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decline and fall of a MacBook 10.6.8
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pure water
May 11, 2013, 7:56:50 PM5/11/13
to
For the last few months, I decided to start using the MacBook 10.6.8
regularly in house instead of saving it for on the road wifi. It has
recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
the hard drive and reinstall. Decided to download and run Cocktail to
clean up and try to get the speed back but didn't have that effect.
Time to clean the hard drive and start over. Good time to locate a
used PC laptop with Windows 7 for a backup or more.
regularly in house instead of saving it for on the road wifi. It has
recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
the hard drive and reinstall. Decided to download and run Cocktail to
clean up and try to get the speed back but didn't have that effect.
Time to clean the hard drive and start over. Good time to locate a
used PC laptop with Windows 7 for a backup or more.
Message has been deleted
Jamie Kahn Genet
May 11, 2013, 8:37:30 PM5/11/13
to
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Jamie Kahn Genet
May 11, 2013, 8:40:27 PM5/11/13
to
Michael Vilain <vil...@NOspamcop.net> wrote:
> In article <2013051118565041776-pure@waternet>,
> I can't say if your problem is software or hardware. I've had a 10.6.8
> system on my MacPro for 4 years. I believe it was a "clean install" and
> I moved or installed files from my 10.5 PPC system as needed. I found
> that if the VM files grow to > 2GB, performance dragged on the PPC
> system and 4GB on the 10.6 system. A reboot fixes that.
>
> Before you start from scratch, do a performance analysis and find out
> what resource constraint is slowing down your system. Computers are
> constrained by CPU, I/O, and Memory usage. You have a bottleneck
> somewhere. Identify what it is before you throw everything out and
> start over. If you have a buggy/marginal logic board, reloading the OS
> won't fix it and you'll have spent a week working on this problem.
>
> If your car misfired and had smoke coming out of the tailpipe, would you
> pull the engine and replace it or try to pinpoint the source of problem?
I'm guessing it's a troll, but that is good advice.
> In article <2013051118565041776-pure@waternet>,
> system on my MacPro for 4 years. I believe it was a "clean install" and
> I moved or installed files from my 10.5 PPC system as needed. I found
> that if the VM files grow to > 2GB, performance dragged on the PPC
> system and 4GB on the 10.6 system. A reboot fixes that.
>
> Before you start from scratch, do a performance analysis and find out
> what resource constraint is slowing down your system. Computers are
> constrained by CPU, I/O, and Memory usage. You have a bottleneck
> somewhere. Identify what it is before you throw everything out and
> start over. If you have a buggy/marginal logic board, reloading the OS
> won't fix it and you'll have spent a week working on this problem.
>
> If your car misfired and had smoke coming out of the tailpipe, would you
> pull the engine and replace it or try to pinpoint the source of problem?
I'm guessing it's a troll, but that is good advice.
Fred McKenzie
May 11, 2013, 9:35:52 PM5/11/13
to
> It has
> recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
> until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
> printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
> to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
> the hard drive and reinstall.
P.W.-
> recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
> until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
> printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
> to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
> the hard drive and reinstall.
Your symptoms sound like read/write errors due to your HD going bad. If
so, reformatting might temporarily clean it up, but will not fix it.
I suggest your first action should be to ensure you have a backup of
your hard drive. You could use Disk Utility to Restore the internal
drive to an external drive. (Carbon Copy Cloner works too.) If
successful, boot from the external drive to see if the problem has gone
away.
Slowdowns due to things like file fragmentation may have been a problem
with older Windows systems. OS X has built-in system maintenance that
should prevent that from being a problem, especially if you leave it on
all the time.
Fred
Kevin McMurtrie
May 12, 2013, 3:40:46 AM5/12/13
to
computer says as much RAM is installed as it should. Look for old
QuickTime codecs or MacPorts libraries lying around and breaking things.
If all is good, defragment the hard drive. Pay no attention to
everybody saying it OS X doesn't need it.
MacOS X has two disk optimization schemes. One is a "hotfiles" area of
small commonly used files. Another is automatic defragmentation of
small files. The hotfiles area is very useful but it might not optimize
enough of the disk for you. Automatic defragmentation of small files is
rarely of use, and can actually cause severe fragmentation of free
space. A disk defragmentation utility re-organizes files so that the
most recently accessed files are physically close to each other on the
platters, as if the whole disk had "hotfiles" optimization. You'll get
back the performance that has been slowly falling away over a period of
years. There's always risk in using defragmentation tools so back
everything up first. There's also no need for most users to defragment
more often than every year or two.
