OS X Mac troubleshoot tips for novice

In this technological era, many of us who jump from Windows to Mac platform aren’t aware about expert tips to work with an optimized Mac machine for a long time. Although time-to-time, Mac experts roll out awesome tricks to maintain an equalize performance of Mac but still newbies face nasty complications. If you are in the support of using Mac but little afraid in switching to Mac platform then before moving towards take a look at these manual skillful tactics. These are the simple solutions for a novice to stay away from cryptic errors very easily and hoax the worst circumstances while working with OS X system.

Tip 1: How to Know about Mac System?

To quickly know about Mac system specifications (like OS X version, processor, RAM, HDD size etc.) use ‘About This Mac option’.

• Click on Apple menu (situated in upper left corner)

• Select ‘About this Mac’ option from drop down menu list

To know detailed information like (RAM upgrade slots, installed hardware etc.) apart from processor & installed OS X version, access ‘System Profiler’ option

Click on “More Info” button shown in above image. In case, if Mac is running OS X 10.7 or later then click on ‘System Report button’.

About This Mac option

 Tip 2: How to Manage Mac HDD Related Issues?

Hard drive stores data very efficiently but over a period of time, accessing time to fetch that data get increased due to some disk related issues. To determine that hard drive is in good state or its failing, try these tricks. If you aren’t a Mac expert then before attempting these experiments, create backup of Mac data.

• Hard drive S.M.A.R.T. status

Check S.M.A.R.T. status of hard drive via Disk Utility (Applications>> Utilities>> Disk Utility). If it says anything rather “Verified” then please replace hard drive. Moreover, third party apps or free tools like ‘SMART Reporter Lite’ can be used to check Mac drive status (runs good at OS X 10.5 or later).

• Repair Disk Permissions

Disk permissions dictate whether or not a particular user can access and edit a particular file. Few hard drive related issues like system startup problems, login problems, printing problems etc. can be resolved by repairing incorrect disk permissions. Although it’s a time consuming process but effective as well. During disk permissions repairing process, the files/folders permissions are examined by OS X against the preset permissions to match the accurate results.

Select hard drive from the left pane and click “Repair Disk Permissions” button

• Verify Disk & Repair Disk

If it seems that there is a disk related problem then verify disk and then go for repairing disk process. By following the same process of launching Disk Utility and selecting hard drive, click on “Verify Disk” button. After the completion of verification process, if needed click on “Repair Disk” button to get rid from drive related issues.

Tip 3: How to Boot into Safe mode/ Single user mode

It’s a special way to start Mac system safely for diagnosing certain checks, and preventing some software from automatically loading or opening. To resolve some issues, it gets necessary to boot Mac into safe mode. Shut down Mac. Press Power button; once you hear the chimes sound (startup sound), press and hold the Shift key and release it when Apple logo comes on screen. This process takes longer time as compare to the usual boot time because it monitors all directory check one by one.

On the other hand, to boot Mac system into Single user mode, follow the same process except pressing and hold command and s key together after shutting down Mac system.

Tip 4: How to Reset PRAM?

Few hardware related issues like (speaker volume, screen resolution, kernel panic information, boot disk selection etc.) can be resolved by resetting PRAM.

• Firstly shut down Mac

• Turn on Mac and Press and hold Command, Option, P, and R together before the gray screen appears. Keep holding these keys until Mac restarts and you hear startup sound again. Once you hear this sound, release the keys. If you take wrong step then use System Preferences to restore your settings.