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Question

Any Help On General Maintenance for my MacBook Pro?

May 12, 2011 7:52PM PDT

Hello-
I have a MacBook Pro with v. 10.6.7, Snow Leopard and Safari 5.0.5. I have had it for about 2 years and all I have done is occasionally restarted the laptop while holding down the Shift key. I was told this helps by doing something and brings it to the Safe Mode, clean out the cache in Safari occasionally, and do the Disk Utility by repairing permissions and it does not matter if you use it from the dock or boot up with the OSX disk in the drive to do a better job of repairing permissions. I also heard that makes no difference but I cannot get my permissions repaired unless I boot up using the boot disk and then repairing permissions.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
You certainly heard a lot,
May 12, 2011 10:06PM PDT

Compressed air blown, gently, into the vents will clear out the air flow path. The object here is to blow the crud from the path, NOT to make the fans spin at some ungodly speed by blowing air into them.
Restarting and holding down the "C" key or the "D" key only work if there is a bootable CD/DVD in the drive. "C" causes the machine to boot into OS X from the bootable disk while the "D" causes the machine to boot into the diagnostic portion of the OS X installation disk.
Permissions can be repaired either way, disk in or disk out.
Repairing the drive using Disk Utility can only be done by booting from the OS X install disk, "C" key down, and then running Disk Utility from the disk.

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Nodding to the canned air advice.
May 13, 2011 2:16AM PDT

I bet if folk did that every 6 months, half the laptops in for repair may have not needed a trip to the shop.
Bob

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feedback
May 14, 2011 5:59PM PDT

Something tells me that if I can get in this machine (and I have no idea what the correct way is to get the MBP open so I can blow out a lot of the crap that I dust off my furniture everyday. I have a feeling that my machine would benefit a lot from this which is why I am trying to figure out how to blow the crap out and not just to another area of the machine. someone told me to take off the keys, but I tried to tale off the space bar and I thought it would break so I stopped. there are probably 10 screws on the underside of this machine.

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Do not, under any circumstances, take that machine apart
May 14, 2011 11:54PM PDT

to "clean" it.
Controlling compressed air from a can is a matter of index finger control. You can vary the pressure applied to the button which in turn controls the amount of air that is released. Try it.

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Actually
May 15, 2011 1:12AM PDT

Actually, Flash 10.3 was just released a day or two ago, for Mac OS X and others. There was a 10.2 before that, and 10.1 before that... And the nice thing about the newer versions of Flash is they have at least some level of hardware accelerated video decoding. It's fairly limited, and unfortunately Mac OS X hasn't really kept with the times when it comes to exposing APIs for hardware acceleration like Microsoft did starting with Vista, but it's something at least.

We can all still hope that Flash dies a quick, but very painful, death as will client side Java and Silverlight, but you just kind of have to keep on top of Flash yourself because for whatever reason, it won't tell you there's a new version like it does with Windows.

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Flash Update
May 15, 2011 3:23PM PDT

with the versions that Jimmy mentioned there has been several versions between the main numbers that he mentioned. They have a chart that lists all the past versions and as you will see in my above post, the latest version is not 10.3 but 10.3.181.14. this can be confusing because the versions that have been out if you look on the chart that Adobe posts, Mac lists the first few numbers, but the actual version number is longer. Some times you only need the first few numbers and sometimes there was a version that was only 2 or 3 numbers.

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I was making a distinction
May 15, 2011 11:35PM PDT

I was making a distinction between actual releases and minor security related updates.

And "Flash cookies" "super cookies" or "LSOs", whatever you want to call them, have been around for ages. It's just only been in the last year or so that they've been getting an increasing amount of attention. Because they allow sites to store a virtually arbitrary amount of data, they would persist even after you cleared browser cookies, didn't necessarily have the same cross-domain restrictions as regular cookies, and it was never really clear to the end user that these were ever being placed.

