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mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
I have a macbook with 2 gigs of ram and 7200 rpm hd. And i experience serious video lag. i want to know if anyone else gets this. I know the graphics card isn't amazing, but i shouldn't notice it. It happens really bad when i run software update. but sometimes when i'm surfing, flash sites are slow, specificially nikerunning.com. And Expose runs slow, and sometimes scrolling isn't smooth. Now this doesn't happen all the time. But definately enough that it's a problem. And there are not a lot of programs running, and if anyone knows if it makes a diff, Boot camp is installed on this machine.
 

Maxwell Smart

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
525
0
I get some expose lag every once and a while too. And I've got 2GB of RAM as well. I think maybe if they allowed more then 64MB (like being able to expand to 256MB like regular windows machines) Then we wouldn't see it as much. Someone needs to make a utility! :D
 

chosenwolf

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2006
507
0
Los Angeles
This happens to me (expose, dashboard) some of the time on my 17" MacBook Pro, but only when I'm on battery power. Try and plug in your macbook to the wall outlet and see if it still occurs.
 

mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
wickedG35 said:
This happens to me (expose, dashboard) some of the time on my 17" MacBook Pro, but only when I'm on battery power. Try and plug in your macbook to the wall outlet and see if it still occurs.

its always plugged in. Instead of smooth scrolling it jumps up and down. I'm calling apple about it now. but i'm sure that they won't have a definative answer.
 

mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
so this has been bugging me a lot. I am planning on taking the comp to the apple store tomorrow because it will be the first chance it get. As i had mentioned i immediately installed the New 3rd party hd and ram. And thats what i had been using. On the new hd, i installed boot camp and partioned it. Installing windows and mac. Windows had a couple of programs, but no documents installed, and mac, a bunch of programs, all native, no significant documents.

To be honest it has been so bad i wanted to return it. Befor taking it i'm running some tests. First knowing they may charge the 3rd party products as the problem, i installed the original hd (with no software installation other than what comes stock) and ram. Thats what i'm working off now, just to see if i'm having the same problem. So far its doing well which makes me think its either the hd or the ram. One of the ram sticks is installed, so is 1.25 and there doesn't seem to be a prob.

So then i look the hd. The only thing that i can think is that installing boot camp is the problem. Does anyone know of and 'side effects' of boot camp? My last test will be to wipe the new hdd and just run mac. and see if thats the prob.

It was so bad that scrolling in safari after a google search, wasn't smooth, it was jumpy.
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,182
1,546
Denmark
Does it only happen on flash pages?

I would check my cpu usage when visiting pages that makes you computer lag and see how much of the processor it uses.

You may be running some flash program through Rosetta . . . which is obviously not good for performance ;)

You can try this page - http://www.delicious-monster.com - not affiliated but when I visit that page, my processor usage goes through the roof. It maxes out one of the cores.
 

gloss

macrumors 601
May 9, 2006
4,811
0
around/about
I just tried opening Nikerunning.com and a few other things and then performing Expose and opening Dashboard, no lag. I'm guessing there's something wrong with your machine.
 

mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
yea, i have two hd. the original and a 100 gb 7200 rpm hitatchi. The hitatchi, after i installed everything was giving me the problem. so i installed the original stuff again, to see if i was still having it, only this time, i didn't install boot camp, or any software. And its running fine now, so i'm wondering if, it is the hd, or if its something i installed. The only thing to try now, is to wipe and reinstall the hd and see if thats the prob.
 

Josias

macrumors 68000
Mar 10, 2006
1,908
1
I know many people seem to have the issues from their HDD or bootcamp, but what are these videos? 1080p? I played a 720p video, and I have 1 gig ram, original 60 GB HDD and no bootcamp. No lag at all. 30 fps (which is what the movie has).
 

zure

macrumors newbie
Jul 8, 2006
11
0
I am on a 2gb Macbook too. And it lags like hell. Especially after I run Parallels. There was no problem previously when I was using 1.25gb RAM. And it is not the RAM that's the prob. Tried my friend's RAM.

