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How to speed up a slow mac?

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  • Mac OS X
  • Speed
  • Macintosh
Last response: in Mac Os X
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December 7, 2013 8:39:16 PM

My grandmother had been complaining her mac has been running slower lately and since its around 5 years old i'm not exactly shocked by that. I don't own a mac so i don't know much more than how to use one, never tried to fix one before, is there anything i can do to try to speed it up? Something like an Auslogics BoostSpeed program but for the mac?

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December 7, 2013 9:22:42 PM

Programs that "speed up" a computer are just cleaners. With a 5yr old computer, pc or mac, my guess is the hdd getting old. Replacing it should speed it up like new.
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December 8, 2013 3:35:37 AM

Without any form of spec any answer would be a wild guess.
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December 8, 2013 11:11:17 PM

k1114 said:
With a 5yr old computer, pc or mac, my guess is the hdd getting old. Replacing it should speed it up like new.

Hard disks don't slow down as they get older. Replacing a perfectly good hard disk would be a waste of money.

The most cost-effective way of speeding the computer up would probably be to increase the RAM. But, as already said, without specs this is just a guess.
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December 9, 2013 12:39:20 PM

You should try reinstalling mac before really looking into a hardware concern.
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December 10, 2013 1:51:00 AM

I would back-up all the important files/programs, then restore to factory settings. It did the trick for me. Also, update the Mac to the newest OS (10.9 Mavericks). If these don't do the trick you might consider looking into the hardware.
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December 10, 2013 2:20:35 AM

Shahmeer S said:
I would back-up all the important files/programs, then restore to factory settings. It did the trick for me. Also, update the Mac to the newest OS (10.9 Mavericks). If these don't do the trick you might consider looking into the hardware.
Those are sensible suggestions. But, it is also true that newer versions of software tend to assume that they are running on more powerful hardware. Even if you don't consciously install newer software, system updates do and I believe this explains much of the slowdown that people experience. Most critically, I find that my iPad 1 is now almost unusable because of updates to the OS and apps.

The best improvement that you can normally make to computer performance is to install more RAM (within the limits of what it will accept). Would that I could do that with my iPad (or even roll back the software to an earlier version).

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December 10, 2013 2:30:32 AM

Yeah I guess what you say about software updates slowing down machines is true.

However, regarding the RAM, I think he/she should try the 'free' solutions first just to see if they have a significant effect before going out and buying RAM. I for one had a very old laptop with loads of cr*p on it. I wiped out the hard drive, re-installed OSX, and it was good as new. No damage done.
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December 11, 2013 12:00:32 PM

Thanks everyone, i'm going to try to do what Glenda Peter suggested, as soon as i figure out how to do it. Hopefully it works, replacing things would really be pointless at this point, and she's only going to be needing the mac for uploading pictures, since she will be able to do everything else on the ipad she's getting for Christmas.
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December 13, 2013 10:49:03 AM

Defrag isn't required on a Mac, cleaning hard drive junk (etc.) is just a matter of leaving switched it on and allowing the (already) built-in maintenance cron jobs do what they are designed to do; if you want to run the maintenance scripts on-damand, install something like Maintidget or Onyx.
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