G4 running reallllly slow!!!! help!!

[z2046]

ok. so i just bought a new scanner and dell 20" monitor.

hooked it up and right away i noticed my mac got slower.

from the file opening up to photoshop running.

i have 768mb of ram and my mac is hooked up to a monitor, scanner, printer, external hard drive.

do i need more memory? am i connecting too many things to my comptuer?

how can i clean up my mac to make it faster?

if i need memory, which is the best place to get them?

thank you for all your help!!

z2046

 

[LimeiBook86]

How much hard drive space do you have free? If you do not have enough space free you will feel a drop in performence and things will seem to run slow. If your running Mac OS X open 'Activity Monitor' under Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilites. You will be able to see how much memory is being used and what programs are taking up the most memory and system resources, try ending some processes that are taking up the most if you want but, be careful about it.

Good luck

 

[IJ Reilly]

First, reboot. This will delete your virtual memory swap files. Logging out works too. Second, repair permissions using Disk Utility. This fixes most slowdowns. Other things can be suggested if that doesn't work.

You have plenty of RAM for most purposes.

 

[macEfan]

Disk Utility= Appllications/Utilities/Disk Utility.

I reccomend having at least 6gb of free hard disk space.

 

[Makosuke]

Question: What kind of scanner is it? If you installed the software that came with the scanner, that might be the source of the slowdown. Most scanners have some "instant access" buttons on them, and the software sometimes doesn't work right, slowing the computer down significantly (HP, I believe, had major issues with this at least at one point).

 

[z2046]

thank you for the suggestions.

well. i have about 15 gb of hard drive space left...

and i've used disk utilities many times to repair permission.

i notice the slow response even more when i use photoshop.

i'm not sure what to do now.

oh. it is a epson scanner. and i do feel like it slowed down once i installed the scanner. but i try to uninstall and it was the same....

 

[faintember]

Is your computer usually on, and awake, during the early hours of the morning? If not, use a program like MacJanitor or Onyx.

You can also use AppleJack to repair the boot volume if needed, as well as do some other things.

 

[z2046]

thank you ! i'll try it out tonight.