Do update if you manage to find a solution.

Thanks
 

jakenjill

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2006
2
0
Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I am having the exact same graphics lag on a new MB wit 2GB of RAM and the same 100GB Hitachi 7200 RPM drive. When I hit F12 to see my widgets, the widgets appear in 3 jumpy steps instead of the smooth transition that I had before. Scrolling is also very laggy. I have Boot Camp installed on a 10GB partition, but I don't think that it is what is causing this. I ran the TechTool program that came with my applecare package and everything seems to be checking out fine. Has anyone made any progress as to finding out what may be the cause of this?
 

ravenvii

macrumors 604
Mar 17, 2004
7,585
493
Melenkurion Skyweir
Are any of you using the MacBook with an external monitor? Mine lags a bit if I use an external monitor along with the MacBook LCD in spanning mode. If I turn the MacBook's display off, the lagging stops.
 

benthewraith

macrumors 68040
May 27, 2006
3,140
143
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Mashhead, check and make sure you have the Build 8J2315a for 10.4.7. :)

Graphics lag is one of the symptoms of not having this build and having the original 10.4.7 8J2135 build. :)
 

jakenjill

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2006
2
0
I'm not using an external display, and I have the correct build of OS X. I have noticed that the problem is intermittent - it is working fine right now, but it comes and goes.
 

mashinhead

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 7, 2003
3,003
989
In my case the unit that had this problem was returned shortly after my first post, for this reason and the macbook mooing. I think it was a defective unit because before i returned it i had upgraded the ram and the hd to a 7200 100gb hd. I just removed it, put in the orginal hd and after the return i just placed the 100gb hd in the new unit and its worked since. So maybe you should take it back.
 

Abstract

macrumors Penryn
Dec 27, 2002
24,889
921
Location Location Location
Maxwell Smart said:
I get some expose lag every once and a while too. And I've got 2GB of RAM as well. I think maybe if they allowed more then 64MB (like being able to expand to 256MB like regular windows machines) Then we wouldn't see it as much. Someone needs to make a utility! :D

Isn't it like 80MB?

Anyway, even with 1GB of RAM, it didn't show any video lag, and I multitask like a crazy mofo and have way too many widgets (ok, 12 widgets).

Now I have 1.5GB of RAM, and still have the same, silky-smooth performance.

I'm guessing lots of you guys are running parallels or boot camp or something else that's weird.

I still run OS 10.4.6 because I haven't heard too many good things about 10.4.7. ;)
 

crmd

macrumors newbie
Aug 2, 2006
1
0
Build 8J2315a?

benthewraith said:
Mashhead, check and make sure you have the Build 8J2315a for 10.4.7. :)

Graphics lag is one of the symptoms of not having this build and having the original 10.4.7 8J2135 build. :)

I'm running 10.4.7 (8J2135) on a macbook and having a terrible problem with display lag. Where can I find the 8J2135a update? Googling '8J2135a' returns nothing and software update says I'm up-to-date.

thanks,
brian
 

Porscheboy16

macrumors member
Aug 1, 2006
59
0
About to pick up a Mac laptop.

Would the 2.0 MB w/ 2 Gig Ram lag noticicbly more than a 2.0 MBP w/ 2 gig ram?
 

mikecbay

macrumors newbie
Aug 6, 2006
2
0
ive got a macbook 2.0ghz with 2gb ram. i only experience graphics lag when i view lots of flash-intensive content on the net, or while im running non-universal software like flash and photoshop. the lag doesnt usually kick in until the temperature reaches 70+ degrees C.

i think it might have to do with flash player being non-universal binary. when the temperature cools down the video lag stops and everything goes back to normal.
 

Macmadant

macrumors 6502a
Jun 4, 2005
851
0
wickedG35 said:
This happens to me (expose, dashboard) some of the time on my 17" MacBook Pro, but only when I'm on battery power. Try and plug in your macbook to the wall outlet and see if it still occurs.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: I never get video lag on my powermac g4 (radeon 9000) nor my ibook g4 (radeon 9200) when using battery
 
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