Mac Mini getting slow?

[MacBiscuit]

Hi. First post here though I've been lurking for some time...

I have a 1.4Ghz G4 Mini with 1Mb Ram running 10.4.9. It seems generally much slower and less responsive than the Dell laptop running XP I use for work. Now that's only a Pentium-M 1.7 Ghz so should be broadly comparable.

I'm sure the Mini wasn't always this slow. I'm used to Windows machines slowing down over time and requiring a fresh install, but I didn't think Macs suffered the same fate. Any ideas how I can give my Mini a wake-up call?

I've tried running MacJanitor, clearing down some HD space (running at about 75% capacity now), and I'm running out of ideas. Don't really want to do a clean reinstall if I can help it...

Thanks...

[itickings]

I have a 1.4Ghz G4 Mini with 1Mb Ram running 10.4.9.

Well, 1Mb Ram seem a bit low, so I'll assume it is 1 gig. ;)

Regarding the free harddrive space, did you run the Mini with a nearly full drive for a while before clearing down to the 25%/75% figure, or has the drive usually had at least, say, 10% free space? If the drive have been used much while nearly full, it may very well be fragmented. The utility hfsdebug (http://www.kernelthread.com/software/hfsdebug/) can be used to check fragmentation status for HFS+ volumes.

Have you checked your startup items, and run Activity Monitor to check system memory and cpu usage? You may be running more applications and processes than you are aware of.

[dartzorichalcos]

This (http://www.imafish.co.uk/articles/post/articles/130/52-ways-to-speed-up-os-x/) will help.

[MacBiscuit]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Installing 1Gb rather than 1Mb has certainly speeded things up. Thought that memory stick was a bit cheap... :)

Now I'll try some of the other ideas and see how I get on...

[MacBiscuit]

After a period of highly scientific experiment :rolleyes:

My Mac certainly seems to have perked up. The thing which really made a difference was clearing down the files in ~\library\caches

Thanks for the link. Much appreciated... :D

[john2006wright]

thanks for the tips also, very helpful

[stevo8]

sorry for my ignorance but what files in caches can be deleted? I dont even know what they are and it asks for a application to open.?

[macuser9214]

Thanks for the guide. I ran most of them and it helped a little. I was hoping it would be fast, but at least it seems more smoother, and not likely for apps to freeze, so thanks

[MacBiscuit]

I just deleted everything in the /caches folder including all subfolders. Of course I didn't actually delete the files, I backed them up onto an external drive in case I broke something. But, touch wood, everything seems to work fine still

[felixen]

if I deleted everything in the /caches folder, does that mean all my apps will forget the info I've asked it to remember? Such as when firefox/safari remembers passwords for me, info I've typed into various apps and so on.. Or what is it exactly?