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Best Program to Keep My Mac Running Fast, No Crashes, & No Freezing

I have a MacBook Pro Titanium, running OS X 10.5.8 and a 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. It has a 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM for Memory. My computer has been running slower lately, when I'm online it tends to freeze up on me more often, and while I'm working in different programs, especially iPhoto, it increasingly keeps crashing on me. I'm thinking I need to defragment my drive, check for corrupt files, etc. and run something like Disk Doctor on it. Ten years ago, with the older computers, Norton Utilities Disk Doctor was the recommended program to use on a Mac to keep it running well. With these newer computers, and the OS X systems, which program is best for keeping my Macs running well? Is it still Norton's Utilities or is there something better? The reason I ask is because I went online to purchase the newest version of Norton's Utilities and it only received 2 out of 5 stars.

I haven't tried any programs yet because I don't know what to do with the OS X system. With OS 9 and lower there were many preventive techniques one could do just my holding down different keys and rebooting, but those don't seem to apply with OS X systems. I guess I'm lucky I've been able to run my OS X Macs for so long and not facing any of these issues. That shows how good OS X is, I switched over within a year of the first OS X version debut and have not had any problem until now. I have 5 Macs and the oldest one is probably 10 years old, and the newest one is 6 months old. We buy a new one about every 2 or 3 years, and I hate to admit it, but I've never done anything to any of them since I installed OS X on them. I'm sure that's not good, but I hadn't had any problems until now, so I didn't think about it.

Please help me by giving me your opinion. Thanks, Rita

MacBook Pro G5, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Posted on Feb 9, 2010 2:17 PM

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4 replies

Feb 9, 2010 2:23 PM in response to Rita434

How large is this computer's hard drive and how much space is free?

What, exactly, do you mean by "crashing"? Does the computer shut down? Does the system seem to freeze & stop responding to your mouse clicks?

Many folks here, including me, will tell you to stay far away from Norton's products as they tend to cause more harm than good on OS X.

Do you have your data backed up? If not, back it up just in case!

Do you have your OS X install discs handy? If so, we can use those to do some troubleshooting/cleaning up.

~Lyssa

Feb 9, 2010 3:03 PM in response to Lyssa

Thanks for responding. It is an 80 GB hard drive and there are 31 GB available. When I say crash, I mean for example, I'm in iPhoto labeling pictures and I click out of the picture to move on to the next picture the little wheel starts to spin and then I get the "iPhoto unexpectedly quit. Do you want to report this to Apple?" window. So I open iPhoto back up and about 2 or 4 pictures later it does the same thing. This vicious circle continues. I've tried shutting down and restarting, & it's not just in iPhoto. It happens in other apps as well. It also will freeze on me when I'm in an app, which means it's like the mouse is dead so I have to do a Force Quit and start over. Yes, I do a Time Machine backup and also a manual backup on two separate external drives. As for the install discs, I know I have them, but the key word is "handy", I will have to go on a search. I'm not a tech genius, but I'm also not a novice, so maybe if you could tell me what to look for or what to use off of my install disc, there's a chance I good figure out what to do if I just knew what it was I was looking for and what is was supposed to do? It will be a day or so before I will have time to look for the discs. Any guidance you can give me is appreciated. Like, is there a way to defragment my drive or any of those other things you could do, prior to OS X, by just holding down a couple of keys and restarting the computer? I use to do those type of maintenance things every couple months, but when OS X came out I was told those things didn't apply anymore and they weren't necessary. However, I know there must be lots of "clean up" necessary since I've had my computer at least 4 years and I've never done any type of "disc doctoring" or "cleaning" to it. And like I said, I would gladly purchase a program to maintain my computer if I just knew what to get because with my older Macs my only experience was with Norton's, and that obviously is not the route I want to go anymore. I'm just glad I found that out before I made the purchase. I'm also interested in an application that maintains the computer because my husband has his own computer and he is a novice, so he would not be able to do any computer maintenance on his own unless his computer had an app installed that was set to routinely do it for him. Thanks, Rita

Feb 9, 2010 4:17 PM in response to Rita434

Once you find your install disc: Boot from your install disc & run Repair Disk from the utility menu. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select Disk Utility.

Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
Click Repair Disk.
Restart your computer when done.

Repair permissions after you reach the desktop- http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751



Good 3rd party utilities to keep on hand are Diskwarrior or Techtool Pro.

Feb 9, 2010 5:19 PM in response to Rita434

The types of issues you're mentioning sound like a corruption in your OS X installation somewhere. This may be limited to your user account or it could be a system-wide issue.

CMCSK has outlined what you need to do with your install disc, so I won't repeat that!

One other troubleshooting step that comes to mind is to create a new user account, log out of the original & into the new one. Work here for a bit and see if the troubles persist.

Also, you can download & install the 10.5.8 Combo Update and see if that improves performance.

You really don't need to do much "cleaning" or "doctoring" on a Mac; I haven't done a thing to my iBook in over 4 years and it's still happy as a clam. If you're having troubles, something's broken & needs to be fixed, and we'll do our best to find help you find & fix it!

~Lyssa

Best Program to Keep My Mac Running Fast, No Crashes, & No Freezing

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