Palanan
2017-02-15, 06:26 PM
Several weeks ago the hard drive died on the Mac, and when it was replaced at the Apple store we finally upgraded to Sierra.
For the previous five years the Mac had been running Snow Leopard, and after the switch to Sierra there was an immediate plunge in system performance, especially on waking up. What used to take just a few seconds now routinely takes 30-40 seconds, with different tabs and features coming back unpredictably.
Another trip to the Apple store confirmed what I’d guessed: Sierra has a lot more going on, and this old Mac simply doesn’t have enough RAM to handle the increased workload. That was a frustrating conversation, because right from the start the guy at the Apple store was trying to steer me towards buying more memory.
I don’t like being steered, and I also don’t want to invest in more hardware for a laptop with only a couple years left, so I asked him about removing some of the many processes that I don’t use. At first he insisted it simply couldn’t be done; but after I pressed him about it, he acknowledged that yes, I could go through and remove specific processes from startup.
So, here’s my question: how can I do this? The Apple guy wasn’t too helpful on this point, and I have zero experience tinkering under the hood of a Mac. But I won’t be using many of the features and programs that start up automatically, and I’d like some advice on how to remove them safely.
For the previous five years the Mac had been running Snow Leopard, and after the switch to Sierra there was an immediate plunge in system performance, especially on waking up. What used to take just a few seconds now routinely takes 30-40 seconds, with different tabs and features coming back unpredictably.
Another trip to the Apple store confirmed what I’d guessed: Sierra has a lot more going on, and this old Mac simply doesn’t have enough RAM to handle the increased workload. That was a frustrating conversation, because right from the start the guy at the Apple store was trying to steer me towards buying more memory.
I don’t like being steered, and I also don’t want to invest in more hardware for a laptop with only a couple years left, so I asked him about removing some of the many processes that I don’t use. At first he insisted it simply couldn’t be done; but after I pressed him about it, he acknowledged that yes, I could go through and remove specific processes from startup.
So, here’s my question: how can I do this? The Apple guy wasn’t too helpful on this point, and I have zero experience tinkering under the hood of a Mac. But I won’t be using many of the features and programs that start up automatically, and I’d like some advice on how to remove them safely.