I
have been an ambidextrous computer user for many years. I use a Windows 10 machine for work and an Apple Macbook for personal business like working on the Bach Seat. For a while the performance of the Mac Apps were terrible – the $%&(% jumping icons while waiting for an app to load – Word, Excel, Chrome, Firefox – was driving me nuts.
After investigating a myriad of other reasons the Mac Apps were running slow, I came across this hint. Reset the SMC. According to Apple Support, the SMC is the Macbook System Management Controller on Intel-based Macbook’s. The SMC is responsible for:
- Responding to presses of the power button
- Responding to the display lid opening and closing
- Battery management
- Thermal management
- Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS)
- Ambient light sensing
- Keyboard backlighting
- Status indicator light (SIL) management
- Battery status indicator lights
- Selecting an external (instead of internal) video source
Those all really sound like hardware problems – but it also fixed my very long application load time.
Here’s how to reset the SMC:
Shut down the computer- Plugin the power adapter
- Press the Shift + Control + Option keys and the power button at the same time
- Release all the keys and the power button simultaneously
- Press the power button to turn on your Mac
rb-
If you’ve updated your MacOS and applications, run a malware check, and flushed caches – and you still feel your Mac is sluggish resetting the SMC it’s worth a try – I did not see any negative consequences from resenting the SMC on my Apple Macbook.
Related article
- Apple Just Killed The MacBook As We Know It: ‘Don’t Buy A Mac’ Is Good Advice — MacBook Pro, MacBook Air On Hold (Forbes)
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.