What to do for general clean up on a Mac Pro

chris ryan · Post by **chris ryan** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:42 am

hi, i know this is probably a no brainer for a lot of you, but i've had my mac pro about a year and a half and haven't done any sort of defrag, or disk clean up, or whatever it is. i've noticed pro tools slowing down a little bit (ie the spinning rainbow icon) when adding tracks etc. which it didn't do before.

so where should i start for maintenance? and should i bother with things like opening up the case and getting rid of any dusty build up?

some other info, if needed:

recording to protools le
using a 500 gig internal drive to record to (not the system drive)
intel based mac, 2 gigs or ram

THANKS!

troymess · Post by **troymess** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:16 am

chris ryan wrote:hi, i know this is probably a no brainer for a lot of you, but i've had my mac pro about a year and a half and haven't done any sort of defrag, or disk clean up, or whatever it is. i've noticed pro tools slowing down a little bit (ie the spinning rainbow icon) when adding tracks etc. which it didn't do before.

so where should i start for maintenance? and should i bother with things like opening up the case and getting rid of any dusty build up?

some other info, if needed:

recording to protools le
using a 500 gig internal drive to record to (not the system drive)
intel based mac, 2 gigs or ram

THANKS!

I'd be interested in hearing some opinions/advice on this subject as well.

alex matson · Post by **alex matson** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:43 am

I don't know much, but I'd venture that doubling your RAM would give you a nice boost. And there's a Logic forum on the Apple site that porbably has some good applicable info.
Just don't do like I did, and buy 2 more gigs of RAM in the assumption that your computer has the slots available. I had to get an RA from Crucial and buy 4gigs @ around $115.

chris ryan · Post by **chris ryan** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:02 pm

alex matson wrote:I don't know much, but I'd venture that doubling your RAM would give you a nice boost. And there's a Logic forum on the Apple site that porbably has some good applicable info.
Just don't do like I did, and buy 2 more gigs of RAM in the assumption that your computer has the slots available. I had to get an RA from Crucial and buy 4gigs @ around $115.

well i don't really need a boost. it worked perfectly for a year, and i haven't added anything but audio files. i just want it to work like it worked a year ago.

palinilap · Post by **palinilap** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:03 am

I would take a look at the version of Mac OS/Pro Tools you started out with as compared to know. For instance, if you started with 10.4.8/7.3.1, that might've run more efficiently than 10.5.2/7.4.2. I don't know this to be absolutely true, but know it's a common scenario when updating things frequently. What versions are you currently on?

chris ryan · Post by **chris ryan** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:31 pm

i have not changed anything at all. no system updates or anything. no new os, or version. everything on the computer is exactly the same as the first time i installed protools.

kevykevy · Post by **kevykevy** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:43 pm

you could try running a maintenance utility like Onyx

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/s ... /onyx.html

"It allows you to run misc tasks of system maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Expos?, Safari, Login window and of some of Apple's own applications, to delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, to see the detailed info of your configuration, to preview various logs and CrashReporter-reports, to check the Preferences files and more."

it's free too

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:58 pm

onyx, applejack, macjanitor, and preferential treatment are all great programs that I use often.

Legally free programs, too.

Most of the things they do overlap, but I know from windows utilities that sometimes one utility does something that the other doesn't. Those three are great apps that will hit up everything that is fucking up your mac.

jackson park · Post by **jackson park** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 4:21 pm

+1 onyx

haven't tried the other ones. i had to keep my powerbook on for a while, obviously let it sleep when not in use, but the computer became noticeably slower. after I was finally able to turn it off, I ran onyx through and through and turned it off and later on it ran much better.

on another note: can you run xslimmer on pro tools?

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What to do for general clean up on a Mac Pro

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