Posted by llrrrpp on August 29, 2006, at 10:32:11
In reply to Re: stupid computers » Estella, posted by ClearSkies on August 29, 2006, at 8:09:54
Estella,
I just spent 18+ hours diagnosing my sick mac. Eventually ended up wiping the entire harddrive, and reinstalling OSX, and then using my laptop as an external harddrive to transfer necessary files back on to the sick iMac.Good news is that it's better than new. Bad news is that it took for EVER!
Your problem sounds fairly straightforward. Macs can fix themselves, if you let them
are you running OSX? if so, go to the little blue apple in the upper corner of the screen, and select SOFTWARE UPDATE from the drop-down menu.
It's possible that you need to download some patches and stuff, because your computer hasn't been updated in a while.
Next stop is to repair your file permissions. This could take 20 minutes if it's been a while, or if your harddrive is more than, say, 150 gb. Go to Applicatons/Utilities/Disk Utility, and select the option to "repair file permissions". Basically, this sorts your files and makes sure that your computer has them linked to the proper applications, users, and directories. It's comparable to disk defragmenting on a PC. Regular maintenence that usually happens overnight on most macs, but occasionally gets turned off.
Finally, how much memory do you have? If your mac only has 256 (or less) mb of memory (RAM) then some things are going to be slow to load. The tricky thing with macs is that closing a window doesn't necessarily close the application. You may have several unnecessary applications running, which will totally slow down an older mac, given the large files that make up webpages nowadays.
Finally, I wanted to say that I have NEVER done any substantial computer geek wizardry in my life. Everything I learned about how to set up my mac laptop and fix the problems on the sick iMac I learned from the HELP icon located at the top of your screen, or from going to http://www.apple.com/support and searching for the particular problem. Apple help is really good for nincompoops like me, and it's gratifyin to see a happy result- like a happy zippy iMac, restored to it's original glory!
-ll
if all else fails: application of blunt projectiles at high velocity has been known to soothe the soul.
poster:llrrrpp
thread:681043
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060819/msgs/681142.html