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OSX not so snappy

student_trap

student_trap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
1,879
0
'Ol Smokey, UK
Hi there,

OK here goes, recently (since finally getting broadband), I have been updating my software on my mac, so far I have moved to 10.3.9 (from 10.3.7 i think), have the latest itunes and quicktime, and also the most recent safari update for panther, along with relative security and java updates.

However my powerbook seems to be considerably slower than it used to be, it beach balls much more than it used to, and generally takes longer to open up apps and finder. two finger scrolling has totally slowed down in itunes, so now it just jumps say 10 songs at a time instead of scrolling smoothly. I have about 30gigs of music in itunes if this helps, but as i say, things have only slowed down since installing updates (I used to experience the difficulty with scrolling when importing songs though..which leads me to believe that this is a processor problem???).

its specs are: 12in Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz 512 RAM 80 Gig HD OSX 10.3.9

Has anyone had any similar problems, and if so how did you get around them?

Will moving to Tiger help me?

I can't really stretch for more RAM, but could this be the problem?

Thanks in advance for any advice
 
More RAM will always help - big time. When you did your OS upgrade was it an incremental upgrade or a clean install? I have always found that by doing a clean install periodically that my PB 17" 1.33 gets nice little speed boosts. I also noticed a bit more "snappiness," after upgrading to Tiger.
 
aricher said:
When you did your OS upgrade was it an incremental upgrade or a clean install?
Click to expand...

I ran software updater from the apple drop down menu, it downloaded the 100 and something meg file, restarted my computer and that was all, should that have made a difference?
 
More ram will make a notable difference. You might consider saving toward a 1gig stick (even used or off ebay). I have the same machine with 1.25G of ram in it, and use it for pretty heavy photoshop with internet running at the same time with pretty much no issues.
 
Don't look to buy your RAM through Apple, they have crazy prices. Try Crucial, I know a lot of people like them. I tend to try dealram.com, they don't sell RAM, but give a list of places that do and find the cheapest price.

Also, repair permissions periodically, I also have a program called macjanitor that runs a bunch of stuff and clears off cache files and such, that might help a bit.
 
I've got the 12" Powerbook running 10.3.9 and have always had issues with the two finger scroll, particularly in iTunes, and especially when there is an optical disk in use (either importing or burning).

Don't know of any fix, though.
 
grapes911 said:
Plenty.

Have you tried repairing permission, running the periodic scripts, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

You got where I was headed first. ;)

I'm always amazed by the number of people who automatically suggest either (1) clean installs or (2) installing more RAM, the moment somebody reports that their Mac seems to be slowing down. This advice assumes (1) that nothing can be done to maintain a Mac short of starting over, or (2) that RAM evaporates over time.
 
thanks for the link grapes911, I'm pretty sure that this has probably never been able to happen ('puter is uselly off by then), so do i have to run it through terminal (which seems baffling), or should i just leave the computer on all night? will one night be sufficient? Do you think that never running the scripts could be the cause of my problems?
 
student_trap said:
thanks for the link grapes911, I'm pretty sure that this has probably never been able to happen ('puter is uselly off by then), so do i have to run it through terminal (which seems baffling), or should i just leave the computer on all night? will one night be sufficient? Do you think that never running the scripts could be the cause of my problems?
Click to expand...

Yes, you need to run these scripts periodically, as well as repair permissions. A quick and simple way of taking care of this short of leaving your Mac on overnight is using a tool such as Main Menu.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Yes, you need to run these scripts periodically, as well as repair permissions.
Click to expand...

Well...you don't need to...if it was essential, Apple would have made it something that happened automatically, instead of just if you happen to leave the computer on all night. Certainly I've never bothered with my dual 2.5 Power Mac, and it has no issues, nor ever had any, in nearly 1.5 years now.

But if anyone is having problems, it couldn't hurt.

--Eric
 
Eric5h5 said:
Well...you don't need to...if it was essential, Apple would have made it something that happened automatically, instead of just if you happen to leave the computer on all night. Certainly I've never bothered with my dual 2.5 Power Mac, and it has no issues, nor ever had any, in nearly 1.5 years now.

But if anyone is having problems, it couldn't hurt.

--Eric
Click to expand...

It's basic maintenance, which should be automatic, but isn't. I've yet to see a Mac that didn't experience permissions rot, which can degrade performance. Rotating logs is an automatic UNIX procedure, which unfortunately assumes that your computer runs 24/7. Most of our Macs don't.

We can't rely on Apple getting things 100% right. As a user you need to keep a few tools in the belt to deal with the stuff they've neglected.

Anyway, the point being that clean installing OSX is not a maintenance procedure, and neither is upgrading RAM.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Rotating logs is an automatic UNIX procedure, which unfortunately assumes that your computer runs 24/7. Most of our Macs don't.

We can't rely on Apple getting things 100% right. As a user you need to keep a few tools in the belt to deal with the stuff they've neglected.
Click to expand...

I realise the OP is running Panther but I thought that in Tiger, these maintenance scripts run automatically now if the machine is sleeping when they should have run?
 
Applespider said:
I realise the OP is running Panther but I thought that in Tiger, these maintenance scripts run automatically now if the machine is sleeping when they should have run?
Click to expand...

Not that I've heard, but possibly this is true. Anyone?
 
Applespider said:
I realise the OP is running Panther but I thought that in Tiger, these maintenance scripts run automatically now if the machine is sleeping when they should have run?
Click to expand...
This is true for 10.4.2 and newer and only during sleep. If the computer is off, the scripts will not run at boot.
 
Applespider said:
I realise the OP is running Panther but I thought that in Tiger, these maintenance scripts run automatically now if the machine is sleeping when they should have run?
Click to expand...
I'm not convinced this is true. I have a new Intel iMac, that I put to sleep manually or schedule to sleep at midnight, and schedule to wake at 7am.

The periodic scripts were set to run at the default time, about 3am, when it was asleep. If what you say is true, then they would be run at the specified time or on wake up. Last week, when I checked the daily.out, weekly.out and monthly.out logs, none of them had been modified for more than three weeks.

I've since modified the periodic preferences to run the scripts at 7:05am, 7:10am and 7:15am, i.e. when the iMac wakes. The logs are now updated at the expected time.
 
Click the link that grapes911 provided. It has been stated on the Apple website as well (I'd post a link but I'm too lazy to dig it up) that Tiger runs these scripts the next time the computer runs, if it happens to be shut down or in sleep at 3 AM.
 
jadekitty24 said:
Click the link that grapes911 provided. It has been stated on the Apple website as well (I'd post a link but I'm too lazy to dig it up) that Tiger runs these scripts the next time the computer runs, if it happens to be shut down or in sleep at 3 AM.
Click to expand...
Except it doesn't.
 
grapes911 said:
This is true for 10.4.2 and newer and only during sleep. If the computer is off, the scripts will not run at boot.
Click to expand...

Something runs during sleep? Other than the minimal code running to wake the system on an event, I'm surprised to hear that anything is running at that time.
 
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