Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Slow system	birdrun1919	10/15/03
VOICEGUY: I am using my son`s system which is an APPLE McINTOSH 7600/120 occasionally and it appears it had slowed down. When I use my PC I at times delete the internet temporary files to improve its performance. Is there a command to delete the temporary file on an APPLE Mcintosh such as my son`s system? Would appreciate if you can assist on this matter. Thank you Lenny --birdrun1919@earthlink.net
Answered By		Answered On
voiceguy2000		10/15/03
That's a pretty old system (on the market from March through July, 1996), and there may be a lot of reasons for its performance to seem slow. Here is a spec sheet for this model. With a computer that old, I suspect the real problem is disk fragmentation. This occurs because pieces of the files on the hard disk become scattered in a number of locations, requiring far more activity in reading and writing. If you can get hold of an old version of Norton's Speed Disk utility for the Macintosh, and if there is enough free space on the disk to allow defragmenting to take place (there must be scratch space available), I suspect that would make a difference. Without knowing precisely what internet browser you are using, I cannot really say how to delete unused (obsolete) temporary files. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer have buttons you can click to delete the disk cache -- look under Preferences, Advanced or Cache. If the disk is fairly full, that can also slow things down, because it means that there is a lot of swapping of information on and off the disk in order to perform many routine functions. Clearing out all unneeded files -- not just internet-related ones -- would help solve this. Also, performance will almost certainly improve if you add more RAM to the factory-installed 16 MB. RAM is relatively cheap, although putting any additional money into a computer this old is a tough decision. In sum, I would delete (or archive onto floppy disks) everything that does not need to stay on the hard disk, then run a defragmenting (disk optimizer) program. That should help. Also, consider adding more RAM. But before you sink any significant amount of money into this 7-1/2 year old computer, consider putting that money toward something newer. A second-hand computer that is only a year or two old would still run rings around this one, and cost relatively little. Good luck.

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