I have an eMac which is obviously quite aged now, but still suited for my purpose. It is using OS X 10.5.8. However, it is very slow and much slower than before. I am sure I have done this before but cannot recall how. I gave away my dummies book to someone a long time ago. Any ideas? rodLds
eMac-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.5.8)
With Leopard there is really no need to defragment a drive unless you are regularly editing files larger than 20 MBs. Maybe you just need to do some maintenance:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation. TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible; Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided. Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or Lion and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Other utilities are also available such as Onyx, Lion Cache Cleaner, CockTail, for example.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. There is no confirmation that this version also works with Lion.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
In addition to needing general maintenance, there are several other things that contribute to slowness.
1. Not enough free space on your hard drive. What size hard drive do you have & how much free space?
2. Marginal amount of RAM. How much do you have? A low amount of RAM requires use of your hard drive space for virtual RAM.
3. A large amount of files & folders on your desktop.
Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space are discussed in this link
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/lackofram.html
Mac OS X: System maintenance
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640
Mac Tune-up: 34 Software Speedups
http://www.macworld.com/article/49489/2006/02/softwarespeed.html
52 Ways to Speed Up OS X
http://www.imafish.co.uk/articles/post/articles/130/52-ways-to-speed-up os-x/
Tuning Mac OS X Performance
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html
11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance
http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html
The Top 7 Free Utilities To Maintain A Mac.
http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/the_top_7_free_utilities_to_maintain _a_mac/
 Cheers, Tom 😉
Message was edited by: Texas Mac Man
Agree with what has already been said, but if you find that you really do need to defrag, I strongly recommend you spring for iDefrag http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iDefrag.php
Defragmenting with such software is both slow and risky. A faster and safer method is:
Intech's Speedtools Pro 3.7 does an amazingly fast job of defragging on the fly. 🙂
Did you realize you are replying to a post that is four and one-half years old! There is no way an eMac can run El Capitan, so that isn't really an option either.
Apologies and thanks for the responses. I am nor sure why this has been reactivated. I have upgraded a long time and now have a MacBookPro and working with OS10.11.5 El Capitan. So this is no longer a problem. However, a problem that I was trying to explore was about FaceTime and my MacBookPro. I can make FaceTime calls and see the image of the people with whom I am speaking but there is no image of me. The built-in camera does not appear to be working. Yet on my iPhone, with the same FaceTime account it is fine. So two problems:
1. How do I change my details in Support to reflect my current hardware kit?
2. How do I solve my Facetime problem?
Many thanks again. rodlds
You really need to start a new topic since the only people who will likely see this are those who previously commented on the subject issue and are still following or perhaps are still interested in OS X 10.5. Personally, I have already chosen to no longer follow this.
Your problem, hardware or software, may not be exactly the same as that of the original poster of this older thread, and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.
In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:
Defragging or cleaning up my mac