--
I will not see posts from Google because I must filter them as spam
Message has been deleted
George Kerby
May 12, 2013, 10:40:23 AM5/12/13
to
On 5/11/13 7:40 PM, in article
1l2rcil.3dnvt514k5wv5N%jam...@wizardling.geek.nz, "Jamie Kahn Genet"
pure water
May 12, 2013, 1:11:52 PM5/12/13
to
On 2013-05-11 19:40:27 -0500, Jamie Kahn Genet said:
>
> I'm guessing it's a troll, but that is good advice.
Yes, good advice from Michael and a bad guess from you, Jamie.
>
> I'm guessing it's a troll, but that is good advice.
Many people use both Macs and PCs at work and home.
I go to the appropriate forums for advice when I have problems.
Always, I have found, that PC forums are more open to Mac users and
dual system users than Mac forums are to PC users and dual system users.
When either computer hw/sw combination is not working properly, I don't
always remember to keep a smile in my words - sometimes I show
discouragement and frustration.
But it always brings me back to reality when someone calls me a troll
out of a limited frame of reference, focused on Mac only.
I feel much better now.
Thanks to all for their comments.
/Library/Printers/hp/cups/Deskjet.driver/Contents/MacOS/Deskjet failed
- problem solved temporarily -by locating a copy of the offending file
on another drive and copying it to my boot drive.
Per the slowdowns and generally intermittent freaky behavior - that's
still happening and I will take Michael's advice and run some
diagnostics on hardware. Have recently done large file recovery jobs
on hard disks which may have worn them down.
pure water
May 12, 2013, 1:19:07 PM5/12/13
to
Thinking that running Cocktail and regular permission repair are not
really necessary - Mac OS X takes care of itself. There's even an old
file defrag program from SpeedTools that probably isn't necessary. Old
PCs needed a lot of care and best not to confuse the two operating
systems.
You can call me P.W. but I'm not whooped or whipped :^)
pure water
May 12, 2013, 1:29:23 PM5/12/13
to
I think) for Tiger. Wonder if that will properly defrag a GUID
partitioned drive? Mac file storage probably is the same or similar
from 10.4.11 to 10.6.8. The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK is
the msg I get from Disk Utility. Memory tests okay. Looking for other
signs in Activity Monitor and probably will pull out the system disk
and run Apple hardware test. I remember the old days when PCs were
all I could afford to work with and you could expect strange behavior
like files disappearing or being corrupted when memory or hard drive
was failing.
pure water
May 12, 2013, 1:39:41 PM5/12/13
to
I like to have a PC as a backup in case my Mac computer fails.
I'm not wealthy enough to own as many Macs as I want.
Only techs will understand tech talk and only PC techs or those
familiar with PC systems will understand how they behave(d.) Have read
stories about Cocktail messing up Mac system files so I've decided not
to use it any more. I've also installed TotalFinder recently and the
problems began after that - anybody know of that app causing system
problems? After all it is a hack, although a good one if it doesn't
wreck the system. If Apple had coded Finder so that it had all the
features it needs (like MS finally did with Win7) an add-on would not
be needed. Wish you could drag and drop hundreds of files with Finder
from one folder to another and it would ask if you wanted to skip,
write over or rename duplicate files like Windows 7 does.
Message has been deleted
Jamie Kahn Genet
May 12, 2013, 4:20:04 PM5/12/13
to
pure water <pu...@water.net> wrote:
> On 2013-05-11 19:37:30 -0500, Jamie Kahn Genet said:
>
> > pure water <pu...@water.net> wrote:
> >
> >> For the last few months, I decided to start using the MacBook 10.6.8
> >> regularly in house instead of saving it for on the road wifi. It has
> >> recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
> >> until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
> >> printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
> >> to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
> >> the hard drive and reinstall. Decided to download and run Cocktail to
> >> clean up and try to get the speed back but didn't have that effect.
> >> Time to clean the hard drive and start over. Good time to locate a
> >> used PC laptop with Windows 7 for a backup or more.
> >
> > None of the above makes any sense.
>
> Only to someone with a closed or empty mind.
Or to someone who has never had OS X behave like Win95, let alone just
> On 2013-05-11 19:37:30 -0500, Jamie Kahn Genet said:
>
> > pure water <pu...@water.net> wrote:
> >
> >> For the last few months, I decided to start using the MacBook 10.6.8
> >> regularly in house instead of saving it for on the road wifi. It has
> >> recently behaved like PC used to - gradually got slower and buggier
> >> until things began to fail. Recently the previously near perfect
> >> printing history began to have bad days and it appears that I'll have
> >> to do what I used to do with Windows 95 and earlier versions - format
> >> the hard drive and reinstall. Decided to download and run Cocktail to
> >> clean up and try to get the speed back but didn't have that effect.
> >> Time to clean the hard drive and start over. Good time to locate a
> >> used PC laptop with Windows 7 for a backup or more.
> >
> > None of the above makes any sense.
>
> Only to someone with a closed or empty mind.
randomly slowdown, given the vast differences between the systems.
