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I've had my MBP for a little over a year now. It used to boot up lightenign quick, to the envy of my Windows friends. Not so much anymore.

What can I do to speed up the boot time on my OS X 10.5 MBP?

3 Answers 3

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Get rid of any accumulated cruft you don't need, e.g.

  • Startup Items (Accounts -> Login Items prefs)

  • Background services such as web server, universal access, bluetooth etc.

  • Dashboard widgets

  • Extra preference panes

And:

  • Make sure you have enough (at least 10%) free space on your HD

  • Defrag

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  • 2
    widgets don't load until you activate dashboard for the first time actually
    – cobbal
    Jul 15, 2009 at 7:58
  • Defrag? Don't bother. support.apple.com/kb/HT1375
    – Arjan
    Jul 27, 2009 at 21:56
  • Defrag - do bother if any of the following conditions hold: 1) You're about to bootcamp Windows; 2) Your drive is very full > 80%; 3) You work with large files; 4) You have system slowdown and have tried everything else.
    – alimack
    Feb 24, 2010 at 15:15
  • You could also repair your drive with Disk Utility - any corruption will slow bootup.
    – alimack
    Feb 24, 2010 at 15:23
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Don't reboot? The only time I actually reboot my Mac laptops is after installing system updates. The rest of the time, I just let them sleep. This has worked well for years. The only time that this isn't an option is if won't be plugged in for days, since it does use a minimal amount of power.

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  • I'm already there...I only reboot once every several days (like when i am on the road and want to conserve battery.) Jul 15, 2009 at 13:51
  • Full ACK, I also just reboot when a system update requires it.
    – Marc
    Jul 16, 2009 at 7:00
  • @Stu - instead of rebooting, use hibernate. it is quicker, and your apps will already be launched for you.
    – RedFilter
    Sep 25, 2009 at 13:41
  • That causes its own problems - you can see RAM fragmentation if you really leave the Mac on for a long time. Rebooting usually speeds things up a bit.
    – alimack
    Feb 24, 2010 at 15:16
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I always do some maintenance every month, which usually involves clearing a few caches etc.

I feel as though it makes things faster, so it may help you too.

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

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