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kroot
Jul 15, 2009, 08:42 PM
Bought my Macbook almost 3 years ago and it worked brilliantly but recently (after upgrading to Leopard?) I have become painfully familiar with the beach ball. Before it was blazing-fast. Now it always seems about two steps behind my brain. And that's REALLY slow.

I have no idea where to start looking.

Please help!


Eidorian
Jul 15, 2009, 08:43 PM
Get more RAM and try out an Archive and Install. Make sure you have a backup of course and any "maintenance" application is going to be a near useless panacea.
r.j.s
Jul 15, 2009, 08:44 PM
Get more RAM and try out an Archive and Install. Make sure you have a backup of course and any "maintenance" application is going to be useless panacea.

Agreed. Your 1GB of RAM is probably the root cause.
kroot
Jul 15, 2009, 08:47 PM
Yeahbut.......Why would the same RAM give me great performance before and then suddenly get slow? I'm running the same programs. Is Leopard the cause?
TwinCities Dan
Jul 15, 2009, 08:48 PM
Yeahbut.......Why would the same RAM giving me great performance before and then suddenly get slow? I'm running the same programs. Is Leopard the cause?

Yes, Leopard is much more ram-thirsty than Panther. ;)
r.j.s
Jul 15, 2009, 08:49 PM
Yeahbut.......Why would the same RAM giving me great performance before and then suddenly get slow? I'm running the same programs. Is Leopard the cause?

Yes, Leopard requires more RAM than Tiger.
Eidorian
Jul 15, 2009, 08:49 PM
On a notebook you're going to hit two bottlenecks. The first being the RAM and the second being the hard drive.

Get more RAM and/or a faster hard drive.
slu
Jul 15, 2009, 08:50 PM
Your Macbook should handle Leopard fine with 1 GB. While more RAM would help, you could have a software problem or you could have a hard drive problem.

I agree with an Archive and Install (proper backups, etc.) and if that doesn't help, I'd make sure your hard drive is not bad.
iBookG4user
Jul 15, 2009, 08:52 PM
How full is your hard drive? Ideally you'd want to have at least half of it free for best performance, but once you get close to filling it then it starts to get slower more quickly.
kroot
Jul 15, 2009, 08:57 PM
So, what's "Archive and Install"?

Also, my 120GB HD still has 20 GB unused.......
r.j.s
Jul 15, 2009, 08:58 PM
Archive and Install puts a copy of the OS into an Old System folder, just in case, and installs a fresh copy, all while preserving your user files.
kroot
Jul 15, 2009, 09:01 PM
Where do I find this Archive and Install?
r.j.s
Jul 15, 2009, 09:02 PM
Where do I find this Archive and Install?

When you boot from the OS X install disc.
aethelbert
Jul 15, 2009, 09:03 PM
Where do I find this Archive and Install?
It's in the setup options, alongside other choices such as erase and install, etc. You will need to be booted off of the 10.5 DVD prior to that.

You may also want to consider going back to 10.4. I still use Tiger on one of my older computers as it runs much better than Leopard does.
Nocturnal22
Jul 15, 2009, 09:06 PM
i think you should get at least 2gb ram and a bigger harddrive
iBookG4user
Jul 15, 2009, 09:06 PM
So, what's "Archive and Install"?

Also, my 120GB HD still has 20 GB unused.......

I would still try to clean up the hard drive so you have about 50GB+ free and see if that helps with the speed a bit. And here's what you do to Archive and Install (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1545).
kroot
Jul 15, 2009, 09:58 PM
So, I'm beginning to suspect that I paid Apple to degrade my computer's performance. That is, they sold me Leopard knowing full well that it would not run well on an older machine and that I would have to pay them MORE money for a RAM upgrade to make it work as well as it used to with Tiger.

Has Steve Jobs been studying at the Bill Gates School of Business Management?

Jeeeeeeezus!
vertigo78
Jul 15, 2009, 11:06 PM
i have a first generation macbook running leopard and it performs perfectly for me. i have 2gb on it now and a 500gb hard drive but i was running it on 512mb and a 60gb hard drive before i upgraded both. maybe the problem lies outside of leopard.
TwinCities Dan
Jul 16, 2009, 12:04 AM
i have a first generation macbook running leopard and it performs perfectly for me. i have 2gb on it now and a 500gb hard drive but i was running it on 512mb and a 60gb hard drive before i upgraded both. maybe the problem lies outside of leopard.