> I like to have a PC as a backup in case my Mac computer fails.
> I'm not wealthy enough to own as many Macs as I want.
> Only techs will understand tech talk and only PC techs or those
> familiar with PC systems will understand how they behave(d.) Have read
> stories about Cocktail messing up Mac system files so I've decided not
> to use it any more. I've also installed TotalFinder recently and the
> problems began after that - anybody know of that app causing system
> problems?
uninstalling this hack?
Jamie Kahn Genet
May 12, 2013, 4:20:05 PM5/12/13
to
Kevin McMurtrie <mcmu...@pixelmemory.us> wrote:
> If all is good, defragment the hard drive. Pay no attention to
> everybody saying it OS X doesn't need it.
I've never needed disk defragmentation in OS X, nor suffered such
> If all is good, defragment the hard drive. Pay no attention to
> everybody saying it OS X doesn't need it.
slowdowns despite many years of operation for installs of 10.3, 10.5 and
10.6.
Kevin McMurtrie
May 14, 2013, 12:43:56 AM5/14/13
to
In article <slrnkov0v8....@mbp55.local>,
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <518f477e$0$52769$742e...@news.sonic.net>
> simply not true. If you DO install something that constantly monitors
> your disk its overhead will almost certainly offset any gains.
>
> This is not the 90s, you do not need to defrag a disk except for very
> limited and specific tasks, (like, streaming raw 4K video from a camera
> or something like that. Maybe. If your disk is slow).
> before you would be able to notice any change at all, and putting in a
> better drive would far outstrip any imagined gains from defragging.
> hold millions of megabytes. If your drive is so full that defragging
> would maybe possibly temporarily help, then you need more storage.
There are other kinds of fragmentation. When Apple got rid of Resource
Forks, they switched to an lame trick called packages and bundles.
These are simply directories that some parts of the OS X GUI present as
files. Mail.app has 7711 files and folders in its bundle. Safari has
5620, iCall 3899, and iDVD.app has 9707 files and folders in it. The
Mail.app library may have 20000 to 100000 files in it. Sparsebundle
disk images, by default, contain one file for every 8MB of storage.
That's 2560 files for 20GB. Hotfiles only slightly addresses the problem
of having so many files. Every single software update spreads groups of
related files farther and farther apart. You can have zero fragmented
files but still have extremely slow disk performance due to clusters of
files being physically scattered on a spinning disk. Defragmentation
utilities try to move associated files close together.
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <518f477e$0$52769$742e...@news.sonic.net>
> Kevin McMurtrie <mcmu...@pixelmemory.us> wrote:
> > A disk defragmentation utility re-organizes files so that the
> > most recently accessed files are physically close to each other on the
> > platters, as if the whole disk had "hotfiles" optimization.
>
> Unless you install something that constantly monitors your disk, this is
> > A disk defragmentation utility re-organizes files so that the
> > most recently accessed files are physically close to each other on the
> > platters, as if the whole disk had "hotfiles" optimization.
>
> simply not true. If you DO install something that constantly monitors
> your disk its overhead will almost certainly offset any gains.
>
> This is not the 90s, you do not need to defrag a disk except for very
> limited and specific tasks, (like, streaming raw 4K video from a camera
> or something like that. Maybe. If your disk is slow).
>
> > You'll get
> > back the performance that has been slowly falling away over a period of
> > years.
>
> Yeah, *that's* not true at all. You have to have pretty old hardware
> > You'll get
> > back the performance that has been slowly falling away over a period of
> > years.
>
> before you would be able to notice any change at all, and putting in a
> better drive would far outstrip any imagined gains from defragging.
>
> > There's always risk in using defragmentation tools so back
> > everything up first. There's also no need for most users to defragment
> > more often than every year or two.
>
> There's no need for most users to ever defragment. Drives are huge and
> > There's always risk in using defragmentation tools so back
> > everything up first. There's also no need for most users to defragment
> > more often than every year or two.
>
> hold millions of megabytes. If your drive is so full that defragging
> would maybe possibly temporarily help, then you need more storage.
There are other kinds of fragmentation. When Apple got rid of Resource
Forks, they switched to an lame trick called packages and bundles.
These are simply directories that some parts of the OS X GUI present as
files. Mail.app has 7711 files and folders in its bundle. Safari has
5620, iCall 3899, and iDVD.app has 9707 files and folders in it. The
Mail.app library may have 20000 to 100000 files in it. Sparsebundle
disk images, by default, contain one file for every 8MB of storage.
That's 2560 files for 20GB. Hotfiles only slightly addresses the problem
of having so many files. Every single software update spreads groups of
related files farther and farther apart. You can have zero fragmented
files but still have extremely slow disk performance due to clusters of
files being physically scattered on a spinning disk. Defragmentation
utilities try to move associated files close together.
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