Slow Mac Now

Previous topic - Next topic

HalM

Shortly after installing Mavericks, I installed GIMP & Open Office. This machine, 2.2 GHz & 4 GB, is running very slow, much slower then previous OS without these two open source programs.

I am new to open source programs. Would there be any reason my laptop would be slower? Thanks for any advice.

GarryP

Installing open source software doesn't slow your machine down.

The slowdown problem is most likely to be the upgrade to Mavericks.

Here are the main basic issues:

1. Mavericks is 64bit-optimised and most software - except that supplied with the OS - isn't. This means that your software - anything you've downloaded/installed that wasn't a 64bit version - will run more slowly, especially if you've upgraded from Snow Leopard or earlier which were 32bit-optimised.

2. Mavericks likes plenty of RAM. On 4GB systems it isn't unusual for the OS to take up most of it which means you're into the realms of disk-paging and memory compression which both slow the machine down. Apple recommends 2GB but that's way too little. Most people recommend 8GB. (I've only got 2GB so you can imagine the slowdown I get!)

3. Upgrading to Mavericks creates a recovery partition which - if you have a small hard drive - might take up a lot of space. If you have less than around 20% free space - some say 50%! - the OS has problems with read/write efficiency which also slows your machine down.

4. Mavericks overwrites settings for update downloads and installs - making them "automatic" - so you might have stuff going on in the background which you weren't aware of.

Basically what I'm saying is that Mavericks slows things down unless you've got a boat-load of memory, fast CPUs, and are running properly optimised software. It's just how things are I'm afraid.

You can revert back to the earlier version of OSX if you're really sick of the slowdown but you might not be able to access some files created/modified by the upgrade. (Personally I'd be to scared to try this but it's up to you.)

Have a look here https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521 for more information.

Kunda

Yea..agreed. It's most likely Mavericks.