Slow running mac, should I reformat and reinstall OS X 10.6.4

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Level 1

11 points

Slow running mac, should I reformat and reinstall OS X 10.6.4

I am thinking of reformatting and recovering my applications and user data from Time Machine. My iMac 24" 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo 2, 4GB RAM has been up and running since 2007 and feel that the hard drive is getting cluttered and slow.

I have heard that it is a good idea to do this once per year with a heavy use computer.

What are the thoughts of this and what is the best method to do this? If I recover my data from Time Machine, will I be back in the same position I am in now even after a clean install?

Please advise. Thanks.

iMac 24" 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo 2, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4GB RAM

Posted on Aug 18, 2010 10:17 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 18, 2010 10:20 AM in response to alexmacapple

You should never really need to do a reinstall on a mac unless you had a SERIOUS issue with the OS. If you clean up files you have not touched in years that should clean your drive of extra and old files that are just clutter now. A clean install can provide "some" speed boost but not much. Quiting applications you are not using at the moment should speed up your use. Overall based on your hardware you should not be getting that much slowness. Reboot should fix some of this.

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Aug 18, 2010 10:37 AM in response to alexmacapple

Start with these:

Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X, and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X

And, then peruse this recent one: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2547912

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Answer 3

Aug 18, 2010 12:08 PM in response to baltwo

My MacBook recently ran very slow and I decided to install from scratch. After I did that and installed my applications again, it was slow again... I decided to put everything back from backup and looked for another solution.

It were the login-items. I had some things running all the time, which I didn't have any use for. You should check those too:

System Preferences - Accounts - Login Options (left side). NB: the check marks are just for visibility of the login items. You should just the minus-button.

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