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But then apple started offering free upgrades to OS X 10.9 Mavericks. That OS was useable but still not as great as Snow Leopard. Then I upgraded to El Capitan. This is when shit hit the bed. Constantly getting the beachball (Mac people will know what I am talking about) So I wanted to downgrade the OS.
If you try to start up your Mac from a hard disk, network volume, or Time Machine backup that contains an incompatible, you might experience one or more of these symptoms:. Your Mac doesn't finish starting up, or displays a. You see a message that you're using an unsupported or incorrect version of the Mac operating system. Your Mac doesn't respond to your trackpad, mouse, or keyboard.
Apps unexpectedly quit. Your Mac doesn't sleep or wake.
You don't hear any sound from your Mac. The fans in your Mac are louder, because they're spinning faster. The image on your display appears to shrink, has black bars around it, or appears tinted. You can't use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
I think this is the model that bought used 5 years ago, then upgraded the RAM, and gave to my parents to use. I think 10.6 Snow Leopard was probably the most stable OSX, it was my favorite. I think that once MacOS became free, the quality went down hill. But, 10.8 Mountain Lion was probably the most stable for the recent ones.
I currently use 10.11 on my main Mac, and I am scared to upgrade any further. I believe that the highest that is supported on the mid 2007 is 10.11. I would recommend to upgrade the RAM, I think it can take up to 6GB, 1 2Gb and 1 4GB. My father has been complaining about the computer running slow, so I was thinking about upgrading the slow HDD with a cheap, but fast, SSD. Might be able to get some more life out of it. Click to expand.Maybe I should tell you what ones to avoid. Do not use 10.7 Lion, while I have never used it, there were a ton of problems with it.
Also, stay away from 10.9 Maverick, I currently use this on my MacPro 1,1, it is not as stable as 10.8, and it has memory leak issues. I think 10.10 Yosemite was okay, but not as good as 10.6, 10.8, or 10.11. So, to rate them from best to crap, 10.6, 10.8, 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.7.
As for what is best for the Core 2 Duo, I think how I rated them would be a good guide. While 10.6 is the best, I don't think you can use it with iCloud.
10.8 would probably be the best fit to do modern stuff, while keeping stuff fast and stable. An SSD will make the biggest difference in terms of performance, and make the machine quite usable as a general purpose home rig.
10.7 and later versions do a lot of state-tracking and mini saves; the result is a lot more disk I/O compared to 10.6 and earlier. The limited RAM in those models (unless you're willing to spring for a 6GB upgrade) means that even when VM is leaned on, it won't hurt nearly as much with an SSD as with a spinning drive. As far as the OS, I wouldn't mess around with anything but 10.11. It's still supported to a larger extent, and the memory compression that was introduced in 10.9 only got more refined so that what little RAM is available is better managed. Turn off some of the superfluous UI graphical effects (like transparency) to relieve the burden on the graphics car and the result is a machine that will still be viable despite being 10-year old technology, running a fairly up to date OS. Thanks again for your help guys.
I have finally checked my father's computer and though it runs smoothly with 10.6.8 it's true that it has some limitations regarding versions of apps: chrome has not further updates offered to this system, same happens with skype, etc. But the biggest problem I found is that for some reason, the system freezes and never come back. It just get stopped, with the screen working but nor keyboard nor mouse respond and I have to do a hard reset using the backwards button. Do you know why this could be happening? I have already made a backup and considering to start from scratch installing Lion (10.8.5).
BTW: the system has 4G RAM. EDIT: Ok, i'm reading the freezes could be related to a faulty HD. Will investigate and update you here. Click to expand. Very good advice!
I have had good experience with SL and ML, but the last version of ElCapitan is really stable and has nevertheless many advantages compared to SL and ML. Especially concerning security and comfort. I gave my already retired MBP (dualCore)from 2009 (seems to be technically more or less the same as your iMac) to my daughter with ML on it. One day it went extremely slow and showed more and more beachballs. So I gave it a nice SSD (not really expensive) and installed a fresh ElCapitan OS on it. This is the latest recommended OS by apple for those machines.
Now this 'old' MBP from 2009 (4GB, not more) runs as hell, it is for all-day purposes as fast as a 'new' machine. There are even some workarounds to install even Sierra on these machines - but I didnĀ“t until now. Sierra ist very stable and I like it a lot on my 2011 and 2012 MBPs.
The last version of El Capitan is a very nice choice and absolutely stable. I really recommend it as well. Tip: after installing ElCapitan or Sierra Disable the ridiculous 'Transparency look' of the side-bar prefernces - Accessibility - Display-reduce transparency This ridiculous and useless transparency-gimmicks eats up performance. Many people are disappointed at first moment after (fresh) installing of a new OS because spotlight restarts to list up and this will (dependent on your data) slow down performance. Once spotlight has finished, this will get much better. You can also disable spotlight or reduce its activity in system preferences.