Mac Maintenance
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What should I be doing to keep my MBP running healthy. What kind of general maintenance should I be doing?
- detritus0
Weekly bath.
- maikel0
... and don't forget to floss
- i_monk0
Fully drain the battery every 2-3 weeks, run Disk Utility every month or two or after a major upgrade/deletion of software. Clean the keyboard with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol.
- very bad idea to drain the battery...it ends up hurting it in the long run...it's like blood-lettingmonospaced
- If you don't drain it regularly the health plummets a lot faster.i_monk
- I heard the exact oppositemonospaced
- yeah, i wouldn't drain the battery either.moldero
- oh wait sorry MBP, thought it was MP, i take it back, i thought you were talking about that little battery on the motherboard HA.moldero
- I would like to even the argument by standing on i_monk's sideMiguex
- imonk = correct********
- fyoucher10
You can use the app Onyx
http://www.apple.com/downloads/m…
- monospaced0
Trim down your start-up items, clean out your font caches once in awhile, and don't forget to reboot (this is hard to remember if you have a laptop and are just used to closing the lid when you're done). Otherwise, like i_monk said, Disk Utility is good once-in-awhile.
- i_monk0
mono - From first hand experience: I had my 15" MBP for about 2 years, kept it plugged in the whole time. Then over the course of a few months I noticed the battery health was dropping dramatically — it had been hovering around 60% for a year, now it was hitting 20% — and when I did run off the battery it was lasting less than an hour. Then one weekend the battery just stopped holding any charge at all, it was completely fucked (solid red when the calibration was checked) and I had to get it replaced because the machine wouldn't even turn on.
So I drain the battery every month or so.
- and you think this had something to do with having it plugged in the whole time?monospaced
- I've had my MPB for years, mostly plugged in, and it works for several hours on battery still and I've never drained itmonospaced
- draining the batteries is a good idea. leaving them in, like all rechargeables, greatly reduces their lifespan.jaylarson
- "leaving them in" = leaving plugged in"jaylarson
- ok ok, I'll check it outmonospaced
- flashbender0
^ I had a similar thing. Ususally had it plugged in, it only dipped below 20% a handful of times in two years... then same thing. fist it would only charge to 80%, then 60% then 50% and if it ran not plugged in it lasted about an hour and a half.
Bought a new battery and it's all good again. 100% charged, great battery life.
Just got a new mbp at work and I let it run down to 5% then charge to 100% as I work. we'll see how that plan works out for me.
- acescence0
I keep two batteries, one i use when it's plugged in and one for travel. the one I use when plugged in lasts about 15 minutes now when unplugged ,maybe 5 if I'm watching a flash vid.
I'd add that you should use an external drive for files and scratch, keep the internal for apps and system stuff only and leave lots of space, your machine will stay snappy and the drive won't get fragmented.
- nikdaum0
Speaking of trimming startup items,
I have an old canon printer installed that has two little helper programs that run every time I start up. They are for the quick function buttons on the front of the scanner.
I removed them from the startup items list. But despite them not showing there, they still start up every time.
Thoughts?
- Shit, I meant Canon scanner. My brain isn't working today.nikdaum
- i_monk0
Another thing to note about MBPs: you can take out the battery and run them directly from the plug, but the processor speed will be capped at 1 gigahertz (jiggawatts?). So if you aren't doing anything processor-intensive for a while you can extend your battery life by taking it out.
- Processor speed gets capped? I've never heard of this before. Is this all MPBs or only the newest ones?monospaced
- I've never done it myself, but this is what I've read. I assume it applies to all MBPs.i_monk
- zaq0
- Prev0
There's a bunch of junk my my startup folder but I have no clue what's what. Mostly strangely named .htm files and a couple .js files. Should I delete them?