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Advice for slow Mac Pro

Q

quickwatson

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 16, 2014
3
0
Los Angeles, CA
Hi folks. First post here. I could really sues some advice! My Mac Pro is giving me extreme trouble for the first time since 2007. It's a 32 bit machine, 2.66 ghz, quad core, 10,000 rpm Raptor drive, 10 gigs RAM -- my workhorse for video editing. I'm still running Snow Leopard... didn't see a reason to upgrade, if all I'm doing is editing in Final Cut 7, Photoshop 7 and Internet.

Now, the Pro is acting VERY slow. Websites take long to load, especially Google images & Bing Images, which I need to use professionally. Firefox crashes, period. Safari & Google Chrome are ok but slow. Youtube crashes often. Photoshop chokes and the fonts won't go color.


What I've done so far:


Re-booted modem

verified wired ethernet connection

verified & repaired permissions

Re-installed Snow Leopard/Safari/Google Chrome

ran Onyx

Changed from Admin to New User

Performed Anti-Virus scans with Norton & Sophos - no results

Performed Ping Test: 33ms
Download speed: 22.84 ms
Upload speed: 1.92 mbps
Jitter: 1ms
(Packet Loss - no results????)
Line quality: A
 
It seems to me that your "slow" Mac Pro is, to put it simply, "slow". 2006 first gen Mac Pros are very dated by today's standards... almost every single $1,200 Mac out there from the past 3 years is faster in processing and memory speed/bandwidth. The internet these days isn't very friendly to old machines. Trying to watch HD video on YouTube on a MP 1,1 will cause it to struggle to some extent. It sounds like you're having browser problems but I can't really explain why other than that the WWW needs a computer newer than yours to run well these days. What do you use the machine for? I would consider a nMP 7,1 when it comes out. Or something else, depending on your uses. My iMac from 2006 also is slow all around and has fast internet speed. Yours is obviously faster but I think that it has more to do with the age of the computer than anything else.
 
Last edited:
quickwatson said:
Hi folks. First post here. I could really sues some advice! My Mac Pro is giving me extreme trouble for the first time since 2007. It's a 32 bit machine, 2.66 ghz, quad core, 10,000 rpm Raptor drive, 10 gigs RAM -- my workhorse for video editing. I'm still running Snow Leopard... didn't see a reason to upgrade, if all I'm doing is editing in Final Cut 7, Photoshop 7 and Internet.

Now, the Pro is acting VERY slow. Websites take long to load, especially Google images & Bing Images, which I need to use professionally. Firefox crashes, period. Safari & Google Chrome are ok but slow. Youtube crashes often. Photoshop chokes and the fonts won't go color.


What I've done so far:


Re-booted modem

verified wired ethernet connection

verified & repaired permissions

Re-installed Snow Leopard/Safari/Google Chrome

ran Onyx

Changed from Admin to New User

Performed Anti-Virus scans with Norton & Sophos - no results

Performed Ping Test: 33ms
Download speed: 22.84 ms
Upload speed: 1.92 mbps
Jitter: 1ms
(Packet Loss - no results????)
Line quality: A
Click to expand...

Probably you can try reformatting your main boot HD by doing a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard and your apps. This helps optimize your HD and best to keep all your work files in another HD separate from your main boot drive. For the browsers a clearing of cache or browsing history helps. I used to have a 1.1 Mac Pro and it's still adequate as long as good maintenance is performed. Try also using Diskwarrior to repair the HD directory. Sometimes 2 types of virus scanners installed may cause HD slowdowns if its scanning your HD in real time.
 
My guess is your boot drive is going bad. Look in console for "I/O Error"

Or just try another drive. Plenty of room in that machine. Does not have to be a Raptor, just get a regular drive and see how it runs.
 
Macsonic said:
Probably you can try reformatting your main boot HD by doing a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard and your apps. This helps optimize your HD and best to keep all your work files in another HD separate from your main boot drive. For the browsers a clearing of cache or browsing history helps. I used to have a 1.1 Mac Pro and it's still adequate as long as good maintenance is performed. Try also using Diskwarrior to repair the HD directory. Sometimes 2 types of virus scanners installed may cause HD slowdowns if its scanning your HD in real time.
Click to expand...

Why do you think any of this will help? It's not horrible advice in general. How does it "help optimize your drive"?
 
Well... I did reinstall Snow Leopard, Safari and Chrome, cleaned the cache, ran Onyx and a bunch of other fixes which I mentioned in my first post. Plus, I already have two other drives in the Pro which I didn't even mention at first.

I suppose it might be bad RAM, everything was running cracking fast until about 10 days ago. No way am I going to install a SSD, because I also have a brand new 8 core Pro which is Avid dedicated. I don't really want to invest too much more in my old workhorse, maybe it's time to put him out to pasture.
 
lemonade-maker said:
Why do you think any of this will help? It's not horrible advice in general. How does it "help optimize your drive"?
Click to expand...

From experience it's my usual practice to reformat my HDs regularly every 4-5 months. I've managed Mac Pros from 2006 to 2012. Helps in multi-tasking as apps run smoothly with no beach balls. Here is a 2.66ghz 4.1 Mac Pro using Snow Leopard. This is using a spinning mechanical HD. http://www.screencast.com/t/yg03jp0KXhr

Reformatting also helps speed up boot up time. Before reformatting, the boot up time was 49 secs from the chime sound to the desktop on my spinning HD. After reformat the boot up time was 37 seconds from the chime sound to the desktop.

Reformatting topic is also a common topic in other sites. Another way of reformatting is to use Carbon Copy Cloner by cloning your boot drive and do a clean zero out erase. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4032

----------
quickwatson said:
Well... I did reinstall Snow Leopard, Safari and Chrome, cleaned the cache, ran Onyx and a bunch of other fixes which I mentioned in my first post. Plus, I already have two other drives in the Pro which I didn't even mention at first.

I suppose it might be bad RAM, everything was running cracking fast until about 10 days ago. No way am I going to install a SSD, because I also have a brand new 8 core Pro which is Avid dedicated. I don't really want to invest too much more in my old workhorse, maybe it's time to put him out to pasture.
Click to expand...

One time I also encountered sluggishness on my machine. And my finder would freeze that I need to do a hard reboot. I found out it's the update on the Filemaker Pro that caused the problem and the finder freezing. Luckily I had a clone of my boot drive before I updated the Filemaker Pro and quickly solved the problem. it was easier to trace and isolate the problem having a clone HD as backup. Hope you are able to find a solution later on.
 
If you've got some cash get yourself an ssd. I've got a 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro 3.1 and I put in a samsung 840pro 256 for my lightroom catalogs and system and apps. kept me working without pulling my hair out.

I put it on a apricorn pcie card but i don't think it would work in your machine. Just put the drive in a spare hd bay if you have one.
 
Last edited:
mdelrossi said:
If you've got some cash get yourself an ssd. I've got a 8 core 2.8 Mac Pro 3.1 and I put in a samsung 840pro 256 for my lightroom catalogs and system and apps. kept me working without pulling my hair out.

I put it on a apricorn pcie card but i don't think it would work in your machine. Just put the drive in a spare hd bay if you have one.
Click to expand...

And he says...
quickwatson said:
No way am I going to install a SSD, because I also have a brand new 8 core Pro which is Avid dedicated
Click to expand...
 
I have multiple Macs here.

The 2006 running Yosemite via Hennesie brilliance is nearly indistinguishable from 2009 12 Core 5690 for many things.

The slow, GOD AWFUL machine is the 2014...Mac Mini with 5400 rpm HD.

If it wasn't for the GTX680 that thing would be unusable. (this is a teaser)
 
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