My macbook pro is a nice laptop. Its my first mac so i am enjoying Tiger and ilife a lot. The only thing that doesnt really impress me is the speed. I dont feel like this laptop is any faster than when i use my friend's Powerbook. What especially irks me is the speed of safari. It doesnt load up pages very quickly, especially if i am viewing sites with online photo albums. I am always having to refresh multiple times to be able to view all the photos. Is this normal, or is something up with my MBP? Are there settings that i can change or any fixes that i can do to improve the speed, especially the internet speed? I have an old dell desktop that uses the wireless internet in my house but that computer loads pages no problem. Thanks in advance for your advice.
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MBP Speed not what i had expected
- Thread starter yourfriendjames
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yourfriendjames said:
firstly, the macbook pro is not as fast as it will be at the moment depending on what you run, as not all apps are universal yet! Also, for less intensive tasks, there isn't much of a difference between a powerbook and a mbp. The difference will come when doing heavy stuff in a native environment, then you will see a huge difference.
As for safari though, my gf's mbp is much faster than my powerbook while sharing the same internet connection, so im not sure why safari is being troublesome, have you all the latest updates installed?
The browser problems are definitely nothing wrong with the computer itself. However, if you have a copy of TechTool lying around, you can test your hardware.
Also, the MBP has an amazingly fast processor. It crushes my G4 PowerBook in raw processing speed, but the drives haven't got the same speed upgrades that the processor has. Where you will start to see that your MBP is significantly faster than your friends PB is when youre converting video or something similar - really crunching numbers. Thats where the new Intel Macs really shine.
Also, the MBP has an amazingly fast processor. It crushes my G4 PowerBook in raw processing speed, but the drives haven't got the same speed upgrades that the processor has. Where you will start to see that your MBP is significantly faster than your friends PB is when youre converting video or something similar - really crunching numbers. Thats where the new Intel Macs really shine.
yourfriendjames said:
How much ram have you got in there? If you're running with the off-the-shelf 512MB, you might find that that's your bottleneck. I've messed around with the MBP's in stores and they are noticably faster in everything than my current powerbook.
Odd... Safari is super-duper fast for me, as is the rest of OS X etc etc.
Adobe CS 2 is horrific though.
Sometimes it's quicker just to flatten your HD and do a fresh reinstall of OS X, if I get problems that DiskWarrior doesn't solve, it's usually quicker to just erase it and start fresh, rather than trying to problem solve. At least in my experience anyway.
Adobe CS 2 is horrific though.
Sometimes it's quicker just to flatten your HD and do a fresh reinstall of OS X, if I get problems that DiskWarrior doesn't solve, it's usually quicker to just erase it and start fresh, rather than trying to problem solve. At least in my experience anyway.
You really should consider upping your ram to the maximum of 2gb, I'm currently using a Mini at 1.66Ghz, and with my memory modules sent back for RMA while holding out on the original 512mb I can seriously attest to the *huge* difference in performance.
At 2gb it felt smooth as butter, at 512 I get all these hard drive thrashing that can go on for up to 30 secs at a time.. truly heinous.
At 2gb it felt smooth as butter, at 512 I get all these hard drive thrashing that can go on for up to 30 secs at a time.. truly heinous.
I don't know about the macbook pro or not, but on my G4 iBook running Tiger I have issues with Safari not loading all the pics on a web page sometimes. Even happens occasionally on Apple.com. The formatting of some web pages like Weather.com or Drudge report are sometimes wiggy and off along with missing images. However, safari runs fast on my iBook compared to my iMac flatscreen running Jaguar so I can't complain too much.yourfriendjames said:
ugh, "buy RAM, buy RAM, buy more RAM!"
I'm in love with Apple, but isn't it kind of lame with them if they're selling (according to you guys) "heinous" and unusable computers with the stock RAM?
They should at least "Strongly Advise" that you buy more RAM; most users have no idea what this is, and will be disappointed with the speed of their intel macs.
I'm in love with Apple, but isn't it kind of lame with them if they're selling (according to you guys) "heinous" and unusable computers with the stock RAM?
They should at least "Strongly Advise" that you buy more RAM; most users have no idea what this is, and will be disappointed with the speed of their intel macs.
Seems odd that your MacBook Pro would not seem super-fast, but as others have stated, if you are not doing processor intensive apps you are not likely to see much difference between your MBP and a PowerBook G4.
More RAM is always a good idea.
More RAM is always a good idea.
Upgrading the memory does make a huge difference. I don't think its a case of apple selling "slow machines that make you upgarde your ram" I think its a case of users wanting to do more and more.
Regardless, I saw HUGE leaps and bounds when I upgraded my ram. Also, Safari is a champ, super fast and responsive and I have no issues. I would suggest a fresh install perhaps.
What processor do you have? 1.83?
Regardless, I saw HUGE leaps and bounds when I upgraded my ram. Also, Safari is a champ, super fast and responsive and I have no issues. I would suggest a fresh install perhaps.
What processor do you have? 1.83?