The 10.3 update is supposed to add some controls to let people manage these cookies, but I still prefer the Firefox extension BetterPrivacy which will automatically delete them when the browser exits. I can also use NoScript to block scripts, including Flash craplets, by default so most of them never even get set in the first place.

Now we just need Apple to expose some more Quartz and/or CoreVideo APIs for hardware acceleration. The Aqua GUI was pretty revolutionary in that regard... 10 years ago. But Apple hasn't really updated those APIs since the first OS X release, and meanwhile Linux and Windows are sailing past.

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update on flash.
May 15, 2011 3:14PM PDT

There has been about 3 "updates" to Flash for Macs over the past 6 months. the latest Flash update for Mac OS is<span id="INSERTION_MARKER"> 10.3.181.14. This is the update that out an icon on the bottom row of System Pref. with; "Storage," "Camera & Mic" "Playback" etc. check it out if your interested. I was shocked how many websites that I have never heard of are listed as having used my computer for storage. I am not sure why so many websites like banks, etc. have different websites that control their security and other stuff. I can only imagine that most of the websites that I have nerve heard of are related to some other website that I use and know the address. There are even some like this one, which I have never knowingly used and they are now using 400 bytes for storage. One is s.ytimg.com. So if you have Flash installed and you say there has not been a new version of Flash for Mac for some time, it sounds like you need to get over to Adobe so you know the latest versions are.
<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">

Since you told me to be careful about using the canned air and it can be controlled by the finger control, do you know how to get in a MacBook pro that is about a year old with the numerous small screws on the underside. would you suggest I take off the back as if I was truing to get to the battery or add some RAM? I really think I have so much dust where I live that if I could clean it out, that would make a big difference.

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NO, I would not suggest
May 16, 2011 4:44AM PDT

that you take off the back as if you were trying to get to the battery or add some RAM.
1. Adding RAM does not necessitate the removal of the back cover
2. Removing the back cover, not only voids whatever warranty you have, it also leaves you open to having a machine that no longer works.
Yes, I know how to get into a Macbook, its what I do for a living, but I do not think that you are at a level where you should be attempting to do this.
Blowing up the vents is sufficient to clear out and debris from the cooling system.

I have already told you what application I use to turn off Flash. ClicktoFlash.

YouTube is moving away from Flash and using HTML5 to display the videos on its site. I do not know of any other way to explain that.

As for your question about the "Answer" post. You do not get to choose what is posted as an answer, that is up to the person who posts a response to your question.
I used the "Reply" or "Confirmation" button, seems like others used the "Answer" button when they replied to you.

P

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Your Reply
May 16, 2011 4:02PM PDT

I am a very thorough person when someone is trying to help me. this is why I ask so many questions. I do this rather then just assuming to know what you mean. If you are at a level where you know how to get in to the MBP that is great but I have no idea what you do so how would I know this?

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I disagree.
May 17, 2011 4:56AM PDT

"Blowing compressed air in a MBP, no matter where it is blown is a very
fragile task and should only be done by someone who knows how and why
they are doing it."

The procedure is well discussed and something average Joe/Jane can do. However I have found Geek Groups that want everyone to "stay out of the machine" and take everything to the shops where they know what they are doing.

I disagree. It's time for us to do our own research, then the work if we feel comfortable with it.

It's your money, it's your choice.
Bob

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Macfixit
May 16, 2011 4:11PM PDT

I guess I should ask you just so I know how to do this. If I have a can of compressed air, can you explain to me how I would use it so that I do the most good since I think inside the MBP is a lot of dust/lint. I see the CD/DVD drive and I assume you do NOY men to shoot the air into this or the plugs on the opposite side. When I close the lid there is a black strip in the front and near where the top of the MBP is hooked on to the body. is this where I look for the vents? How do I know if I am hitting a fan and turning the blade, which is something I do not want to do?

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Vents are located
May 17, 2011 10:03PM PDT

either at the top, as mentioned, or at the rear of the machine and sometimes at the sides.

