What can I do to speed up OSX?

Question

Boot up and loading is slow. I have 1GHZ processor and plenty of ram

Answer 1

Do you have enough free hard disk space on your boot drive? You should have at least 2 GB free, preferably more.

If you have lots of items on your desktop the computer will be slower than if you put them in the documents folder or somewhere else.

If you don't leave the computer on overnight every once in a while, the maintenance routines will not get run and the log files will build up. This can slow your system down. If you don't want to leave it on overnight (they get run around 3:00 am) then you could open a terminal window (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal) and type these commands:

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

Note that your account needs to have administrator rights for sudo to work. These commands may take a little while to run, especially if they haven't in quite some time.



TheHumbleOne, read the question!! It isn't a Windows machine, although I can see why you'd assume that, since most computer problems are Windows problems.

Answer 2

Try some old-fashoned housecleaning:
- Many users don't seem to be aware of the RAM used by a screensaver full of graphics. Are you using a complex screensaver - it runs in the background and eats memory.
- How many programs do you load at startup? Maybe you should check it out and ensure you are running just what you need.
To do this: cl Start, cl Settings, cl Taskbar and Start Menu.
-cl Start Menu, cl Customize, cl Remove.
-cl the icon for the program you wish to remove
-then cl Remove.
-This will prevent the program from loading at startup, but will not remove the program from the hard disk.
-Are you in a large file? If so, save frequently to restore full memory access. (Your work remains in memory until you “save” it to disk.)

1.Did you run an error check? Open My Computer,
Right-cl on C:, Select Properties, Tools – Run an Error Check ( checkmark “check all and fix); then run a Defrag

2.Are you using Yahoo Toolbar? Run a full Norton Antispy.

3.From IE, click Tools, Internet Options
delete cookies
delete files (offline files)
clear history (set days to save to 0 if you want)
click o.k., and Restart

3.click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools – run Disk Cleanup

4.click Start, Run ipconfig renew (type ipconfig space renew)

All these things should be done regularly. The more frequently they are run, the less time they take.
-Note: Games and videos are mostly graphics. Graphics create large files. If this doesn’t help, you should consider getting more memory.

Answer 3

A quick Web search turned up the Mac OS X Speed FAQ at http://www.macmaps.com/Macosxspeed.html . See if that helps...