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Basic MBP question


JonC
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My late 2011 MBP turns on very quickly - password page is almost immediate. However, it now takes about 1.30min to fire up to the desktop and about the same again to open Safari. What can I do to rapidly speed up it's operation, or is this normal given I'm storing some photos, music, documents etc? The MBP is running El Capitan, 2.4 GHz, Intel i5 with a 4BG memory. Apologies if this isn't exactly tech enough for this area, but I have no IT knowledge whatsoever!

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You might be memory constrained with El Capitan.  My older MacMini and 2009 MacBook Pro (13") both exhibit the same behaviour with 4GB RAM.

 

My newer retina MBP (13" with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD) and MacBook (12" with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD) do not exhibit the problem.

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If you click the Apple sign in the top left, and select 'About this Mac' can you tell us what Mac it is? If so, we can tell you the memory it needs.

 

Memory would be the place to start, but if you want to give it a whole new lease of life an SSD would be the way to go.

 

Assuming it's a late 2011 13", you can see the memory & SSD upgrades here. Neither particularly expensive - but confirm which Mac you have first and I'll match up the memory/SSD for you.

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Whilst memory would speed it up, 1 min 30 secs to start up makes me think it might benefit from a good old clean.

 

A near to capacity hard disk on OSX slows performance dramatically.

 

As a quick test, hold down the SHIFT key when the Mac is booting up.  This boots it in Safe Mode and a benefit of that is that it scans the drive but also clears the cache completely.  Then, once it has started, restart it immediately and see if it has made much difference.  It usually does.

 

You might also, and the description is symptomatic of it, have a lot of software starting up on login that you don't necessarily need.

 

You could probably clean a good few of these out to make a sizeable difference but lets see what happens when you've booted in Safe Mode before going down that route.

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As a quick test, hold down the SHIFT key when the Mac is booting up.  This boots it in Safe Mode and a benefit of that is that it scans the drive but also clears the cache completely.  Then, once it has started, restart it immediately and see if it has made much difference.  It usually does.

 

 

 

I held down both shift key on boot up. The screen didn't change to safe mode like it does with a PC? Re-started straight away and it was quicker to boot to desktop.

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Memory would be the place to start, but if you want to give it a whole new lease of life an SSD would be the way to go.

 

 

What cost am I looking at for a SSD? What would fitting costs be, roughly?

 

These are the correct ones.

 

40 quid to upgrade to 8Gb is a bargain.

 

What would cost be for someone to fit it, roughly?

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The memory is a doddle. Fitting an SSD is a bit trickier as you need to copy across the stuff from your old drive.

 

It's not difficult really.

 

I seem to remember you're London based...? If you don't mind doing without it for a few days I'd do it for you.

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The memory is a doddle. Fitting an SSD is a bit trickier as you need to copy across the stuff from your old drive.

 

It's not difficult really.

 

I seem to remember you're London based...? If you don't mind doing without it for a few days I'd do it for you.

 

Thanks Mac, appreciate the offer  +++ I'll try the memory upgrade initially. From your link above, the 2 x 4GB @ £40.79? For that money, it's worth the pop, followed by the SSD upgrade if needed.

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I would now be tempted to check the start-up items and clear a load out (if there are many running). I won't be at all surprised if you find the machine gets a new lease of life.

How would I go about seeing what's opening on start up?

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