" (White-09) Specs (Mid-2009, MC240LL/A, MacBook5,2, A1181, 2330) @ EveryMac.com

If the OP upgrades to 6GB I would suggest getting the RAM from OWC as they check to be sure it works with 6GB in those machines.

 

[chas_m]

Great, if he can upgrade it to 6GB then I would suggest the upgrade to Yosemite.

 

[AnnieGee]

Nick,
This is an eye opener for me. I deleted all the games I had d/l to try - about 15 or so then checked my availability expecting to see a hugh jump.....Now I have a whopping 83.91.
I'll have to decide whether to get more ram and have to ask for help getting it in or delete all the games I have bought , keep track of the list and d/l one as soon as I finish one. Strange how I never gave a thought to the ram that they were eating up.

 

[pigoo3]

Nick,
This is an eye opener for me. I deleted all the games I had d/l to try - about 15 or so then checked my availability expecting to see a hugh jump.....Now I have a whopping 83.91.

That's actually less than before. Did you actually EMPTY the trash…or did you just place things in the trash?

I'll have to decide whether to get more ram and have to ask for help getting it in or delete all the games I have bought , keep track of the list and d/l one as soon as I finish one. Strange how I never gave a thought to the ram that they were eating up.

I think that there's some confusion here. You're confusing ram & hard drive storage space. You do not need to delete those games. Deleting the games has nothing to do with ram. If you deleted the games…this would create more free space on your hard drive…but nothing to do with ram.

More ram helps the computer run better. Here's a definition of ram:

"RAM (random access memory) is the place in a computer where the operating system, application programs, and data in current use are kept so that they can be quickly reached by the computer's processor."

- Nick

 

[AnnieGee]

Opps. I don't think that I better touch another thing until I know better what I am doing. You're right. I never emptied the trash and I did misunderstand ram and hard drive space. There's almost 40 deleted items in there. I am going to try to find out if I can put some of them back in the Game Manager instead of d/l them again. Thank you for trying to help me.

 

[Engage]

Thanks guys!

For Yosemite and text dictation is processor speed or RAM what matters most? Should Yosemite run fine on my machine if I add more RAM?

Do you know how to price RAM for this machine?

Much appreciated.