My tireless 2004 iBook, 1.33ghz with 1.5 GB ram and 30GB HD, has gotten very tired of late and is running safari extremely slowly. It's to the point where I can't update any of my web pages or blogs as the page refresh and load time sends it into beach ball lasting about 30 sec. each time. It's running OS X 10.4.1. I've updated the software, emptied the cache and cookies, repaired the HD, but nothing seems to be helping. Any further suggestions?
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iBook G4 Running Slow
- Thread starter oldschool006
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install TENFOURFOX browser instead , safari has become really sluggish on ppc and see how it transforms your iBook , btw i hope you meant 10.4.11 and not 10.4.1 
http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/
if that does not help reinstall OSX and see what happens then , if no change run the apple hardwaretest on your original install disc 1that came with the iBook ,because then you got a hardwareproblem, and run the hardwaretest when the iBook is hot , not after it cooled down, as i suspect a hdd going into the nirvana , but it could also be a early stage of the bad soldering of the graphics chip, dont worry both are inexpensive to solve
http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/
if that does not help reinstall OSX and see what happens then , if no change run the apple hardwaretest on your original install disc 1that came with the iBook ,because then you got a hardwareproblem, and run the hardwaretest when the iBook is hot , not after it cooled down, as i suspect a hdd going into the nirvana , but it could also be a early stage of the bad soldering of the graphics chip, dont worry both are inexpensive to solve
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Sounds to me like your hard drive is suffering from plain old bit rot. Every Mac suffers from this over time. Best thing to do is backup personal data and reinstall the OS. That will give it a fresh new lease on life for sure and I promise you it will perform better than now.
When was the last fresh OS X install? I like to reinstall my OS at least once a year to avoid slow down.
About the web browser situation.. I prefer the PowerPC optimized Camino builds to TenForFox. Try both.
Here is a link to the Camino build I am talking about. You will need the 7450 version.
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I am figuring that is indeed what I'll need to do as I've never reinstalled in the many years of usage. The new browser didn't speed things up and the hardware test was fine.
Question about reinstalling the OS- if I do a reinstall, will I need to reinstall all my applications, such as photoshop?
Question about reinstalling the OS- if I do a reinstall, will I need to reinstall all my applications, such as photoshop?
You can reinstall the OS without whipping the drive clean but since it's never been reformatted and the OS has never been reinstalled in all these years you're much better off wiping it clean.
It's worth the effort trust me. If you just reinstall the OS without wiping the drive it will be like putting a band aid on a massive gaping wound. I know bit rot well after years of dealing with my clients issues with their Macs. This is a classic case of bit rot.
So to sum up.. if you don't reformat the drive I can guarantee you will still have a slow system.
+1 vote for reinstalling the OS. I did this on my iBook for the first time last month, its the last 14" model. Saved everything on my ipod, and never regretted it. It ran so much faster, smoother, and my laptop feels like it will last me for another 5-6 years
Now that I've wiped the HD and reinstalled the OS and updated it back to 10.4.11, I'm finding unsupported software. Namely I can't load adobe flash because they don't support that for powerpc anymore. Out of luck here?
edit-just did a search on apple support and this issue looks like a real mess
edit-just did a search on apple support and this issue looks like a real mess
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No, the last version of Flash you can use is 10.1 which can be downloaded from here:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html
But I believe 9 runs better on PowerPC, I'll have to check what my iBook G4 is running.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html
But I believe 9 runs better on PowerPC, I'll have to check what my iBook G4 is running.
Actually Flash 10.1 is the fastest right now on PowerPC in both 10.4 and 10.5. 10.1 is also the last to support PowerPC.
What especially do you like from your own experience?
The TenFourFox-page says TenFourFox is the fastest, second is "icab" (once developed at a german university, I used it a lot under OS 9 and it was totally freeware at the time). Camino is the last in that test. http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/graf.jpg
... but I got to admit I haven't tested TenFourFox, yet and I tested Camino about 2 years ago or so. So I can't give input on that, but I would like to know how they compare.