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I'd disagree
May 17, 2011 11:34PM PDT

I'd disagree about blowing compressed air into the optical drive slot. The last thing you want is a little residue from the compressed air getting on the laser lens. And there's little dust guards on the optical drive slot, which also serve to slow the ejecting disc. Kind of cool how older iMacs can be turned into low powered CD launchers if you remove the front bezel.

But as someone who's taken apart more Apple laptops than I can remember, you're really just not going to be able to do an effective job if you don't remove the bottom case, trust me. Maybe if you had an air compressor, not a can of compressed air. Apple uses heatsinks with a little heatpipe on them that draws the heat over to the fan, which then blows across a little grille and out the exhaust vents. So, if you go from the vent, you're just going to hit that grille, it will scatter the air stream, and the result will be very little of anything happens to the fan. Even better is if you take the fan out and then pull out any dust bunnies collected on that grille by hand, but most of the time the fan is locked in by T6 screws, and most people don't have a T6 screwdriver just laying around in their home toolbox. Sometimes they are PH00 screws, but be wary if you find those, because they have a tendency to strip at the slightest provocation. You also have to be really careful of the JST connector of the fan that connects to the logic board. Those are easily damaged if you aren't careful.

At the very least, if you take the bottom case off, you can get right at the fan(s) (the 15 and 17 inch models tend to have 2 fans). You may not necessarily see any dust bunnies that have built up on the grille under the ducting of the fan, but you can at least make sure the fan blades aren't weighted down, and you may be able to at least break up any dust bunny buildup a little. You don't need to do anything more than just remove the 10 screws on the bottom case, pull it off, and then blow some air into the fans before putting the bottom case back on. Really pretty simple, even if you know nothing about computer repair, you should at least be able to find the fans, and hopefully know enough not to touch any of the circuitry.

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thanks
May 18, 2011 3:33PM PDT

thanks P for your help. I am not as inexperienced as you appear to think I am so I doubt damaging my machine will be an issue. If I had no idea what I was doing I would not do it. You appear to have a lot of knowledge from what you say in some of your posts. I would encourage you, if that is really the case, to help people with this information you have. You cannot control what people do and as long as you advise them that a certain task can be dangerous, I believe you have done your job. these forums are for people to learn, and if you indeed do have all this klnowledge--share it. Thanks for what you have finally decided to share with me.

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feedback
May 14, 2011 5:55PM PDT

so if I restart my MBP and hold down the Shift key, there is some maintenance going on, right? My MBP is on sot of the time. If it is not on it is sleeping because those controls are set. Not sure if what you are talking about occur when the MBP is sleeping. it would seem like one would want what is built in the computer to maintain itself as much as it can without any extra program. Have you used this Cocktail program? Satisfied with it?

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No
May 15, 2011 1:32AM PDT

No, if you hold down the shift key at boot, no maintenance of any kind is going on. At least not any that wouldn't have gone on if you'd booted the system normally. That causes the OS to boot into a kind of lowest common denominator mode to give it the best possible chance of booting. It disables certain functions which can cause the OS to not boot, that's all.

If you use some compressed air, just make sure to shut the system off completely. Sleep mode won't cut it. Shut it off, and since you have a unibody model (I was thinking of MacBook's before which only have 8 screws on the bottom case, MacBook Pro's have 10). It's a simple matter of removing the bottom case then blowing some air into the blades of the fan to break up any dust bunnies starting to form. Just try and keep it pointed at the fans and not other parts of the internals.

