2.33 MBP not running as fast as expected..

[advocation]

After seeing about how amazingly speedy this machine should be, I must say that I have been a bit dissapointed with the performance of it...

Please bare in mind that I am have been using it for about 6 weeks, and that is how long I have been using OSX so I am by no means knowledgable about it!

For example, if I have open Mail, Firefox with about 3 - 4 tabs, Vienna humming along in the background, iTunes, Msn, and Colloquy, when I go to open Textmate it takes about 4 - 5 seconds to open..

It would have taken me about the same on my old pc, which was a 1.8, 512mb machine.. So with this 2.33, 2gb machine I was expecting better...

Is there anything I can do to speed this thing up a bit?

I love it to bits though It is by far the best machine I have used =)

 

[petvas]

Check activity monitor to see if an app uses a lot of the CPU resources. Maybe one of your apps causes the delays.

 

[jsw]

FWIW, any of those apps should open up a lot faster the second time due to RAM caching, and if anything you're running is using the HD, that'd affect load times, as the drive need to swap between loading the app and the other things you're doing.

Edit: BTW, if you're using Vienna, you're using the Safari libraries, so you might see a reduction in overall RAM usage if you switched to Safari in lieu of Firefox.

 

[FredB]

TextMate load all the bundles languages, snippets, commands on start so it takes some time, although 5 secs seems a bit too much as it takes less than that on my 1.8Ghz G5.

You can disable the bundles you'll never use: Menu Bundles > Bundle Editor > Show Bundle Editor > at the bottom of the window click on "Filter List" and unselect the uneeded ones.

I don't know if you shut it down or put it to sleep, but restarting now and then can bring the speed back... Follow Petvas advice too.

 

[felipson]

some applications also going through Rosetta first probably causes some of the delay.

 

[MaaseyRacer]

I had the same issue with mine when I first got it. I was coming from a CoreDuo 2.16GHz MacBook Pro, to the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 2.3GHz. My new machine was not running nearly as fast as the old one. Here is what I did.
First repartitioned and reformatted and did not target disk over any information, instead I firewire transfered everything over and reinstall software manually. Transfered preferences over for settings manually. After all that I repaired the disk parmissions and deleted the all the caches, including the kernal cache. It still ran slow, but it ran faster than before.
The next step fixed the issue completely. I booted the computer into single user mode (at start up hold down command 'S'.) Once the system posts and the command promt comes up, type in: "exit" (with out the quotes obviously). From what I understand the machine will remove the base drivers and reinstall them. It works wonders from my machine I do this once a month, in Tiger there is no real harm to doing this, other than every now and then after I do it I have to re-pair my bluetooth mouse and keyboard (which I could care less about). Once it boots out of single user mode, restart the computer and all should be well.

BTW- This works on some Intel Macs better than others. I have noticed the CoreDuo 1.83GHz MacBook Pros take an extreme liking to this, some do not even see a blue progress bar on start up they just go strait to the desk top.

 

[winchest]

After all that I repaired the disk parmissions and deleted the all the caches, including the kernal cache.

This might a dumb question, but is there an easy way to delete all of your caches including the kernal cache?

 

[SC68Cal]

For example, if I have open Mail, Firefox with about 3 - 4 tabs, Vienna humming along in the background, iTunes, Msn, and Colloquy, when I go to open Textmate it takes about 4 - 5 seconds to open..

Is this the first time that you've opened it since you turned on the computer / logged in? All apps start fairly slow for me if I start from a cold boot, because they have to be brought into memory from the hard drive.

For instance, I just opened Firefox, which was rarely opened and has not been loaded into ram, and that took about a good 10 seconds for it to open and display a window.

I'll close it and quit it now and see how quickly it opens. Under a second.

All apps take a while to load for the first time. If you are still worried go get a 10K RPM Hard Drive

 

[MaaseyRacer]

This might a dumb question, but is there an easy way to delete all of your caches including the kernal cache?

Yes programs like cache out, cocktail, and onyx. I personally like cache out:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14850

However as of lately I have been removing caches manually. Also does anyone know if Applejack is universal yet? That was the best one out there, but I learned my lesson testing it on my first MacBook when it was not built to be universal.