Clean Up to Free Up:
One of the first things you can do to improve your Mac’s system performance is a PRAM reset. This will clear out potential issues with your system, as resetting your PRAM clears out your system’s memory caches that are occasionally responsible for your system running slowly.
To reset your PRAM:
• Reboot your computer
• Immediately after your Mac has shut down, hold down [Option] + [Command] + [P] + [R] together
• After a few moments, the system will reboot again
• Release the keys
This easy process will reset your PRAM.
Another method of improving your system’s performance is to start your Mac in safe boot. This will clear out the memory cache stored on the hard drive.
To safe boot:
• Reboot your computer
• Hold down the [Shift] key during the boot process until you reach the login screen
• If done properly, the words “Safe Boot” will appear within the login pane
• Log in and reboot to complete the process
Software
Keeping your Mac’s software up-to-date is another important aspect of keeping your computer up to speed. Software updates provide new functionality and correct bugs, and also often correct security flaws. It’s important to keep your system up-to-date via the OS X Software Update, but it’s also just as important to keep third-party applications that are installed current. Point your RSS feed reader to MacUpdate’s website to alert you of new software releases, or pay MacUpdate’s yearly subscription fee to be alerted via email.
Many programs run “little helpers” in the background, or think that if you run them once, you always want to run them. Fire up “System Preferences” and look in the “Accounts” pane, then select the “Login” tab items for your account to see which programs start when you log in. If there are any applications here that you do not want running, you can remove them by highlighting the application you no longer want starting at login and click the “-“ button to remove it.
Still Slow?
If none of these steps helped with speeding up your Mac, give your IT guys a call. Here at PCTechnika, we can perform more complex procedures, such as a permissions repair, an archive, an install, or a reinstall, to help get your computer back up to speed.
Another great monitoring tool to consider is iStat Menus, which is another menu bar app that displays information such as a CPU usage meter, disk usage, disk activity, memory usage, temperature sensors, etc. If your system seems like it’s slowing down, click on the menu bar icons to determine what applications are taking up the most CPU or consuming the most memory.