And as said, Mac OS X is based on Unix. FreeBSD is the foundation for the core of Mac OS X, known as Darwin. The GUI, known as Aqua, which most people associate with being the OS, is based largely on an OS that was known as NeXTStep. Steve Jobs founded that company after being ousted from Apple in the early 90s, and then when Apple was looking around for companies to buy with an operating system they could use to base the next version of Mac OS on, they ultimately decided to buy Steve Jobs' company NeXT. The also-ran was a little known OS called BeOS, which was significantly ahead of its time. It was doing multithreading back around the late 90s early 2000s, before dual and quad core CPUs were much more than a theoretical concept. Everyone who ever used the OS raved how great it handled multi-tasking. The entire OS, from the ground up, was built around the idea of multithreading, which would have been something truly spectacular to behold if the company could have found the funding needed to keep going. Instead they ended up being bought by Palm in bankruptcy, who never did much of anything with it, and who was later itself bought by HP in bankruptcy. Of course we probably wouldn't have ipads, iphones, ipods, iMacs, etc if Steve Jobs hadn't gone back to Apple.

In any case, under the Aqua GUI of Mac OS X beats the heart of a Unix OS. IIRC, Mac OS X 10.5 was actually certified as an official Unix. The Aqua GUI itself is based pretty heavily on the NeXTStep GUI, which was always known as one of the prettiest of the Unix world.

And a minor bit of useless trivia... Mac OS X isn't even Apple's first attempt at making a Unix OS. A long long time ago, Apple had an OS known as A/UX which came on some old predecessors to the now defunct XServe line. Never really went anywhere, and most people today have no clue they ever existed.

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Answer
You have heard a lot
May 13, 2011 10:24AM PDT

You have heard a lot, there's no question about that.

The whole safe boot thing is only necessary if you have some kind of a problem and can't start the system normally. It's a good way to clear out pesky startup items that are causing problems, and it can be handy for diagnosing certain hardware issues.

The suggestion of using a can of compressed air is a good one, just make sure to do it when the system is off. That way you aren't trying to force the fan to run faster than it's designed, which may also make the SMC cranky. The SMC monitors things like temperatures of various parts of your system, along with fan speeds. If this is a unibody model, which means that there's only about 8 screws on the bottom of the system, then it's quick and easy to just take the bottom case off and blow some air into the fan blades, then put the bottom case back on. Never with the system running. Even those of us who repair computers for a living are generally hesitant to run a system exposed like that if we can help it.

Repairing permissions is one of those superstitious activities some people feel compelled to do. It's not necessary unless you notice some programs seem to be acting erratically. Then it's a quick and easy first step in the troubleshooting process. Otherwise, completely unnecessary and a waste of time.

You can do a repair disk operation, which attempts to fix issues with the filesystem, by booting off of any external OS source. Could be the Mac OS X install DVD or it could be a copy of the OS installed on a USB HDD. So long as the boot drive isn't the drive you're trying to run the repair operation on.

I generally discourage the average person from using programs like Cocktail. Those kinds of programs are useful, but generally only in rather specific instances, and you need to have a certain level of technical skill to be able to recognize those situations. All too many people think of them as some kind of magical cure-all. I've even known a few so-called Mac "experts" who think of them that way. Someone at a previous job, not our esteemed moderator.

Really all you need to do is get the fan blades clear of dust probably every 2-3 months. The rest is generally taken care of automatically by the cron jobs mentioned. These run automatically and silently in the background, taking care of all the vital maintenance on the software side of things.

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feedback
May 14, 2011 6:03PM PDT

we all have "heard a lot." the idea here is to get some help that is not just "heard" but stuff that is factual and really helpful. If I read your post, I hope you have given me some good assistance and not just "heard" stuff. In life we all are subjected to a lot of "heard stiff." the idea is to learn and be able to figure out what is fact and info that can really help. this is what I think this forum is for. You have your chance to not give "heard" info back to people, but good, solid, factual, and helpful information.

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I got your message
May 16, 2011 5:09AM PDT

Hi Kooler1. i got your message about how posts are designated in these forums.

The post above yours is the answer that the poster offered. It is up to you to decide if the answer offered is the one that 'fixed' it for you.

When someone posts a Question, anyone replying has two options, either post an Answer, or request Clarification. If they believe their comments answer the original post then they will post as an Answer. If they need more information before answering, then they will post as a Clarification.

