[MacUnited]

Hey Guys,
I have a MacBook Pro june09, I noticed in the past couple of months that the system keeps getting slower and slower the more I use it, without restarting or turning it off, expose would take a while to respond and safari shows the turning coloured circle quite often. once I restart it, it's back to it's usual self and everything opens up quickly.
Any ideas??

 

[Davis]

Have you tried clearing cashe? Is your harddrive nearly full. I find with more stuff on my hd it goes slower. Also your Safari cookies and such clear that, that should make that go faster.

 

[pm-r]

It sounds like you've already found the solution to your slowdown speed using a normal restart. And that can depend on how and what you do on your Mac. ;-)

But you might want to try shutting down and boot up using Safe Boot mode. (Hold down the shift key when you hear the startup sound), log in and maybe run Disk Utility to at least repair permissions if not verify your drive as well to make any 'purged' things a bit more permanent.

Doing so will purge a LOT of surplus cache and surplus file stuff and then just restart normally.

Mac 10.4.x users will see a bunch of files and stuff in the Trash that 10.5.x doesn't produce - just empty the Trash if they do show up.

 

[MacUnited]

I did so, and seems to be slightly faster, but from what I gathered, there is no escaping the fact that I'll need to get in the habit of restarting the OS every now and then heheh

 

[eMacMan]

Actually just logging out and back in may be all that is required.

Don't know about the latest cats but with Tiger, I had reboot times of under 20 seconds, prior to the 10.4.11 update. Now they are about 35 seconds.

My computer is nearly 8 years old. I would hope that the latest and greatest still manage to reboot somewhat faster than the Windoze boxes.

 

[rgray]

How much free space do you have left on your hard drive when it slows down? Clearing the cache will get back a modicum of space.

You will definitely notice a performance decrease if free space is less that about 25% (although you will read various figures).

 

[MacUnited]

well I try hard to keep free space around 50%, I bought an external HD and I usually move media there when I'm done with.

 

[rgray]

well I try hard to keep free space around 50%, I bought an external HD and I usually move media there when I'm done with.

Hmmm. Not a good sign. It may be that you are about to have hard drive trouble. Have you tried running the system off a cloned backup (ie. a different drive). This would be a clue toward isolating a drive issue.

 

[Vexel]

I agree with rgray. I keep my mini on for weeks at a time.. the only time it slows down is if I'm using an intense program.. definitely not during normal usage such as surfing the web.

It might help if you try installing the latest OS combo updater for your machine. Just in case something went wonky with the initial install... sometimes this clears up some performance issues. Other than that, your system shouldn't really slow down all that much over time. I haven't had that happen on a machine, ever.. unless there was something wonky with a piece of software I was using.

 

[rgray]

I agree with rgray. I keep my mini on for weeks at a time.. the only time it slows down is if I'm using an intense program.. definitely not during normal usage such as surfing the web.

It might help if you try installing the latest OS combo updater for your machine. Just in case something went wonky with the initial install... sometimes this clears up some performance issues. Other than that, your system shouldn't really slow down all that much over time. I haven't had that happen on a machine, ever.. unless there was something wonky with a piece of software I was using.

... or hardware.......... Just sayin'.... But I agree with Vex, try redoing the latest combo update for your system (and maybe reinstall/update the offending program(s)) and if that doesn't seem to help do a burn and pave (ie, erase and write zeros) on the drive and reinstall everything fresh. The word BACKUP comes to mind, but I am sure you do that anyway.

 

[MacUnited]

yeah, I have an external HD, and today I'm going to buy another one, to backup the backup on it! lol
but the idea of erasing and reinstalling everything is kinda appealing, if for nothing just to watch the Mac OS welcome intro again hehehehe.
now,being this is my first Mac... how do I format the Hard drive and reinstall snow leopard, I already have the 2 discs, Leopard and Snow Leopard. what next?

 

[pm-r]

I did so, and seems to be slightly faster, but from what I gathered, there is no escaping the fact that I'll need to get in the habit of restarting the OS every now and then heheh

Maybe Yes and maybe No. There are just toooo many variables to provide you with a definitive solution, but you may want to watch what and how you do things on your Mac. Too many applications left running come to mind.

Third party software can really muck up a Mac, especially if they're not written properly and some launch background applications that can raise H___. And games that flaunt the Mac OS rules are notorious for causing problems.

You might want to keep track of what's going on by using "Activity Monitor" (Utilities folder) and well as a look at the "Console" (Utilities folder) logs. That may give you some idea as to what's going on with your MBP.

Be aware of the suggestions to clean out ALL cache files, but they can become corrupt and sometimes sometimes need to be trashed, but the Mac OS relies on them for speed and it can take days for them to be re-created and the Mac then takes on it's expected speed.

 

[pm-r]

yeah, I have an external HD, and today I'm going to buy another one, to backup the backup on it! lol
but the idea of erasing and reinstalling everything is kinda appealing, if for nothing just to watch the Mac OS welcome intro again hehehehe.
now,being this is my first Mac... how do I format the Hard drive and reinstall snow leopard, I already have the 2 discs, Leopard and Snow Leopard. what next?

Nothing wrong with "erasing and reinstalling everything" overkill I guess, especially it you seem to just like to go through the 'Mac OS welcome intro again' as an added bonus.

But I hope you realize the consequences of doing a 'nuke & pave' and have an understanding of where any of your data might be - otherwise it's gone - poof!!!

Mac OS X HD partitioning/formatting is normally done with Disk Utility (Utilities folder).

Check the options etc. and use its Help menu if needed, and that would probably be a VERY a good idea for a new Mac user that needed to ask.