imac advice

[mark_beaumont]

<p>I've noticed recently my 3 year old imac is making more noise than it used to and seems to be running just a little slow at times.<br>

I mentioned this to a friend who said I should leave it on and not put it to sleep at night, as this allows the system to run updates.<br>

Anybody else heard of this?</p>

[CharlesBecker-Toronto]

<p>yes. cb :-)</p>

[andylynn]

<p>An iMac will update at a reasonable hour (and if you use Software Update in the Apple menu it will update whenever you tell it to). Can you describe the noise?</p>

[mark_beaumont]

<p>Andrew, Starting to sound like a PC :-) <br>

It's not noisy just noisier than it was, you can hear things whirring away that I never used to. Sounds like the fan is running more often. Can dust be a problem for the fans, I was wondering if I gave it a blast of Kenair?</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>whirring sounds are not unusual. They obviously are something mechanical, so the two likely culprits are the fan/cooling system and the harddrive.</p>

<p>You don't have to leave it on all the time, just run "Software Update.." from the Apple menu at the upper left.</p>

<p>If you are running other programs that seem to be getting slower, try the "upgrade" often listed under "Help" in the program menu, other times under the program main menu.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>What kind of slow down? Do you perceive a generalized loss of speed or are you often encountering the spinning beachball of frustration?</p>

[mark_beaumont]

<p>Yep! starting to see the beachball more often these days!</p>

[andylynn]

<p>Do you hear any noises that would best best described as "whirrrr-click"?</p>

[jthompson]

<p>Mark.<br /> What your computer will be doing late night is not updating, but actually cleaning out system caches which get bloated and take up space. It has a daily weekly and monthly sweep. The weekly usually happens on sunday, and the monthly on the first of the month.<br /> <br /> Two things I would reccomend doing to help performance. First, and always, max out your RAM. If you have an intel mac, circa three years ago, this would be 3GB. The amount of physical RAM is really one of the single greatest proponents of system speed. When you operate programs it is caching your activity in RAM, when there is no more RAM left to do this, it has to let some of it go, normally no big deal. It is when you start swapping on your hard drive that your system will start to bog and 'beach ball'. This is because your computer is actually beginning to write information which should go to RAM, to your hard drive, this is called swapping.<br /> The write speeds to a hard drive is MANY times slower than to RAM. Therefore, increasing your memory will always help, especially as time goes on, and many developers begin to write software assuming that certain machine capabilities.<br /> Also, which operating system are you using, and how much RAM do you have currently? Since your posting here I'm assuming you do photo work through this? If so, on which program?<br /> Another thing you should do, as general maintenance of OS X, on a monthly basis, is repair permissions. Since OS X is a unix based OS it relies on a structure of permissions to run tasks. Your program can do this and that, but can't do this or that, essentially. If you open up finder and go into your utilities, you will see a program called disk utility. Open this up and on the left hand side you should see a list of all hard disks currently attahed to your computer, including your internal drive at the top. Below the specs and brand of your internal drive, will be the name that you have given it. Click on that, and then go to the bottom half of the program where it says "repair permissions" and click it. This will repair the database of permissions which your software uses to carry out its tasks, and which can sometimes be thrown out of wack when you install new software or updates. Note, it will modify your <em>programs permissions</em> and you should see the utility modifying these as it works its progress. This can take up to 20 minutes in leopard, but usually takes only a few in tiger.<br /> Also, finally, how much free space do you have on your internal hard drive (the drive with your OS)? OS X needs a least a margin of 20% free space of the disk capacity, for purposes of virtual memory. IF you are using more than 80% of your disk space (this applies only to the disk on which your OS is installed, not your externals), then find a way to free this space up. This will also greatly increase system performance.</p>

<p> </p>

[tobey_bilek]

<p>Go to Apple, check for updates, and install all updated software.</p>

<p>Also check the availoable capacity on the HD. The more you fill it, the slower things go. Off load files not needed to an external HD or CDs. Store two other copies. 50% is my personel top limit.</p>

<p>Now let it run overnight with no programs open. It is designed to do self maintenance.</p>

<p>I also find my computers run better if I do not use sleep mode. Turn them off.</p>

[mark_beaumont]

<p>Jared, I did add extra Ram to 2.5 GB, but I think I could get 3GB total. I'm running leopard, and yes, PS and Lightroom are my most used software. My HD is 55% full.<br>

I'll try all your helpful suggestions and let you know how i get on. Thanks</p>

[john v.]

<p>All of the above are good suggestions. Another tip is to download a copy of <a href="http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html">Onyx</a>. It's a good general maintenance and OS housecleaning program. It also free.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>If the slowdown happened after installing new Ram then that new module may be the culprit. Swap out the new module with the old basically putting your system with regards to hardware in the previous state it was in before the trouble started.</p>

 

[jpo3136b]

<p>I've run on ordinary RAM, HD up to 90% full before I saw any kind of slowdowns or problems. But, those problems showed up first in graphics-intensive applications.</p>

<p>Do you have an optical burner? I just installed one today using a refurb'ed burner and some directions I found online. Took about two hours, at a slow pace, with breaks for snacks. No prior experience with that; it went okay. About two tough-to-position screws took about 15 minutes each to get back into place. Everything else just took a few moments. The equipment was moderately easy to install. I did most of it with a 1.4mm screwdriver. Right after installation, I burned about half a dozen DVDs that were clogging up the works.</p>

<p>I mention this because I know some of the earlier models didn't come with a superdrive (DVD burn), just a combo drive (CD burn/DVD read). It's not impossible to improve the system yourself, if you are a little bit handy.</p>

<p>I found a good repair manual with step-by-step color photograph disassembly directions for my MacBook at a site called, "Powerbook Medic." They have a pick-and-choose section on the title page that lets you customize your query so that you can get the correct directions for your model. The directions I used were well illustrated with accurate color photographs and succinct directions. </p>

<p>Only glitch in those directions I noticed was that there were three locations where the screws removed were of different lengths; and, that point was observed, not noted in the disassembly instructions. </p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>I forgot to mention that what I described above was a laptop repair. </p>

<p>I just want to add: when I say, "Moderately Easy," that there were 13 different groups of very small screws that I had to keep organized during the repair. It's important to stay organized. Also, you would realize that it is important not to damage any parts along the way; doing so could disable your system; this was a repair-at-my-own-risk type of project. Use common sense. Just saying. J.</p>

[dan_n1]

<p>I'd add one more to all the excellent excellent advice above...</p>

<p>got to this site</p>

<p>http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/maintenance_titaniumssoftware.html</p>

<p>download it and run it. Same as Disk utility plus deleting all the cache. Do this once a month</p>

<p>for the ones who run Tiger (OS X 10.4), go here</p>

<p>http://www.tucows.com/preview/607831</p>