slow mac mini

[NirKron]

Hi!
I have a horribly slow mac mini, not sure how long this problem has been going on since its the "office computer" and I'm usually out of the office. Anyway, here are the specs: 1.66 intel core duo, 1 GM Ram, 80 GB hard-drive with plenty of space left. Ran disk utility, no problems! So, what could it be? I have beach-balls galore, and it will even happen that a song playing in itunes will pause while the computer gets its bearings. A simple scroll down a window may require a 30 second intermission. Strange thing is, at times (for a few minutes at a time) almost no slowdown is noticed. What to do?

Oh yes, I installed Leopard, but I believe this problem was present before the installation.

 

[ADent]

Open Activity Monitor and go to CPU screen and sort on the CPU column. See what is taking up all the CPU time.

If that leads no where think about an Archive and Install of Leopard.

 

[Jimmdean]

Hard drive test would probably be a good idea too. Run it from the install DVD...

 

[NirKron]

Thanks, with activity monitor we figured it out. The mini was running some Power PC programs in the background - Palm, and something else. Insidious programs. At least now I can disable them on start-up.