Laptops OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Notification on. Notification off. Close Discuss: Five tips to speed up your Mac Sign in to comment. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic.
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I love my mac and Iâm eager to upgrade whenever there is new version. I never had major problems upgrading other versions but Yosemite has been very, very difficult. For my 2010 MacBook Pro I had a lot of graphics distortions that came up that led me to a full cleaning of everything on the machine. Iâve heard âOld operating systems should stay with old computers.â Well, letâs tweak some things and see if we canât get some harmony.
Before we start, you need to get into the habit of thinking think like a developer. When a machine is new, what programs are installed? What are the default user settings? What is the expected page layout of various apps like Mail? If you deviate from a stock machine you might run into problems. If you deviate from expected hardware you might run into problems.
Reset Hardware
If you have a time machine or router, now might be a good time to reset itâs settings. You might want to use an additional disk for a backup and format a time capsule drive. If any other hardware has firmware updates, update those too. Eliminate as many variables before the core system re-install.
Non-Apple Hardware Firmware Updates
Sometimes, if you install a non-Apple provided piece of hardware, like a hard drive or SSD Drive, there is internal software called firmware that might need an update. Check the manufacturerâs website for updates to firmware. It could be that an update could cause a performance improvement or even fix some bugs you might encounter in Yosemite. Oftentimes, hard rives and SSD drives will have firmware updates after you purchase / install them in your Mac.
Yosemite Mac Pre-Install Procedure
Letâs get the internal chips cleared before we reinstall a system.
Special SMC and PRAM Reset Order
Luis Mercado discovered this great sequence to get your mac hardware in harmony. Letâs try these steps first.
First step: disconnect any external or secondary monitors, if any is present. The video memory allocation leak can also happen if you have a system with an integrated card, like Intel, with no external monitors attached.
Second step: Shut down your machine and enter Safe Mode (press shift once you turn on your computer again, more info below). Once youâre there, fix your disk permissions.
Guide of how to access Safe Mode: OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?
Third step: From Safe Mode turn off your machine again and reset your System Management Controller (SMC). There are different methods, depending on machine, to do this. To know what method applies to yours read the following guide.
Fourth step: Once your machine completes a full boot after resetting the SMC turn it off again and reset your PRAM (THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP, BUT THE PREVIOUS ONES ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THIS ONE TO WORK). The PRAM stores small bits of data that indicate our Apple computer how to interact with the devices connected to it, including monitors and video cards. It also affects software.
To reset it you should hold the OPTION, COMMAND, P and R keys in your keyboard immediately after turning on your machine again.Youâll hear the start up chime, continue pressing the keys until the machine boots and the chime starts A SECOND TIME, then release. IF YOUR YOSEMITE INSTALLATION LOCKS UP AT A BLACK SCREEN AFTER THIS, DONT PANIC! Itâs normal, just turn off your computer and let it boot again.
More info about PRAM: OS X Mavericks: Reset your computerâs PRAM
Voila, reconnect your external displays and enjoy your system.
Clean Install and Rebuilding of Your User Folder
You canât really get everything perfect without a clean install. First, backup your files using Time Machine. You should also have another disk with a copy of your user folder just in case as a second backup.
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Remove non-App Store Apps and Find Replacements for Old Apps
You might have some old apps from macs past. I find using only or mostly App Store apps provides a smoother experience and are generally more efficient with you computerâs resources. For example, Adobe Photoshop is a massive program and requires numerous ancillary software during install. Pixelmatr, on the App Store, runs with much less memory and uses native mac software enhancements. You might need to spend more money to get new software, but luckily Mac Apps donât cost very much and itâs super-easy to bring them back when you re-install or upgrade.
Fix and Improve Video Performance in Yosemite
I had a lot of video problems with Yosemite. I think it was a combination of buggy code and an older graphics card. To speed up Yosemite graphics and the whole feel of the operating system, tone down some graphics settings. In essence, we want to make Yosemite work a little more like the old operating systems.
Let Your Mac Sleep
I checked some entries in the console application and noticed a lot of activity and errors when the computer was in sleep mode. In System Preferences, click Energy Saver and uncheck âWake for network access.â Unless you are using your mac as a general server or media server or need remote access you probably donât need network access during sleep. [UPDATE â with a clean install this seems ok now. You might want to leave this enabled because it allows you to find your mac if it is ever stolen using the Find My Mac feature.]
Additional Tips
If all these steps didnât help much, try disabling Dark Mode if you turned it on and try reseting the SMC and PRAM again (see instructions above).
Apple wanted to charge me $500 to replace the logic board on my mac which they knew was part of recall. They wouldnât replace it for free so I had to get resourceful with looking for other solutions.
[Update 2/2016 My MacBook started crashing more and more recently, and I found a permanent fix. Turns out some hardware fixes were also in order, but I was able to fix these myself for $20 and some of my time. My motherboard needed a âreflowâ to re-establish the graphics chip connection to the motherboard. The fix? Placing the entire motherboard in the oven. After that, I added some new thermal paste, since the old paste was worn and caused the laptop to overheat. The older processors in macs are not efficient, so perhaps some simple hardware fixes like thermal paste and new RAM chips might be in order.
The problem with hardware issues is that a message doesnât pop-up telling you that you need new RAM chips or thermal paste or a hard drive. Weird things happen with the computer and it could be any number of problems. I once built a computer from scratch and had an issue with it. I replaced just about every part before I realized it was just a defective mouse that costs $10.]
One thing to keep in mind is that Macs are expensive machines, but hold their value very well. I paid $1800 for my MacBook 6 years ago, and itâs worth $600 today. Thatâs pretty amazing. I think itâs worth the time to fix the machine from the software side and possibly the hardware side.
I hope my experiences help you with your mac problems. I found these tips all over the Internet and through trial and error came up with the best tips for me.
My mac is moving right along now⦠have any comments or solutions? Explain in the comments section.
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One will also notice a drastic lag in the performance of the overall Mac OS inside the virtual machine.
Though the reasons for this lag, and a bit slower system can be a low configuration system on itself. But despite having an high end configuration, if you are facing these kinds of issues you can look into below mentioned measures to actually solve them.
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