I hope that helps.

Mark

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Mark
May 16, 2011 4:06PM PDT

Thank you. There has only been a couple replies that have the "Answer" next to the person's info. so I was confused why, out of 12-13 posts, only 2 had "Answer" next to them. I do not see the Answer button, just the reply link, which I guess is the same as the "clarification" link.

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Yes and No
May 16, 2011 9:39PM PDT

Hi Kooler1.

The recent changes to the forum format, (we are still getting used to it), now all depends on the initial post. If the Original Poster, (OP), raises a question, then there are two possibilities for replies. An "Answer" post, or a request for Clarification.

The OP is the only one who can select which answer, if any, best fits their problem. I have just tested this in the Test Forum and an image of my thread is linked to below;
http://imageshack.us/f/801/answerv.jpg/

I have provided the image because, as I understand it, I am the only one who can see my own option as I am the OP.

So if you see an Answer that you feel solves the problem, you can select "THIS POST ANSWERS MY QUESTION", or not, as you see fit.

For any posts that are Answers, the only option to reply to that is a Reply. I'm also guessing that you cannot see "Clarification requests" in your own thread.

I hope that helps.

My head hurts. Devil

Mark

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sorry bout your head.
May 18, 2011 3:57PM PDT

I hep it was not my stupidity that added to your head hurting. I followed that link you put in the post because I wanted to see what you meant. I have not seen "Request a Clarification" on the website here at all. maybe I need to not be the OP to see this. I tried to go to the link at imageshack.com but I could not really see because of a pop-up for a mac Clean-Up service. I was not sure what would happen if I clicked the OK, so I just left the site. that site looked kind of cool. If you have time, I wold like to know what imageshack.com is used for.

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Not at all.
May 18, 2011 10:57PM PDT

No, not you, just I'm not used to using my brain that much.

It's strange about that ImageShack link. I wonder if Pete, (mrmacfixit), will know anything about what the pop-up is. Since I'm a Windows user I don't get Mac related popups. I have asked him to have a look/see.

ImageShack, (and others like Photobucket, Flickr etc), are useful in these forums. The forums don't allow images to be added to posts, so if we want to show something, often a problem on our computers, we can take Screen Prints, upload them to an image hosting site like that, then provide a link to that image, so others can see.

Ahh Pete. Yep apparently he is a Mod as well, for all Mac users and forums here.

I don't really know what he does. He wanders in occasionally and tries his best, bless him! Devil

I'm really an intruder here. I understand they eat Windows' users here.

Mark

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I took a look at the link,
May 19, 2011 4:10AM PDT

while I was wandering aimlessly around the forums, and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Perhaps kooler1 could try the link again and, if possible, use Grab to get a screenshot of the offending page.

I don't know where you got the idea that we eat Windows users in the Mac forums, far from it. We just laugh inwardly.

P

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No kidding
May 19, 2011 10:15AM PDT

No kidding we don't eat Windows users... Who knows where they've been! Look at the cesspool they live in! Viruses and worms are all over the place! Who in their right mind would eat someone that came from there?! Now casting Windows users into pits... That's a whole other story!

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But Apple users taste like the Eloi
May 19, 2011 10:37AM PDT

The reason is likely how pristine and clean their world is.
Bob

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see
May 29, 2011 7:32PM PDT

I take of and you all jus go to the pits. all that fun posts you guys are sending back and forth.

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hmm
May 29, 2011 7:28PM PDT

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">my.imageshack.us/v_images.php
<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">


I do not have a problem with Windows users. I have a problem with me and why all of this stuff, computers, figuring how to upload a screen shot and figuring out what the URL of my account page is, smartphones, etc. when something goes bad with a techie device, I am so frustrated.I signed up for my own account.

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That image shack link
May 29, 2011 9:40PM PDT

does not display your images.
You have to make your images public in Image Shack.
That "should" create a URL that you can paste into your posts.