Tips & Techniques:Macintosh Maintenance

if your music making has to stop when your mac dies, you can try the following....

NOTE: these were collected from various sources that i cant remember so i cant take credit for them, apologies if i stole your thunder.

repair disk from single user mode:

-restart computer
-hold Apple + S
-you'll see a MS DOS-like page
-type "fsck -fy" (without quotes), hit Enter
-let it do its thing. if you see a lot of stuff, good, your mac's fixing itself. if not as much, even better, you're in tiptop shape.
-wait till it says "Your HD appears to be OK."
-type "reboot" (without "), hit Enter

reset NVRAM:

-restart computer
-hold Apple + option + O + F (open firmware)
-you'll see white version of MS DOS-like page
-type the following:

reset-nvram (then hit Enter)
set-defaults (hit Enter)
reset-all (hit Enter)

reset PRAM (only do this as a last resort... normally unnecessary):

-restart computer
-hold Apple + option + P + R
-computer will restart itself, continue to hold down those keys until you hear 3 "boooongs"



type into terminal

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
--> manually runs cron scripts (so you don't have to waste more space installing app's like Onyx, etc.)

sudo pmset -a spindown 0
--> this'll keep your HD spinning, guaranteed won't go to sleep. this sometimes remedies the problem of when closing laptops and opening back up, HD doesn't wake up. it'll shorten your HD lifespan tho.

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES;killall Dock
--> disables Dashboard

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
--> turns it back on

[jbjoubaud]

For maintenance use Onyx quite often... (select every options in the maintenance part, and every options in the cleaning part)

Very usefull, and very free

JB

[FFTT]

Most of the hard line Mac users I know use MainMenu
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/25902
Free and very very good.

[theblotted]

hey, somebody stole my thunder! stikestike haha, jk.


i finally came across this Tip/Technique, and i know for sure that i typed these out on a mac maintenance thread (it's my regular routine). hope it helped some GS members.


a few quick pointers/reminders:

-normally, repairing permission and updating prebinding should take care of most Mac Maintenance... what you read are pretty extreme remedies. if something goes wrong, usually a reinstall of the App or OS should take care of it (along with maybe some deletion of preference and receipt files).

-intel machines don't have Open Firmware, so no need to do this step.

-the 0 spindown terminal command is kind of risky, and it's only for those who're willing to take the risk. i would recommend using it on old hard drives or old systems, but the newer offerings by SATA and SCSI generally don't need this. i don't recall using this command for a couple years now.

-you can actually kill the Dashboard but simply dragging it off of the Dock. then after you restart, it's gone! and i would go to Activity Monitor (in Utilities) to double-check that it's not running in the background.

-don't zap the PRAM too many times. and REALLY don't press that small button inside your Mac (the one on the motherboard) more than once.

[jojamba]

herrr......



VERIFY PERMISSIONS!!!!!


NEWB Mac Maintenance but a lot of people dont do it!