Can a computer degrade?

[goodtimes5]

So my dad's been complaining that his G5 has been getting slower and slower when dealing with Photoshop and the like. He blames it on me because I like to use his Superdrive for burning my multimedia DVDs. Is there any validity in this statement? Can a computer simply degreade and become slower as a result of use?

 

[iGary]

So my dad's been complaining that his G5 has been getting slower and slower when dealing with Photoshop and the like. He blames it on me because I like to use his Superdrive for burning my multimedia DVDs. Is there any validity in this statement? Can a computer simply degreade and become slower as a result of use?

No.

He ought to run some maintenance scripts, repair permissions etc.

Is the hard drive full?

How much RAM do you have?

Give a little more info, maybe we can help.

What G5 is it?

 

[goodtimes5]

111 gb out of 160 gb free.
1 gb of ram.
Dual 1.8 ghz.
Mainly used for digital photography work.

The stats and the nagging just don't relate inside my mind.

 

[bodeh6]

Might need a clean install.

 

[dsharits]

He probably needs to repair permissions and rebuild the drive directory. Very simple tasks, but they can make a huge difference.

 

[iGary]

Repair permissions in Disk Utility

Open up Terminal (it's in the Utilities folder under Applications) and run:

sudo periodic daily
sudo periodic monthly
sudo periodic weekly
sudo update_prebinding -root / -force

Also see how much cache he has in Safari, or whatever browser he is using.

You may also want to see how much RAM is eaten up in Activity Monitor - maybe he has a lot of apps running or a memory leak...

Gotta go pick up the BF - let us know how you make out!

 

[grapes911]

Might need a clean install.

Use this as a last resort. Mac rarely, if ever, need to be reinstalled. Follow the other suggestions first.

 

[dsharits]

Gotta go pick up the BF - let us know how you make out!

I had to go back and read that line a second time, because it didn't come out right the first time I read it.

 

[mkrishnan]

He probably needs to repair permissions and rebuild the drive directory. Very simple tasks, but they can make a huge difference.

What exactly does that mean? I only found a very small number of references to that googling, and they all seemed to involve Norton's utilities, which means I must NOT be in the right place.

 

[IJ Reilly]

If I had a penny for every time I recommended Applejack...

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Anacron is nice for running those periodicals on a Mac that isn't running 24/7...

If I had a penny for every time I recommended Applejack...

You'd have what? $0.29...?

 

[yellow]

sudo periodic daily
sudo periodic monthly
sudo periodic weekly

If you're going to go this route, you can combine all 3 into:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

 

[iMeowbot]

Let's not forget the obvious: The more and more little extras that get installed, the more chances are that something will significantly slow down the machine. This doesn't so much refer to regular programs but all those cute little menu extras and so on that run all the time in the background. If there's anything like that, make it go away and see if the situation improves.

(One particularly well-known nasty, especially for Tiger, is Virex 7.5. It will eat up scads of resources and accomplish nothing.)