What do you mean "the problem lies outside of leopard"? Of course Leopard will run better after you quadrupled your RAM. That's exactly what we are explaining to the OP. ;) :)
l.a.rossmann
Jul 16, 2009, 12:13 AM
Run applejack then onyx. It's free.
Matek
Jul 16, 2009, 08:34 AM
So, I'm beginning to suspect that I paid Apple to degrade my computer's performance. That is, they sold me Leopard knowing full well that it would not run well on an older machine and that I would have to pay them MORE money for a RAM upgrade to make it work as well as it used to with Tiger.

Has Steve Jobs been studying at the Bill Gates School of Business Management?1. Hey, newer OSes are like newer games - they consume more resources and bring in more bling. If you're satisfied with an older version that works better, use that instead.

2. Don't, under any condition, buy ram from apple, they will charge you terrible amounts. Get two of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148238) and you'll be fine.

Other than that, like most people told you - after a period of 3 years it's not strange for any OS to become slower, especially if you did an upgrade to Leopard instead of a clean installation. Reinstall.
MarkCooz
Jul 16, 2009, 08:50 AM
1. Hey, newer OSes are like newer games - they consume more resources and bring in more bling. If you're satisfied with an older version that works better, use that instead.

2. Don't, under any condition, buy ram from apple, they will charge you terrible amounts. Get two of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148238) and you'll be fine.

Other than that, like most people told you - after a period of 3 years it's not strange for any OS to become slower, especially if you did an upgrade to Leopard instead of a clean installation. Reinstall.

Wow that's really cheap for a 1gb ram.

this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148234 will work right?

I have a M-'07 Macbook, and i heard the max ram is 3gb? should i get two of those? or just use one? I want mine maxed.
l.a.rossmann
Jul 16, 2009, 09:03 AM
Leopard runs fine for me on three year old Macbooks, even with 1 gB of memory.
Synchromesh
Jul 16, 2009, 12:09 PM
What I would do is get at least another 1GB of RAM and a 7200rpm drive. Then backup my current data and do a clean reinstall of Leopard on that drive and then put your data back. You will see a dramatic performance increase.

I often take apart and fix Macbooks. Recently, I had 2 black 2.16GHz machines. I loaded one of them with 2GB of RAM and 7200rpm drive, the other had 1GB and 5400rpm drive. Very noticeable difference in speed between the two which were otherwise identical.
Matek
Jul 16, 2009, 05:16 PM
I have a M-'07 Macbook, and i heard the max ram is 3gb? should i get two of those? or just use one? I want mine maxed. The absolute maximum is 3.3 GB, additionally you need to know that by using 2 same RAM sticks, you get some additional performance because of dual channel.

If you're looking to save money, get 1+2 GB, you won't have dual channel, but the difference is really minimal. On the other hand - you can go with 2+2 GB, since it's only 10 bucks and you will know it's maxed out.
MarkCooz
Jul 16, 2009, 05:24 PM
The absolute maximum is 3.3 GB, additionally you need to know that by using 2 same RAM sticks, you get some additional performance because of dual channel.

If you're looking to save money, get 1+2 GB, you won't have dual channel, but the difference is really minimal. On the other hand - you can go with 2+2 GB, since it's only 10 bucks and you will know it's maxed out.

thanks for the information, but i quite don't get... does it need to be the same brand? or not??
Matek
Jul 17, 2009, 06:10 AM
If you use two sticks of the same capacity (brand is not important, perhaps only in some rare cases will you have problems if you use two different brands of sticks), you get a slight performance advantage because of dual channel.

But as the MacBook can only use 3.3 GB the difference between 3 GB and 4 GB is practically just 300 MB and dual channel (with 2+1 it doesn't work) so the performance gain is very minor.

Hope that cleared things up.
kroot
Jul 19, 2009, 04:53 AM
Thanks for all the suggestions.

I did an Archive and Install because everyone here plus the guy on the phone from Apple Care and the guy behind the counter at the Genius Bar suggested it. Result? Parallels was buggered and my iCal calendars got duplicated. (???)

I made a bootable copy of my HD on an external drive with SuperDuper, ran a clean install and then the Migration Assistant. Result? Parallels runs, iCal calendars were untouched and my machine runs about 50% faster but still not nearly as fast as when new with Tiger.

MHO? Archive and Install is a waste of time. Reinstalling will speed things up. Don't upgrade your OS without doing the same to your RAM.

Again, thanks to all!